The MoFo Top 100 Neo-noir Countdown

Silence Of The Lambs is amazing, but I didn’t consider it here.

I want to see Under The Silver Lake again, but it had no chance in a genre with so many options for me. It’s alright.

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Never heard of Under the Silver Lake until just now

I did watch Silence of the Lambs in an HoF. It wasn't my type of movie but it was very well made. I wrote this:

My favorite scenes were the interaction between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice, which were brilliant!...Especially Hannibal's cold reading of Clarice at their first meeting and his uncanny abilities of perception.

Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal, he sure created a memorable character and did an amazing job of being intense, and weird, and yet likable too. It was quite the performance and he won an Oscar for it.

I really wanted to see him and Clarice have some sort of bond and that's why their scenes together were my favorite. It was a pretty great script idea that a psycho killer would respect this 'little' FBI trainee. I say 'little' because the cinematography goes to lengths to show Clarice surrounded at different times by really tall men, like in the elevator scene. That's not an accident, it shows us that physically she is surrounded by people much stronger than her, which then makes her task all the more daunting.

Jodie Foster won an Oscar for Best Actress and she was sublime in this movie! It's a pity that most fans don't give her the credit due. Her acting was always sincere (even Hannibal appreciated that aspect of her character). In Jodie Foster's reactionary close up shots to Anthony Hopkins, she convinces us, that the horror of Hannibal is real.

The sets: I'm a sucker for set detail and man is this movie loaded with cool sets! I loved the psychiatric jail where we first see Hannibal. The heavy cobble stones and rusting metal made it look like a long forgotten dungeon where these derelicts of society languished in darkness.

The second temporary holding cell for Hannibal was memorable too. It was this large cell surrounded by vastness of the otherwise empty room.

I really like Buffalo Bill's house it was loaded with weird looking stuff, one could spend hours just examining each frame for hidden details Good lighting too in there. Notice how his basement holding pit was made of the same big cobblestones that was in Hannibal's cell?

There were some scenes I didn't care for, they were just too dark for my taste. And I think it was a mistake having Hannibal be out on the run and free. I'm sure that was done with the hopes of a sequel being made. But I would have loved an epilogue with Clarice visiting Hannibal one more time, in his new permanent cell. I think they could have had a touching, yet uncomfortable moment there, as a way to reflect back on the journey they both took.

I've seen and liked both Under The Silver Lake and Silence of the Lambs but neither made my ballot.

Seen: 20/26

Can somebody go check if Holden is ok?

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I like Silence of the Lambs but never considered it.

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Thanks I keep forgetting about that.

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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."

Another interesting list factoid... Under the Silver Lake has one of the two (2) lowest RT scores and one of the two (2) lowest IMDb ratings of the countdown, and it's paired with The Silence of the Lambs which has a 95% RT score and one of the three (3) highest IMDb scores of the countdown.

I'd never heard of Under the Silver Lake. I have a lot of respect for Silence of the Lambs, and Jodie Foster in particular, but didn't really consider it for a neo-noir list.

no votes. under the silver lake could very nearly be a favourite but something about it doesn't quite click - i do appreciate it offering a culture-obsessed millennial burnout variation on neo-noir that distinguishes it next to the likes of brick (and at least having some self-awareness of how pathetic that sounds) and i like that it's managed to place this high. that and it has that scene with the songwriter, which might be one of my favourite scenes in 2010s cinema. the silence of the lambs has its own imperfect reputation, obviously easy to pick apart the ways in which its approach to serial killer pathology has its drawbacks but at the same time hard to deny that it warranted as much acclaim and popularity as it did with the craftsmanship on display.

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1 for 2. Haven't watched Under the Silver Lake but just like so many others here have watched Silence of the Lambs (as well as all the other Thomas Harris sequels.) Neither were on my ballot.

13 of 26.

I haven't seen Under the Silver Lake. The Silence of the Lambs is very good, but it didn't cross my mind as neo noir at all when I assembled my list. If I had thought of it, it might've made it.

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Actually, I was just informed by Thief that it did make my ballot at #17.

Like most I love SOTL but didn't consider it here.

Under the Silver Lake has the appearance of a film that made the countdown due to recency bias, but so what I'd still like to see it.

I haven't seen it but I think it's a bit more than that. It seems to me it is one of those films that those that like it *really* like it.

I had Dirty Harry at #10. Only there because I saw it qualified as neo-noir. It never would've occured to me otherwise and I don't think it is.

Mona Lisa is one I wish I'd remembered because I would've put that on my list. As is Manhunter, though when I saw it on here it didn't really click as I've never thought of it as noir, neo or otherwise. But I can see it. Next time I watch it (whenever that might be) I'll watch it with that in mind and see how I feel about it.

Brick is another film I've owned (nearly 20 years now) that I still haven't seen.

I wonder what the next list that Silence Of The Lambs will be on which it shouldn't qualify for will be? That's horror and Neo-Noir so far.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

Silence of the Lambs is a great movie, but l also didn't consider it a neo noir.



Under the Silver Lake is my #24! If I could retroactively vote for Manhunter, it would've been my #25.


I fully understand why it's such a polarizing movie, but I love the style and feel a lot. The fact that it there's something off and it doesn't quite 'click' is what makes it Noir to me.

76. Under the Silver Lake - This was really weird and a great movie that I enjoyed heaps when I got to watch it - a nice and eccentric neo noir film that stayed true to it's noir roots but did everything in a fairly original way. I need to see it again - and I'm surprised I don't have it on DVD already - it's a necessary purchase for me, seeing as how much I liked it the first time around. (I don't know if anyone has mentioned this already, but I'd just like to say how cool I think it is that when you hover your mouse pointer thingy over the film posters they turn from black and white to colour.) Andrew Garfield was great here - one of my favourite performances from him, so much so my opinion of him as an actor went up significantly when I saw Under the Silver Lake.

75. Silence of the Lambs - Bit of a surprise to see this in the neo noir countdown - but every time I watch it I confirm to myself that Silence of the Lambs is a great film - one of the best of the 1990s, with all-time-great performances, including one from Anthony Hopkins that was almost too good. His Dr. Hannibal Lecter is part of popular culture now - and will live on for lord knows how long. It was so good that they kept dragging him back for adaptations of everything Thomas Harris did with Lecter in it. Hannibal was a big disappointment, but when films the caliber of Silence of the Lambs are made, sequels will always pale in comparison. Great police procedural serial killer hunt with psychological frights which will haunt you for a little while after each watch. " What became of your lamb, Clarice?" Empathy hurts is a world full of horrors.

No votes for either of these, but I like 'em both.

Seen 15/26

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Possibly. Under the Silver Lake was #23 on my ballot. It's only one of the two films from after 2010 to make it. But I also wasn't working off of a list of movies from a movie site for me to make sure I didn't miss any obvious films. (It turns out I have. After looking at the poster for this countdown, I realized I completely forgot about The Conversation, which would have been a top 5 entry for sure. Possibly even #1. Oh well).


Under the Silver Lake - Does it feel like it's wearing its influences of Pynchon and Lynch (namely Mulholland Drive, solidified by the presence of Patrick Fischler) on its sleeve? Yeah. Is David Robert Mitchell (It Follows) not as capable of pulling it off as those two? Of course. But despite the messiness of vaguely maybe trying a little too hard (or maybe that's really jusy the satiric/comedic nature of the Pynchon influence*), the movie lands for me. And unlike other movies on my list (and contenders for it), it's clearly a noir.


*: and let's be honest, people trying to imitate Lynch or Pynchon usually ends badly.

I liked Manhunter, but I don't think it was more than possibly a fleeting consideration for my ballot, nor was any Michael Mann. But Michael Mann crime dramas did mentally land on the side of neo-noir when I was trying to think of crime dramas that seemed neo-noir to me rather than just crime dramas (the latter would be more Scorsese organized crime movies or The Godfather).


I wouldn't think of Silence of the Lambs as noir (more horror-thriller combined with crime procedural), but I guess I shouldn't be surprised people would once they started considering Manhunter (I wonder how many ballots had both).

Blue Ruin didn't cross my mind. I'm not sure it would have made my ballot or not if it has, but would have been in consideration for it.

Following - I watched then back when I was still following Nolan's career. I think it was an okay/interesting first calling card, but found myself preferring Memento (which I'm guessing will show up later). No Nolan made its way onto my ballot.

Musical..

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