The MoFo Top 100 Neo-noir Countdown

I did not have Taxi Driver on my list. I feel like we are all living in that guy's porn-addled, homicidal brain nowadays with so many young men becoming disaffected and violent. Paul Schrader, Martin Scorcese and Robert DeNiro give us our culture and its trajectory a real blow here.
I saved space on my list for somewhat lighter entertainment which were more of a visit to the noir of yesteryear. Movies Like D.O.A., Body Heat, The Big Easy and House of Games. I pick Blade Runner for tomorrow's reveal and Chinatown for #1. My one question is...where is The Matrix?

Ingmar Bergman on Martin Scorsese masterpiece Taxi Driver

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

I knew Taxi Driver was eligible and I've known it's on the current noir list, but I couldn't vote for it because I don't see it that way even though it's one of my all time faves.

I could have just as easily left Taxi Driver off my list, for basically the same reasons a few of you did, but if I was including it, it was going to be my #1.

My List:
1. Taxi Driver (#4)
3. Miller's Crossing (#15)
4. Memories of Murder (#25)
5. True Romance (#60)
6. Read My Lips (DNP)
7. Drive (#14)
8. Blood Simple (#9)
9. Nightcrawler (#21)
10. The Long Goodbye (#5)
11. The Friends of Eddie Coyle (#100)
12. Branded to Kill (#71)
13. The Man Who Wasn't There (#27)
14. Blast of Silence (#48)
15. Le Samouraï (#7)
16. Sin City (#26)
17. Memento (#8)
18. Following (#84)
19. Blow-Up (DNP)
20. Jackie Brown (#18)
21. Mother (#67)
22. Purple Noon (#94)
23. Cop Land (DNP)
24. Against All Odds (DNP)
25. The Man from London (DNP)

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I may go back to hating you. It was more fun.

I don't know if you are responding to what I said. I am as usual too vague. I meant that the film was prescient about the direction of American culture rather than causal.

Sort of but not entirely. You reminded me of this clip I saw in my youtube feed not too long ago and felt I should post it..

I've never seen someone mentions Sea of Love (1989), anyway, I put it at my #13.

I don't know what problems you have with this movie. I like it a lot. Saw it in theater when it came out and several more times since then. I think, I even have it on DVD.

This was my first Al Pacino film. It is interesting: I clearly remember my thoughts when I first saw the movie. I figured that the main actor is about my dad's age and I noticed that he acts with such a self-confidence which seemed somewhat funny to me. I liked him but I've said to myself, thinking of Pacino as a debutant - "...what this aging guy aiming at, he is late on the show-business track".

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"Population don't imitate art, population imitate bad television." W.A.
"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." M.T.

Taxi Driver is a great film, a landmark film, a very innovative film, but I have trouble seeing it as noir-- neo or otherwise, despite its dark mood. I think of it as a psychological thriller.

I was knocked out in '76 when I first saw it, and I've watched it several times since. Superb direction, production design, acting, and terrific photography by Michael Chapman (The Godfather; Jaws). And the picture would not be what it is without the strange and lovely moody score by the great Bernard Herrmann. Reportedly he died just a few hours after he finished it, which is a heart rendering finish to one of the greatest careers in Hollywood.

The bloody scenes near the end were shocking and unique for its day, even more so than Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch 7 years before. The picture deservedly put DeNiro, Keitel, and Foster on the map, as well as Scorsese.

However it couldn't make my neo-noir list.

My new prediction for the final 3:

1. Chinatown
2. L.A. Confidential
3. Blade Runner

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It's so crazy to me that despite 47 people submitting entries, only 3 movies so far have appeared on more than half the submitted lists: Taxi Driver, The Long Goodbye, and Memento. Blood Simple came close with 23.

Wow. The Long Goodbye.
Would have been very high on my list but I didn't expect it to be so high on everyone else's.
Awesome.

Taxi Driver---only number 4?!?!

To me that was part of what made Taxi Driver such a strong film. I think it's too strong to say that it had any causal relationship with the (very real) culture that you describe, but I do believe that it anticipated it and captured it from a perspective that is, perhaps, uncomfortably easy to identify with.

I was kind of vague. I meant prescient not causal.

Taxi Driver was my number 2. In the days (week?) before submitting my ballot, it went from
* didn't even cross my mind that it could be classified as neo-noir
* to "seeing it on list of greatest neo-noirs, and highly questioning that classification"
* "thinking, well, I guess it has the dark, brooding nihilism of In a Lonely Place, and that's #1 on my classic noir ballot, but I'm still kind of questioning its classification"
* seeing it described as a neo-noir, psychological thriller on wiki
* thinking about it, and realizing its tone and vibe were totally noir, it's even got the noir voice-over
* to I guess I just never thought of it as noir because it came out in a time when so many movies were fatalistic and dark, and I've always kind of associated it with Apocalypse Now with the journey into a dark side of man (and we'd never consider Apocalypse Now, neo-noir), but yeah, that's totally what it is
* if it wasn't doing such a whiplash as a classification of noir in my head in such a short time period, it'd probably Blood Simple a chase for the #1 spot on the ballot, but it'd feel weird to give #1 to a movie I didn't think of as being neo-noir a week ago, so it's #2 on my ballot.

That means, of the remaining movies, 2 aren't on my ballot at all (one wasn't in consideration for my ballot at all), and the one that is, is at the bottom of my ballot. So, the top 3, not the greatest streak of movies on the countdown for me (I guess one of the ones not on my ballot, I can't complain about. I just feel dissonance on everyone's general love for it compared to me, so I can only see the discrepancy).

AWARDS?


Taxi Driver received several nominations and awards. These are some of the most notable:

• Seven (7) BAFTA Film Award nominations, including a win for Best Supporting Actress (Jodie Foster)
• Six (6) National Society of Film Critics Award nominations, including a win for Best Actor (Robert De Niro)
• Four (4) Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture
• Two (2) Golden Globe Award nominations, including Best Actor (De Niro)
• One (1) Palme d'Or Award from Cannes Film Festival

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So, what are the guesses for today?

L.A. Confidential

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I've not seen it in a long time, but that film is all Ellen Barkin. Pacino's fine, but she's the only real reason to see that film beyond just to look. It's a perfectly decent, servicable film.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

I'll guess Chinatown today and then LA Confidential as #2 and Blade Runner as #1.