Shadows, cynics, and cities that never quite reach morning. Film noir reviews covering the classics and the neo-noirs that kept the streetlights burning.
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…
Comic BookBlack-white with red accents. Sin City is Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller's 2005 American neo-noir adapting three Frank Miller graphic novels from his Sin City series.
DetectiveRian Johnson's 2005 high school neo-noir debut. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Dashiell Hammett character among teenagers.
Film Noir
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 Siodmak's 1946 Hemingway adaptation. The murder happens in the first ten minutes.
Film NoirMickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. Foundation for Pulp Fiction's briefcase.
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.
CrimeSterling Hayden, Sam Jaffe, brief Marilyn Monroe. The original ensemble heist film.
CrimeKubrick's 1956 racetrack robbery. Non-linear structure that became Tarantino's vocabulary.
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