What are some of your favourite Film Noir?
 

I know the genre has some subjectivity to it, but it's basically an atmospheric, dark mystery, most often of the murder variety. They're brooding and methodical, and ever-so engaging. What are some of your favourites of this sub-genre?

Here's a list of mine (using IMDb as a parameter):
Night of the Hunter
Touch of Evil
All the King's Men
The Letter
Dial M for Murder
Third Man

Yours? You can list as many as you want, including just one, or even none. It's up to you.

Edit: Here's a definition from a dictionary:
a type of crime film featuring cynical malevolent characters in a sleazy setting and an ominous atmosphere that is conveyed by shadowy photography and foreboding background music

Here's a page that might help:
What is Film Noir?

Re: What are some of your favourite Film Noir?
 

Blade Runner
Chinatown
The Big Sleep
Out of the Past
Kiss Me Deadly
Blood Simple

Re: What are some of your favourite Film Noir?
 

Tokyo Drifter (1966)
Branded To Kill (1967)
Pale Flower (1964)

Ditto: Dial M for Murder / Chinatown / Out of the Past
One false move
The Postman always rings twice (1946)
The Grifters
The Last Seduction
Get Carter (1971)
Thief
Carlito’s way

Re: What are some of your favourite Film Noir?
 

Chinatown
The Bad Sleep Well
The Third Man
Sunset Blvd.
Memento
Inherent Vice (loosely)
Drive
Sweet Smell of Success
Fargo
The Long Goodbye
Devil in a Blue Dress

Re: What are some of your favourite Film Noir?
 

It's hard to ascertain what counts as film noir. So far people on here are naming all sorts of crime dramas, but is crime + drama, enough to equal film noir?

Re: What are some of your favourite Film Noir?
 

Soooo many to list, but here are my favorites, in no order:

Chinatown
Vertigo
No Country for Old Men
Drive
Double Idemnity
The Last Seduction
The Big Heat
The Long Goodbye
LA Confidential
Body Heat
Taxi Driver
Blood Simple
Get Carter
Point Blank
Thief
A Simple Plan
Touch of Evil
Devil in a Blue Dress
Se7en
Nightcrawler

Yeah, I gotta admit, I'm a little shaky on what constitutes noir myself.

For example, one of the above posters listed Carlito's Way. I don't see Carlito's Way as noir, to me it's just a crime drama.

Re: What are some of your favourite Film Noir?
 

Double Indemnity
Laura
The Killers
Out of the Past
Sunset Boulevard
Ride the Pink Horse

I wrote this some time ago on another thread:

Film Noir came out of the WWII conflict. After the aftermath of WWII, a more pensive, fatalistic mood arose in America. Before WWII light heartened films, screwball comedies and escapist movies were popular. After the war a darker vision of movies became prevalent. At the time they were referred to as melodramas. It was someone in France who noticed that the mood of American films had become very black or Noir.

In a Noir the protagonist is usually not the hero, but was usually someone who through an event or outside influences was doomed, often by their own behavior. That was coupled with a style of cinematography that came out of the German expressions movement of the early 1930s, which was characterized by asymmetrical composition and low key lighting making use of dark space and shadows.

Not all Noirs are filmed in a Noir style. But they do have in common certain themes and story elements that create a Noir style story.

Re: What are some of your favourite Film Noir?
 

Well it seems to me that film noir is a crime drama with German expressionist cinematography, otherwise there is not much else to distinguish them from just regular crime dramas.

For example, I don't see Night of the Hunter, or Seven, having any noir elements too them, that would fit at all, and it seems those are more horror thrillers.

Se7en is definitely neo-noir.

The bleak, dark atmosphere and lighting, the troubled, conflicted detectives, the overall nihilistic and ominous theme and feel of the film... all noir.

Several scenes in Night of the Hunter are the definition of expressionist cinematography.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._Key_Light.pnghttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/DSoXlVZW0AEHH4I.jpghttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ImTSYZcNXR...6ac986f2_o.jpg

In classic noir, the bad guys/criminals always end up dead or in jail.

IMDB will often list films as noir under genre, but they aren't always noirs. At least I don't think of them like that.

It's really up to the individual as there's no rules as to what a noir is, it's more of a feeling one gets from a film.

Yeah but Seven has a lone serial killer as the villain, where as traditional noir movies from the 40s and 50s, have organized crime and conspiracies. And noir villains are motivated by money and greed usually, where as Seven, the guy is a spiritual, and moralistic extremist.

Some noirs have lone villains, but they are always motivated by greed, with money being the driving plot desire.

And even though Night of the Hunter has German expressionist cinematography, it doesn't have a noir setting, and it's more of a home invasion horror thriller in terms of genre.

Night of the Hunter is no more of a noir, than say, Halloween (1978).

" For example, one of the above posters listed Carlito's Way. I don't see Carlito's Way as noir, to me it's just a crime drama."

---I included Carlito’s Way because he died in the opening scene and I consider him as a kind of dead narrator.

Re: What are some of your favourite Film Noir?
 

No body mentioned: the dark passage , a classic film noir

Re: What are some of your favourite Film Noir?
 

Does The Skin I Live In (2011), count as a film noir? The lighting looks more like it for sure, but does it count as one overall?

Re: What are some of your favourite Film Noir?
 

Ironpony, read this Wiki page on Film Noir, it might answer your questions.

Link

But film noir started in 1940, so it couldn't have come out of WWII. It had barely started.