Film noir recommendations

Thanks - I'll check it out!

The Maltese Falcon was great , i'd recommend it to anyone who loves the old mystery movies in black and white.
are you going to bark all day little doggie,, or are you going to bite

Although "The Maltese Falcon" is generally recognized as the first film-noir of the classic period and is certainly one of the best, this aficionado will name five others that are arguably better......

1. "In a Lonely Place" (also starring Bogie while the film captures the very
essence of the world of noir)

2. "Sunset Boulevard" (a Billy Wilder masterpiece)

3. "Double Indemnity" (another Billy Wilder masterpiece)

4. "The Asphalt Jungle" (John Huston's crime caper masterpiece)

5. "Out of the Past" (Jacques Tourneur directs Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas
and a 22 year old Jane Greer as possibly the best femme-
fatale of all time)

Many thanks for the recommendations - I haven't seen any of these, I'll look out for them - I should be receiving The Maltese Falcon DVD any day now!

[deleted]

yesss..."Top Of The World"...loved it....

In making the previous list, I was considering only the original black & white noir films made in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s.

Of course, many of the general themes and moods of film noir (such as alienation, moral corruption, betrayal, fatalism, etc.) and specific plot elements (a femme fatale seduces an unlucky sap into participating in the murder of her husband) continue to abound in modern films. Some of these are loosely grouped together as neo-noirs.

In my opinion, some of the most notable of these are:

Blood Simple (1984)
Body Heat (1981)
Chinatown (1974)
The Deep End (2001)
The Last Seduction (1994)
Palmetto (1998)
Red Rock West (1992)
Wild Things (1998)

"'the maltese falcon'. the first film noir, and the best. "


You sir, are brilliant.

Definitely. And Touch of Evil....My Name is Julia Ross is pretty great too...as well as Night and the City. Has anyone said Double Indemnity?

He said it's all in your head, and I said, so's everything--
But he didnt get it.

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned the great B-noirs and obscure gems. Nobody really talks about them a lot, but they're often very effective, and often my personal favorites! You won't find all of them on DVD, or even on VHS sometimes, but they're very worth tracking down. My favorites are...

"D.O.A." (Edmund O'Brien)
"Detour" (Tom Neal and Ann Savage)
"Cry Danger" (Dick Powell)
"The Gangster" (Barry Sullivan)
"Too Late For Tears", AKA "Killer Bait" (Lizabeth Scott and Dan Duryea)
"Kansas City Confidential" (John Payne)
"Impact" (Brian Donlevy)

As for the more popular noirs, I'd also recommend "Murder My Sweet" with Dick Powell, and "Sunset Boulevard" with William Holden.

If, after watching all of these, your blood itself hasn't turned to stark white and ink black, you may need to check yourself for a pulse! Happy viewing!

Good call on Dark Passage. But there are a few noir films that haven't been mentioned yet. These are amazing movies:
BRUTE FORCE (But Lancaster, Hume Cronyn)- one of the most gritty prison films
ever made.
GUN CRAZY (John Dall, Peggy Cummins)- almost a precursor to Bonnie and Clyde

also, a few gangster films that are more noir-ish in story as opposed to style:
High Sierra
A Marked Woman (Bogey and Bette Davis)
Little Caesar
Scarface (the original, with Muni and Raft)
Dead End (another early Bogey film)
The Killers

and as far as neo, or modern noir goes:
POINT BLANK with Lee Marvin, John Vernon and Angie Dickinson (later remade as
Payback with Mel Gibson
THE KILLERS the Don Siegal remake, also with Lee Marvin and Ronald Reagan

DEMENTIA - not Dementia 13 by Coppola, this one was branded HORROR NOIR, and is
very strange. It has the best flashback scene ever. Plus there's not
a single line of dialogue spoken


BLADE RUNNER - future noir. Either version works for it.

The following link has an informative article on film noir and at the end of the article there is a very comprehensive list of film noir films both classic and modern. Worth printing as a reference. I'm trying to see them all. Tonight was "The Lady from Shanghai" and "This Gun for Hire". I liked the latter better, though Welles' film was entertaining, especially the San Francisco exterior shots. For an early example of noir techniques, find "Mystery of the Wax Museum" with Lionel Atwill. It's an early color (!) horror/noir, of which I wish there were more.

Here's the link: http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html