The MoFo Top 100 Neo-noir Countdown

2 for 2 today. No Country for Old Men was my #19 pick. Fargo didn't make my ballot. It should have. 12 of my picks accounted for. I might even crack 15.

62 of 90 seen. Bring on the Top 10!

I'll wait for a Near Misses reveal before I make a final guess on the order of the Top Ten.

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"Film is a disease. When it infects your bloodstream it takes over as the number one hormone. It bosses the enzymes, directs the pineal gland, plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to Film is more Film." - Frank Capra

Have seen so far: 31 - Reservoir Dogs - This movie was okay, not a big fan of Tarantino's movies.

Blue Velvet - I thought this movie was alright, I found nothing special about it, tbh.

Drive - Decent movie with a nice 80's vibe to it, Ryan Gosling does well in it. This film is #8 on my ballot list.

Fargo - A decent Crime movie that takes place on the northern part of the US, Fargo, North Dakota. This film is #6 on my ballot list.

No Country for Old Men - Not a bad movie from the 2000's, the cast did good in this movie. This film is #7 on my ballot list.

Have not seen so far: 57

I got two more movies to go and they are definitely going to make it.

My Ballot List
#2 - Heat
#3 - The Dark Knight
#4 - Dog Day Afternoon
#5 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit
#6. Fargo
#7. No Country for Old Men
#8 - Drive
#10 - Sin City

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No Country landed at no. 23 on my ballot. Was hooked immediately when I saw it in theaters back in '07. Haven't revisited it in many years but it still seem like something I feel strongly voting for when it's eligible for one of these lists.

Fargo I have seen a few times, not a favorite but I'm open to getting back to it soon.

Top quality Coen films here with Fargo being one of my all-time favourites and No Country not too far off but I didn't include either on my list. I'm fine with the choice I made.

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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."

So what's the final 10? I'm too lazy to dig through the thread or make a list and I want to make predictions of rankings that will be proven incorrect tomorrow when #10 is posted.

My #11 No Country for Old Men (2007). Re-watching movies for this countdown I enjoyed it more than many old time favorites.

I absolutely love both of those Coen brothers films, but neither made my list. I just do not see No Country as neo-noir. Fargo, sure, but I already had three of their films, so I had to stop at some point.

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

Both are on my list, Fargo at #14 and No Country for Old Men at #17.

I still have serious issues with the latter for the major 'off screen death', but it makes up for it with its incredible depth. Both movies warrant multiple watches.

Off the noir topic, but I just don't 'get' A Serious Man. It's just depressing and frustrating, and then

I'm eager for the near misses, as there's one movie in my list that I'm disappointed didn't make the top 100 somewhere.

Well Friendo, Fargo was my #9 and No Country for Old Men was my #13. The Coen brothers gave us an incredibly memorable cop and an astonishingly iconic...I was going to say "bad guy" but that is kind of an understatement, so I'll say an astonishingly iconic monster.

Was he? I would need a refresher, but as far as I remember, the ending wasn't as negative on him as I would've expected. Still, the topic of universal fate stomping all our attempts to control things is 100% Coen. Today's entries are a prime example of that.

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The ending to A Serious Man, plus the entire film in general, is intentionally unfair to the main character.

Ok, let's see the ones that ALMOST made it...



101. Harper (34 points)
102. Payback (34 points)
103. Badlands (32 points)
104. John Wick (32 points)
105. Sonatine (31 points)
106. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (29 points)
107. Hard Eight (29 points)
108. Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (29 points)
109. Wild at Heart (29 points)
110. The Killers (28 points)

Have seen 6 of those...

102. Payback (34 points)
103. Badlands (32 points)
104. John Wick (32 points)
106. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (29 points)
107. Hard Eight (29 points)
109. Wild at Heart (29 points)

...but none of them were on my ballot. I'm confident all from my ballot will make it (except for my "one-pointer")

I've seen Payback, Sonatine, and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, but voted for none of them.

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Ghost Dog and Sonatine. Nice double feature.

#107. Hard Eight (1996) was my #23 for three points from me.

That's a very nice debut film by P.T. Anderson. I didn't have high hopes for it but I feel it is totally for this countdown and I'm a big admirer of Philip Baker Hall.

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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.

Love both of today's films but I wasn't confident in my feeling for their fits here. I'm still not confident in a couple films I did vote for. My ballot was far from an exact science.

Seen all except Harper and Ghost Dog, which both look good.

I had one of them at #8

OK, I will take a shot at the order of the Top Ten...

1. Chinatown
2. Mulholland Drive
3. Taxi Driver
4. SE7EN
5. Blade Runner
6. Memento
7. Le Samuraļ
8. L.A. Confidential
9. The Long Goodbye
10. Blood Simple

The only one I am no longer super-duper confident about appearing at all is Blood Simple. The only two Coen Bros. flicks that are plainly Noir and not hybrids with other genres are The Man Who Wasn't There and Blood Simple. But is Blood Simple so overwhelmingly Noir that it is going to top the much, much more popular Fargo, Big Lebowski, and No Country for Old Men? On a genre list it should be higher, but we left "should" a long, long time ago. The other nine gotta be there. "But the fact is, nothing comes with a guarantee. Something can all go wrong."