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.
ChristmasA 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…
DetectiveRian Johnson's 2005 high school neo-noir debut. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Dashiell Hammett character among teenagers.
DetectiveRobert 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.
CrimeRobert Altman's 1973 Chandler revisionism. The Long Goodbye is Robert Altman's 1973 American neo-noir adapting Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel.
DetectiveHoward Hawks' 1946 Chandler adaptation. Plot incomprehensible even to the screenwriters.
DetectiveThe genre's late masterpiece. Touch of Evil is Orson Welles's 1958 American film noir adapting Whit Masterson's 1956 novel Badge of Evil.
Comedy
CrimePolanski's 1974 Los Angeles neo-noir. The water-rights conspiracy that defined New Hollywood pessimis.
CrimeHuston's 1941 directorial debut. The film that established American film noir as a coherent style.
Detective
CrimeDavid Fincher's 2007 procedural on the SF Zodiac killer investigation. Three protagonists, no killer caught.
CrimeCurtis Hanson's 1997 neo-noir on 1950s LAPD corruption. The rare adult crime film that respects its audience.
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