Genre: Detective

The investigator at the center of the case. Detective fiction runs on observation, deduction, and a character who notices what everyone else walks past, whether the badge is official or entirely self-appointed.

Two detectives stand in rain-soaked streets of a nameless city, surrounded by darkness and decay.

Crime

Se7en (1995) Review

Se7en (1995) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. The rain never stops, the city has no name, and the killer wins exactly as planned. Fincher's second film, made after a first one he has disowned.

Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot stands on the deck of a paddle steamer, the Nile River and Egyptian landscape visible behind

Cozy Mystery

Death on the Nile (1978) Review

Death on the Nile (1978) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Christie on a paddle steamer with a closed passenger list and a cast of stars. The correct way to film a detective novel, and the only…

Edward Norton as Miles Bron stands in a glass dome surrounded by expensive art and stolen objects on his private Greek

Comedy

Glass Onion (2022) Review

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) rates 7 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A tech billionaire's private island weekend where the solution is that the clever man has nothing inside. Better as satire than as a puzzle.

Christmas

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)

A small-time thief stumbles into an LA acting career and a noir investigation, with Robert Downey Jr. as narrator across the Christmas season. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is Shane Black's 2005 American neo-noir comedy depicting a small-time New York thief…

Detective

Brick (2005)

Rian Johnson's 2005 high school neo-noir debut. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Dashiell Hammett character among teenagers.

Crime

The Long Goodbye (1973)

Robert Altman's 1973 Chandler revisionism. The Long Goodbye is Robert Altman's 1973 American neo-noir adapting Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel.

Detective

Out of the Past (1947)

Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas. Out of the Past is Jacques Tourneur's 1947 American film noir adapting Daniel Mainwaring's novel Build My Gallows High under the author's Geoffrey Homes pseudonym.