The MoFo Top 100 Neo-noir Countdown

TRAILERS



Drive - A mysterious Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver for criminals agrees to help her neighbor's boyfriend in a heist. But when the job goes horribly wrong, he must protect her and her young son from those behind the robbery.




Blue Velvet - When a young college student discovers a severed ear in an abandoned field, he sets out to investigate with a detective's daughter, and finds himself entangled in a web of mystery with a mysterious nightclub singer and a sexually depraved psychopath.

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Drive is a film I... liked, but really didn't care much for when I first saw it. However, it kinda stuck in my mind so I went back to it shortly after, and it landed waaaay better. I've seen it a couple of times since and I've really warmed up to its slow pace and meticulous approach. All of the performances are pretty good with Albert Brooks being the standout for me. I had it at #17.

Blue Velvet is one I haven't seen in probably 20 years. Even though I remember liking it, love Dennis Hopper, and I'm a huge fan of Lynch, for some reason, I haven't gotten back to it. I barely remember scattered scenes, but it's yet another one I've been meaning to rewatch, so I didn't include it.


SEEN: 62/88
MY BALLOT: 18/25

I like Blue Velvet a lot, but it didn't make my ballot. I thought Drive was just alright.

Seen: 75/88

There are a few movies that just get better and better every time I go in for a rewatch, and Blue Velvet is one of them. Currently my favourite David Lynch film. It's just so perverse and brilliant. Peel back the layers, Mr. Lynch. I had it at #3. Drive is a great film that I haven't seen since it came out.


3. Blue Velvet (1986)
4. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976)
5. High and Low (1963)
10. Alphaville (1965)
13. The Conversation (1974)
14. Zodiac (2007)
15. Memories of Murder (2003)
17. Fireworks (1997)
18. Pale Flower (1964)
19. The Grifters (1990)
20. Inherent Vice (2014)
22. The American Friend (1977)
24. Le Cercle Rouge (1970)
25. Série noire (1979) - One pointer

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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."

List facts!

• Blue Velvet is David Lynch's second entry in the countdown, after Lost Highway (#55). Do you think he has something else coming?
• The 12-point gap between Miller's Crossing and Drive is one of the few two-digit point gaps we've had, and will have in the whole countdown. The other ones being 19 points between High and Low and Jackie Brown and 10 points between Collateral and Heat. This means that the countdown has been close as hell.

Drive was #49 on the MoFo Top 100 of the Millennium then advanced to #17 on the MoFo Top 100 of the 2010s. Blue Velvet was all the way up at #9 on the MoFo Top 100 of the 1980s.

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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

Of course. Mulholland Drive.

I seen Blue Velvet like 40 years ago, does that even count as watching it? I can't remember it so not sure if I should count that as a watch or not?

My #16 Drive (2011).

#13. Blue Velvet (1986) is my #22, worth 4 points from me.

Some film personalities attracts me everywhere all the time and Dennis Hopper is one of them. It is third flick related to him on my ballot (two acting and one directing).
I remember how popular Kyle MacLachlan has been in those years, late eighties to mid 90's.

I'm afraid that other Lynch film, much higher on my list, won't make the countdown which is a big surprise for me.


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I saw Drive couple of years ago. It is a good movie, that's all. Just The Driver (1978) is too big for me to consider this heavily influenced 2011 film for my ballot.

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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.

Both films are very good,.but neither made my ballot. Blue Velvet might've had I rewatched it though.

Lots of points. Day 2.

Drive has been quite an experience since I went to the theater to check it out back in 2011. The whole techno vibe and the ridiculous violence have always stayed with my movie mind. The Driver > Ken. I had it at # 5.

...as for my #1, Blue Velvet is for me the obvious David Lynch choice. It contains all his unique strangeness without going over into laughable stupidity of his later works. It found a top spot in my previous Top100 and I don't see it leaving anytime soon.

No recency bias, Drive is just that good.



Nicolas Winding Refn’s breakthrough was destined to be the highest-placed entry from the 2010s and beyond. Only ten other titles post-2009 made the cut, and the next closest was 2014’s Nightcrawler, which was #21. There wasn’t really anything in Winding Refn’s filmography to suggest what a brutally poetic Neo Noir he was going to unleash with Drive. The stellar cast he assembled certainly helped, led by Ryan Gosling just oozing cool with Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, Oscar Isaac, and of course Albert Brooks brilliantly cast against type as the bad guy. Tense, exciting, romantic, and darkly fun violent fable of a Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver and becomes a vengeful superhero to protect a couple of innocents, with slick cinematography and perfectly choreographed action. So simple yet perfectly done, making it both beautiful and accessible without pandering.



I only had it at #21, just five of its points, but I couldn’t very well leave it off of my ballot. That makes fifteen of mine and I have four of the remaining twelve reveals, six misses (counting my one-pointer). Been a fun ride.

HOLDEN'S BALLOT
4. Night Moves (#40)
5. High & Low (#19)
6. Nightcrawler (#21)
7. The Grifters (#45)
8. One False Move (#73)
9. Blast of Silence (#48)
11. Blow Out (#17)
12. To Live & Die in L.A. (#43)
13. The Naked Kiss (#51)
14. Angel Heart (#31)
15. Shallow Grave (#95)
17. Dead Again (#90)
21. Drive (#14)
22. The Hot Spot (#85)
24. Blue Ruin (#82)
25. Johnny Handsome (DNP)

WHAT DID YOU THINK OF... DRIVE


Roger Ebert said:

Dillon Rey Dowell, from Game Rant, said:

@GrantD2 said: