10 All-Time Favorite Film Noirs (1 Viewer)

[Keith Cobby]

A 1940 movie that I consider well worth including in the noir pantheon is the British film "A Window in London", released in the U.S. in 1942 as "Lady in Distress". Directed by Herbert Mason, it ticks most of the noir boxes - a hapless protagonist trapped in circumstances beyond his control, a moody mise en scene, a complex femme fatale and an inevitable detour into crime and tragedy. The cast is led by Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, Sally Gray (outstanding) and Patricia Roc (also very good).
In some people's minds, noirs are as strongly connected to the American film industry as westerns. But the British made a lot of great ones in the 40's and 50's. And I'd certainly include this fine film.

Sally Gray excellent. She was in another favourite of mine, Escape Route 1952 with George Raft and Patricia Laffan (Devil Girl from Mars, 23 Paces to Baker Street).

 

[Beckford]

Sally Gray excellent.

Anyone who likes Sally Gray should check out "They Made Me a Fugitive"(1947) with Trevor Howard and "Obsession"(1949) with Robert Newton (both noirs). Also the period dramas "Carnival"(1946) and "The Mark of Cain"(1947). With her blonde beauty and captivatingly low voice, she's marvelous in all of them. There's also - of course - probably her best known film "Green for Danger"(1946) with Alastair Sim. This and "They Made Me a Fugitive" are both, happily, available on Blu.

 

[benbess]

I'm fortunate because I often get to teach film studies classes, and introduce mostly 18-22 year olds to various movies, most of which they don't know. I've done classes on Hitchcock, Spielberg, etc. For a few years I've considered doing a course on film noir, but wondered if it would get good enrollment, given that most of the movies are from the 1940s and 50s, and in black and white. Could have mixed in neo-noir too, but decided that was too much. Anyway, finally decided to do it for fall of 2023, and to my surprise the class of twenty quickly filled up, and there were even people on the waiting list. It's true that once I sent out an email to everyone enrolled saying that we'd be studying mostly black-and-white movies from the 40s and 50s, about five dropped lol! But because of the people on the waitlist, the class was still full, and then some more added to the waitlist. Anyway, since it's now actually happening, I've started getting down to selecting my films and writing up the first presentation. I'm going to plunge them right in, with our first movie being Double Indemnity from 1944. Then I think we'll backtrack for the second week, and watch Rebecca from 1940, which in some ways is borderline noir, because it's in upper-class England, but the "Gothic Romance" is I think one of the origins of the genre, and so it's good for exploring that. Another one of the origins, of course, is the crime movie, esp. the pre-Code ones, like Little Caesar in 1931. In my intro to Double Indemnity, I'll get to introduce the stars and filmmakers, and say a bit about their careers, including Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Edward G. Robinson, and Billy Wilder. I'll also talk a little about the crime novel of the thirties, and German Expressionism....

 

[cinerama10]

My favorite is THE DAY THE SUN TURNED COLD- China's first film noir.

 

[benbess]

Just got this large format book, which is a treasure trove of classic film noir posters with short essays on the movies and their poster art.

 

[benbess]

This person has an interesting list of their top 50 noirs....

Film Noir: A Personal Journey

[Eds. note: This essay was the inspiration for my 2022 book Interrogating Memory: Film Noir Spurs a Deep Dive Into My Family History…and My Own. If you like what you read below, I urge you to…

justbearwithme.blog

"Here, then, are my 50 favorite film noirs (classic-era films in bold, neo-noirs underlined; M stands alone):
[Ed. note: This is a revised list from January 2023, after calculating my 100 favorite films. Asterisked films in my top 100 overall. Classic-era films must have at least 12.0 POINTS, while all other films must have at least 7.0 POINTS.]

1. L.A. Confidential*
2. The Maltese Falcon*
3. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)*
4. Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944)*
5. Hammett*
6. The Usual Suspects*
7. Out of the Past*
8. Call Northside 777 (Henry Hathaway, 1948)*
9. Double Indemnity*
10. Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940)*
11. Impact (Arthur Lubin, 1949)*
12. Phantom Lady (Robert Siodmak, 1944)*
13. Deadline at Dawn (Harold Clurman, 1946)*
14. I Wake Up Screaming (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1941)*
15. Cry of the City*
16. The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950)*
17. Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998)*
18. He Walked By Night*
19. The Naked City*
20. Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (Carl Reiner, 1982)*
21. 99 River Street (Phil Karlson, 1953)*
22. Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954)*
23. The Big Clock (John Farrow, 1948)*
24. Where the Sidewalk Ends (Preminger, 1950)*
25. Fallen Angel (Preminger, 1945)*
26. His Kind of Woman (John Farrow, Richard Fleischer, 1951)*
27. Murder, My Sweet*
28. House of Games (David Mamet, 1987)*
29. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Lewis Milestone, 1946)*
30. The Killers (Siodmak, 1946)*
31. Lost Highway (Lynch, 1997)*
32. The Street With No Name (William Keighley, 1948)*
33. The Enforcer (Bretaigne Windust, Raoul Walsh, 1951)
34. Rope (Hitchcock, 1948)
35. Stranger on the Third Floor (Boris Ingster, 1940)
36. Spellbound (Hitchcock, 1945)
37. D.O.A.
38. The Set-Up (Robert Wise, 1949)
39. Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock, 1951)
40. Between Midnight and Dawn (Gordon Douglas, 1950)
41. Dead Again (Kenneth Branagh, 1991)
42. Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
43. Somewhere in the Night (Joseph Mankiewicz, 1946)
44. Decoy (Jack Bernhard, 1946)
45. Too Late For Tears (Byron Haskin, 1949)
46. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
47. Kansas City Confidential (Phil Karlson, 1952)
48. M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
49. Brighton Rock (John Boulting, 1948)
50. Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967)"

 

[Robert Crawford]

This person has an interesting list of their top 50 noirs....

Film Noir: A Personal Journey

[Eds. note: This essay was the inspiration for my 2022 book Interrogating Memory: Film Noir Spurs a Deep Dive Into My Family History…and My Own. If you like what you read below, I urge you to…

justbearwithme.blog

"Here, then, are my 50 favorite film noirs (classic-era films in bold, neo-noirs underlined; M stands alone):
[Ed. note: This is a revised list from January 2023, after calculating my 100 favorite films. Asterisked films in my top 100 overall. Classic-era films must have at least 12.0 POINTS, while all other films must have at least 7.0 POINTS.]

1. L.A. Confidential*
2. The Maltese Falcon*
3. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)*
4. Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944)*
5. Hammett*
6. The Usual Suspects*
7. Out of the Past*
8. Call Northside 777 (Henry Hathaway, 1948)*
9. Double Indemnity*
10. Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940)*
11. Impact (Arthur Lubin, 1949)*
12. Phantom Lady (Robert Siodmak, 1944)*
13. Deadline at Dawn (Harold Clurman, 1946)*
14. I Wake Up Screaming (H. Bruce Humberstone, 1941)*
15. Cry of the City*
16. The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston, 1950)*
17. Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998)*
18. He Walked By Night*
19. The Naked City*
20. Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (Carl Reiner, 1982)*
21. 99 River Street (Phil Karlson, 1953)*
22. Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954)*
23. The Big Clock (John Farrow, 1948)*
24. Where the Sidewalk Ends (Preminger, 1950)*
25. Fallen Angel (Preminger, 1945)*
26. His Kind of Woman (John Farrow, Richard Fleischer, 1951)*
27. Murder, My Sweet*
28. House of Games (David Mamet, 1987)*
29. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Lewis Milestone, 1946)*
30. The Killers (Siodmak, 1946)*
31. Lost Highway (Lynch, 1997)*
32. The Street With No Name (William Keighley, 1948)*
33. The Enforcer (Bretaigne Windust, Raoul Walsh, 1951)
34. Rope (Hitchcock, 1948)
35. Stranger on the Third Floor (Boris Ingster, 1940)
36. Spellbound (Hitchcock, 1945)
37. D.O.A.
38. The Set-Up (Robert Wise, 1949)
39. Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock, 1951)
40. Between Midnight and Dawn (Gordon Douglas, 1950)
41. Dead Again (Kenneth Branagh, 1991)
42. Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960)
43. Somewhere in the Night (Joseph Mankiewicz, 1946)
44. Decoy (Jack Bernhard, 1946)
45. Too Late For Tears (Byron Haskin, 1949)
46. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
47. Kansas City Confidential (Phil Karlson, 1952)
48. M (Fritz Lang, 1931)
49. Brighton Rock (John Boulting, 1948)
50. Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967)"

I posted a couple of his film noir videos last month in my thread.

 

[benbess]

On the one hand, it was comforting to see that Hitchcock's Rebecca is high up on that person's list of noirs. As mentioned, I was planning on having that be my second movie for my new film noir class in the Fall, but that plan of putting Rebecca second has already been trashed, bc of the simple fact that the movie is unavailable streaming as far as I can tell. For many years I taught my film classes in person, playing my own blu-rays, and that worked pretty well, but for now I'm doing distance-ed, and so any movies I assign must be easily available through amazon or some other source. Anyway, not only is Rebecca unavailable, but also unavailable are Spellbound and Notorious, which I was also considering using. So, hell's bells, I need to go in some other directions.

Maltese Falcon might be a possibility for my second movie, but I really need to pick carefully for these students, who seem like they are all in about the 18-22 age range. To be blunt, I don't think that movie will "sell" well to current college students. Many Hitchcock movies work surprisingly well with today's students, because there's often a lot of suspense and romance. Those elements are there in Falcon, but...well, maybe not enough. I must do a Bogart movie, but the other noirs are less than ideal for various reasons too from my pov, again keeping in mind what will work with today's students.

So right now I'm thinking of doing the noir-adjacent movie Casablanca as my second film. After Double Indemnity, my presentation on film noir, and their book reading on film noir, they'll have a good idea of what noir is, but I'll also say that there are gray areas. Casablanca isn't considered film noir, but it has strong noir elements—ambiguous characters and situations, shadowy cinematography, tragic undertones, corruption, murder, etc. Part of what the students can write about, discuss, and explore is why Casablanca is close to noir but not quite noir.

For my third movie, and for almost all of the rest of the class, it'll back to pure noir. Movie number three will, I think, be Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce.

 

[benbess]

So far my noir class is going pretty well. The over-enrolled online class of 23 students, most of whom are around 20 or so, seem surprised at how much they are enjoying these old black and white films.