Noir is a pessimistic genre. These are films about a wrong turn, about fatal mistakes and fatal women, about wrong decisions that will cost the heroes dearly. And yet this genre, which has seemed irresistible to us for decades. Noir films are always stylish, especially the old ones. Night, rain, darkness in the frame, seductive blondes and brunettes, men in raincoats and hats ... We present a list of outstanding films in the noir style. It is recommended to watch with a glass of whiskey and, although the Ministry of Health warns, take a cigarette. To maintain health, you don't need to light a cigarette, just twirl it in your fingers. The main thing is style.
The Accused
- 1949 year
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 7.0; IMDb - 6.9
- USA
- film noir, thriller, drama
A psychology teacher, fighting off a rapist student, accidentally kills him. Despite her panic, she deftly arranges the scene so that it seems that he was drowned in the sea. But the fear of what happened does not leave her, moreover, the young man's guardian, a lawyer, who begins to sympathize with her at first sight, turns to her.
A rare noir starring not a man but a woman, based on a novel written by a woman, it focuses on the important issue of violence and self-defense. We could even call it feminist noir now. Noir is also rare because it has a happy ending. If you want to get excited and then calm down, this picture, flirting with psychology, is what you need.
Night Moves
- 1975 year
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 6.7; IMDb - 7.1
- USA
- thriller, crime, detective, film noir
Exhausted by his wife's troubles, the detective (Gene Hackman) is hired by an out-of-print actress who was once married to a millionaire and now lives off of her daughter's trust fund. The girl disappeared, and the mother is not so much worried as she wants to find her "wallet". The detective goes to Florida, where, among the idyll of the sea, he first of all discovers a corpse gnawed by fish.
Arthur Penn's neo-noir, with one of the best roles in Hackman's long career, did not immediately find public acceptance. But a decade later it was called the "portrait of American consciousness" of that time. And the times were difficult: the Americans suffered from the "Vietnamese syndrome" and again became pessimists, as at the dawn of noir. In the 1970s, the genre was buried and resurrected. The new noir, already in color, has become much darker. As the slogan says: "In this game, every player is a pawn, every move is wrong, and the winner loses everything."
The Big Clock
- 1948 year
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 7.5; IMDb - 7.7
- USA
- film noir, thriller, drama, crime, detective
The editor-in-chief of a New York crime news magazine becomes a character in his own chronicle. Popping into the editorial office for a minute before the vacation, he gets into a scrape with murder. He has 24 hours to prove his innocence.
Another rare example: the mosaic "newspaper noir" with characters from the media world begins as the classic sullenness of Hitchcock, continues with an entertaining detective story with chases, and on the way turns into a "burlesque comedy" built on skirmishes. Like any movie with a ticking clock, it tenaciously keeps the viewer at the screen.
Dark City
- 1998 year
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 7.3; IMDb - 7.6
- Australia, USA
- fantasy, thriller, detective
In the city of eternal night, a man (Rufus Sewell) wakes up to find a woman's corpse in the next room. On the trail of him, as usual, is a principled detective and supernaturally pale creatures with supernatural powers.
We continue to pamper you with quirky hybrids. Originally from the 90s, this cult piece is a mixture of noir, dieselpunk and horror. A real feast for the moviegoer is replete with visual references to Metropolis, Blade Runner and Star Trek, philosophizes according to Descartes, Buddha and Plato (the idea of a shadow on the walls of a cave), builds plots according to Kafka and anticipates the Matrix, asking the main the question of fiction: "What does it mean to be human?" Welcome to reality noir simulator!
We'll settle after death (Dead Reckoning)
- 1947 year
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 7.5; IMDb - 7.1
- USA
- film noir, thriller, drama, detective
Veteran Rip (Humphrey Bogart) is looking for his friend Johnny, who was in serious trouble before the war. He suddenly dies in a disaster, and Rip takes revenge for him. The case, of course, involves a beautiful woman.
In a story with an intricate plot, Bogart plays, in general, himself from "The Maltese Falcon." And the film is reminiscent of this noir noir: revenge for a friend with a tart aftertaste of "bros first, then women." But the most interesting thing here is the female image, the look at which we, following the main character, will change ten times during the film. She is a victim or, as one poet writes on the Internet:
“I play with you like with a toy,
As with a soulless doll of childhood,
And into a carcass stuffed with batting
I'll stick a plastic stiletto in. "
Sin City
- 2005
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 7.8; IMDb - 8.0
- USA
- action, thriller, crime, detective
Thugs, corrupt cops and prostitutes roam the evil streets with the faces of supermodels and superstars, sometimes distorted for flavor. A good cop (Bruce Willis) rescues the girl, and she grows into Jessica Alba. The monster (Mickey Rourke) falls in love with a beauty. Priestesses of Love wield katana and melee techniques. The war goes on constantly. They also eat people here.
Sin City is a noir game. And a game for the spectator: choose your favorite monster. For example, the author of the article is delighted with the cannibal, whom Elijah Wood, without a word, managed to make one of the most memorable villains in cinema. In general, it is difficult to choose - everything is so delightfully creepy and desperate, furious beauty, cobbled together out of disgrace.
Sunset Blvd.
- 1950 year
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 7.9; IMDb - 8.4
- USA
- film noir, drama
Loser screenwriter Joe accidentally ends up in a mansion where an obsessed and forgotten silent movie star (Gloria Swanson) lives. In her imagination, she is still a favorite of the audience and is writing the script for the film, anticipating a triumphant return. Joe remains with her as a lover and a screenwriter who helps in the work. And everything would probably be fine, but he falls in love with a young film studio worker.
In a year that marks the last days of noir, the great Billy Wilder removes his masterpiece, brings Gloria Swanson back from oblivion, slaps a ruthless industry that throws former idols to the dustbin, and gets eleven Oscar nominations (winning three). It is not surprising that noir rested for another twenty years - no other genre had such a brilliant funeral.
Brick
- 2005 year
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 6.9; IMDb - 7.3
- USA
- detective, drama
The quiet "nerd" (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), together with a friend, is looking for a beloved girl who is in trouble. First you need to understand what the trouble is.
In 20 days, having independently edited the tape at home on a computer, debutant Ryan Johnson filmed the best modern noir, beauty and pride of the 21st century, which, alas, the 21st century, alas, did not appreciate at all, apart from the consolation prize at the Sundance festival. In hot, colorful California, the director brought a cold Scandinavian gloom and turned the schoolchildren into the characters of Deshel Hammett. And he proved that noir is still more alive than all living things, because it has always been, is and will be the main genre about loneliness - and its world will not stop producing in any century.
White Heat
- 1949 year
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 7.6; IMDb - 8.1
- USA
- film noir, detective, drama, crime
A psychopathic gangster (James Cagney), touchingly devoted to his mom, after a hot train robbery, confesses to a crime that he did not commit in order not to sit on the electric chair, but to rewind a short time. From a cozy prison, he is pulled out by the news of the murder of his mother. He escapes with other prisoners, unaware that one of them is a federal agent.
The main "face" of Hollywood crime fighters of the 1930s, James Cagney, burns in this dynamic noir. In a figurative and literal sense. Later, his character will be called the first great psychopath in cinema, who ushered in the era of charismatic maniacs.
Cutter's Way
- 1981 year
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 6.1; IMDb - 6.9
- USA
- thriller, drama, crime, detective
Alex Cutter (John Heard) cannot rejoice in the world of yuppies and Malibu Rescuers because he is a disabled Vietnamese veteran whose mind is forever stuck in the napalm-drenched rice fields. When his only friend, gigolo Bone (Jeff Bridges), sees at night a local oligarch hiding a corpse in a trash can, Cutter decides to blackmail.
More a drama about people who didn't fit into Reaganomics than neo-noir, this powerful paranoid film undeservedly failed at the box office. But over time, he was appreciated, and the Coen brothers invited Jeff Bridges to play a friendly parody of his role as Bone in the cult "The Big Lebowski". And noir, which was once again buried after the failure of Cutter's Way, did not die again, but rose again in the 2000s.
Zift
- 2008 year
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 7.2; IMDb - 7.4
- Bulgaria
- film noir, drama, crime
A bald man who has served time since 1944 on false charges of murder is released and finds himself in the great Bulgarian depression of the 1960s. He needs to find his ex-girlfriend, ex-boyfriend and diamond.
One of the best contemporary films from Eastern Europe. The old-fashioned black and white film gives what is happening a special flavor: we find ourselves in a brutal surreal eternity, in which there is more from Tarantino than from Raymond Chandler, but it is still noir, only showing the middle finger.
Shutter Island
- year 2009
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 8.4; IMDb - 8.1
- USA
- thriller, detective, drama
In the 1950s, two bailiffs Teddy and Chuck (Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo) travel to the island to find a child killer who escaped from a mental hospital for criminals. Teddy has a constant headache, and he suspects the German chief physician (Ben Kingsley) of experiments on patients. A storm is gathering on the island.
With the release of his pathological pseudo-noir, Martin Scorsese has confirmed that he remains a great director. Two hours of wandering around the turns of investigation and solving the mysteries of the island - a stimulating exercise in mind games with a grandiose resolution. But those who have already untied the plot knot will gladly go through this quest again. Schizophrenia here is bursting with a skull for everyone - both the character of DiCaprio and the viewer at the same time. You won't get bored.
Under the Silver Lake
- 2018 year
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 6.3; IMDb - 6.5
- USA
- detective, film noir, comedy, crime
Gouge Sam (Andrew Garfield) is looking for a short-term roommate who broke his heart for one joint smoked joint. Searches in the acid-tinted Hollywood universe open his eyes to the terrible.
In fact, all the worst has already happened in the parody apocalypse "End of the World 2013", where Seth Rogan and his friends faced the death of the world within Los Angeles, so it won't get any worse. But stranger - yes. This is a very intricate, lush and haphazard movie, which, composing hymns of conspiracy theories, smashes modern pop culture and is original beyond measure. Few people will like the latter, but the cult status of this adventure of Alice in the land of the Absurd is no doubt guaranteed.
The Third Man
- 1949 year
- Rating: KinoPoisk - 7.6; IMDb - 8.1
- USA
- film noir, thriller, detective
The writer (Joseph Cotten) comes to post-war Vienna at the invitation of a friend (Orson Welles), who died in an accident the day before. Convinced that he was killed, he begins an investigation.
At the end of our list of films in the noir style is a reference representative of the genre. The adaptation of Graham Greene's darkest novel acquired, if not parody, then slightly ironic tones during the production. Mastodon Wells, for example, plays an almost demon from a horror movie, an exaggerated embodiment of evil, and other glimpses of the director's squint can be found. And yet it is the gold standard from the Chamber of Weights and Measures: night, rain, hats and raincoats, "Dutch corners" and cigarette smoke. And echoes of the ancient Greek fatalism, from which noir was born: it is useless to argue with the goddess of Fate.