Great Neo-noir films
by lennuke | created - 08 Dec 2012 | updated - 26 Aug 2020 | PublicList of Neo-noir films, that have either been underappreciated or less known. List is in a random order.
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1. The Pledge (I) (2001)
R | 124 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A retiring police detective pledges to catch the killer of a young child.
Director: Sean Penn | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Benicio Del Toro, Patricia Clarkson, Beau Daniels
Votes: 67,520 | Gross: $19.72M
2. The Last Seduction (1994)
R | 110 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A devious sexpot steals her husband's drug money and hides out in a small town where she meets the perfect dupe for her next scheme.
Director: John Dahl | Stars: Linda Fiorentino, Peter Berg, Bill Pullman, Michael Raysses
Votes: 25,739 | Gross: $6.14M
3. Killer Joe (2011)
R | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
When a debt puts a young man's life in danger, he turns to putting a hit out on his evil mother in order to collect the insurance.
Director: William Friedkin | Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple, Thomas Haden Church
Votes: 83,208 | Gross: $1.99M
4. The Counselor (2013)
R | 117 min | Action, Adventure, Crime
A lawyer finds himself in over his head when he gets involved in drug trafficking.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Michael Fassbender, Penélope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem
Votes: 105,826 | Gross: $16.97M
5. Cold in July (2014)
R | 109 min | Crime, Thriller
When a protective father meets a murderous ex-con, both need to deviate from the path they are on as they soon find themselves entangled in a downwards spiral of lies and violence while having to confront their own inner psyche.
Director: Jim Mickle | Stars: Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard, Don Johnson, Vinessa Shaw
Votes: 37,571 | Gross: $0.41M
6. The Chaser (2008)
Not Rated | 125 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A disgraced ex-policeman who runs a small ring of prostitutes finds himself in a race against time when one of his women goes missing.
Director: Na Hong-jin | Stars: Kim Yoon-seok, Ha Jung-woo, Seo Yeong-hie, Kim Yoo-jung
Votes: 72,584
7. Cutter's Way (1981)
R | 109 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Richard spots a man dumping a body, and decides to expose the man he thinks is the culprit with his friend Alex Cutter.
Director: Ivan Passer | Stars: Jeff Bridges, John Heard, Lisa Eichhorn, Ann Dusenberry
Votes: 7,616 | Gross: $1.73M
8. Sea of Love (1989)
R | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A detective investigating a series of murders becomes involved with a woman who may be the culprit.
Director: Harold Becker | Stars: Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin, John Goodman, Michael Rooker
Votes: 44,797 | Gross: $58.57M
9. Atlantic City (1980)
R | 104 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
In a corrupt city, a small-time gangster and the estranged wife of a pot dealer find themselves thrown together in an escapade of love, money, drugs and danger.
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reid, Michel Piccoli
Votes: 18,254
10. After Dark, My Sweet (1990)
R | 114 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
After he escapes from a mental hospital, a former boxer works for a widow. When she asks him to get involved in a kidnapping, he has second thoughts.
Director: James Foley | Stars: Jason Patric, Rachel Ward, Bruce Dern, Rocky Giordani
Votes: 4,173 | Gross: $2.68M
11. Night Moves (1975)
R | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Los Angeles private investigator Harry Moseby is hired by a client to find her runaway teenage daughter. Moseby tracks the daughter down, only to stumble upon something much more intriguing and sinister.
Director: Arthur Penn | Stars: Gene Hackman, Jennifer Warren, Edward Binns, Harris Yulin
Votes: 17,648
12. Suzhou River (2000)
83 min | Drama, Romance
After getting out of prison, small-time crook Mardar stumbles upon a woman who looks exactly like his long-lost lover.
Director: Ye Lou | Stars: Xun Zhou, Hongsheng Jia, Zhongkai Hua, Anlian Yao
Votes: 6,368 | Gross: $0.10M
13. Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)
R | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A Black war hero is hired to find a mysterious woman, and gets mixed up in a murderous political scandal in 1948 Los Angeles.
Director: Carl Franklin | Stars: Denzel Washington, Tom Sizemore, Jennifer Beals, Don Cheadle
Votes: 24,024 | Gross: $16.03M
14. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981)
R | 122 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
The sensuous wife of a roadside diner proprietor and a rootless drifter begin a sordid, steamy affair and conspire to murder her Greek husband.
Director: Bob Rafelson | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Jessica Lange, John Colicos, Michael Lerner
Votes: 25,727 | Gross: $12.38M
15. The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)
R | 102 min | Crime, Drama
After his last crime has him looking at a long prison sentence for repeat offenses, a low level Boston gangster decides to snitch on his friends to avoid jail time.
Director: Peter Yates | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan, Steven Keats
Votes: 12,165
16. Payback: Straight Up (2006 Video)
Unrated | 90 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Porter is shot by his wife and best friend and is left to die. When he survives he plots revenge.
Director: Brian Helgeland | Stars: Mel Gibson, Gregg Henry, Maria Bello, David Paymer
Votes: 6,188
17. Harper (1966)
Not Rated | 121 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Cool private investigator Lew Harper is hired by a wealthy California matron to locate her kidnapped husband.
Director: Jack Smight | Stars: Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, Arthur Hill
Votes: 10,844
18. The Aura (2005)
Not Rated | 134 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A deluded taxidermist plans the perfect crime.
Director: Fabián Bielinsky | Stars: Ricardo Darín, Manuel Rodal, Dolores Fonzi, Mariana Malamud
Votes: 14,718 | Gross: $0.06M
19. A Bittersweet Life (2005)
Not Rated | 119 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Things go wrong for a high ranking mobster when he doesn't follow his boss's orders.
Directors: Jung Doo Hong, Jee-woon Kim | Stars: Lee Byung-hun, Shin Min-a, Kim Yeong-cheol, Hwang Jung-min
Votes: 42,858
20. The Hot Spot (1990)
R | 130 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
Upon arriving to a small town, a drifter quickly gets into trouble with the local authorities - and the local women - after he robs a bank.
Director: Dennis Hopper | Stars: Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, Jennifer Connelly, Charles Martin Smith
Votes: 13,467 | Gross: $1.29M
21. U Turn (1997)
R | 125 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A man heading to Vegas to pay off his gambling debt before the Russian mafia kills him is forced to stop in an Arizona town where everything that can go wrong does go wrong.
Director: Oliver Stone | Stars: Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Nolte, Billy Bob Thornton
Votes: 54,701 | Gross: $6.63M
22. Miami Blues (1990)
R | 97 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
An ex-con's first act of freedom is moving to Miami where he restarts his old criminal ways with even more potency.
Director: George Armitage | Stars: Fred Ward, Alec Baldwin, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Cecilia Pérez-Cervera
Votes: 10,144 | Gross: $9.89M
23. Brighton Rock (2010)
R | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Charts the headlong fall of Pinkie, a razor-wielding disadvantaged teenager with a religious death wish.
Director: Rowan Joffe | Stars: Sam Riley, Andrea Riseborough, Helen Mirren, John Hurt
Votes: 6,763
24. Phoenix (1998)
R | 107 min | Crime, Drama
A cop (Liotta) with a gambling addiction plots a theft from the bookies who are putting pressure on him to pay off or else.
Director: Danny Cannon | Stars: Ray Liotta, Anthony LaPaglia, Daniel Baldwin, Jeremy Piven
Votes: 4,342 | Gross: $0.04M
25. The Killer Inside Me (2010)
R | 109 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A West Texas Deputy Sheriff is slowly unmasked as a psychotic killer.
Director: Michael Winterbottom | Stars: Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba, Ned Beatty
Votes: 35,696 | Gross: $0.21M
26. Farewell, My Lovely (1975)
R | 95 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe is hired by paroled convict Moose Malloy to find his girlfriend Velma, former seedy nightclub dancer.
Director: Dick Richards | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Sylvia Miles
Votes: 9,563 | Gross: $4.36M
27. The Good German (2006)
R | 105 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
While in post-war Berlin to cover the Potsdam Conference, an American military journalist is drawn into a murder investigation that involves his former mistress and his driver.
Director: Steven Soderbergh | Stars: George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire, Beau Bridges
Votes: 26,064 | Gross: $1.31M
28. The American Friend (1977)
Not Rated | 128 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Tom Ripley, who deals in forged art, suggests a picture framer he knows would make a good hit man.
Director: Wim Wenders | Stars: Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz, Lisa Kreuzer, Gérard Blain
Votes: 18,438
29. Red Rock West (1993)
R | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Upon arriving to a small town, a drifter is mistaken for a hitman, but when the real hitman arrives, complications ensue.
Director: John Dahl | Stars: Nicolas Cage, Dennis Hopper, Lara Flynn Boyle, Craig Reay
Votes: 25,109 | Gross: $2.50M
30. Hollywoodland (2006)
R | 126 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
A detective examines the mysterious death of George Reeves, the star of the television series Adventures of Superman (1952).
Director: Allen Coulter | Stars: Adrien Brody, Ben Affleck, Diane Lane, Bob Hoskins
Votes: 35,919 | Gross: $14.42M
31. The Ice Harvest (2005)
R | 92 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
A shady lawyer attempts a Christmas Eve crime, hoping to swindle the local mob out of some money. But his partner, a strip club owner, might have different plans for the cash.
Director: Harold Ramis | Stars: John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Nielsen, Lara Phillips
Votes: 24,987 | Gross: $8.82M
32. Too Late (I) (2015)
Not Rated | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Explores the tangled relationship between a troubled private investigator and the missing woman he's hired to help find.
Director: Dennis Hauck | Stars: John Hawkes, Natalie Zea, Joanna Cassidy, Dichen Lachman
Votes: 3,906 | Gross: $0.06M
33. Twilight (1998)
R | 94 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A retired detective accepts a simple task, unaware that it will tear open old, forgotten, but deadly wounds.
Director: Robert Benton | Stars: Paul Newman, Susan Sarandon, Gene Hackman, Reese Witherspoon
Votes: 14,129 | Gross: $15.03M
34. Joy House (1964)
TV-MA | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A petty criminal seeks refuge in a house owned by two wealthy American women.
Director: René Clément | Stars: Alain Delon, Jane Fonda, Lola Albright, Carl Studer
Votes: 2,674
35. Breakdown (I) (1997)
R | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A man searches for his missing wife after his car breaks down in the middle of the desert.
Director: Jonathan Mostow | Stars: Kurt Russell, J.T. Walsh, Kathleen Quinlan, M.C. Gainey
Votes: 61,492 | Gross: $50.13M
36. Wheelman (2017)
TV-MA | 82 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A getaway driver for a bank robbery realizes he has been double crossed and races to find out who betrayed him.
Director: Jeremy Rush | Stars: Frank Grillo, Caitlin Carmichael, Garret Dillahunt, Shea Whigham
Votes: 22,254
37. Small Town Crime (2017)
R | 91 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
An alcoholic ex cop finds a woman on the roadside, left for dead. He offers to find the killer pro bono as P.I. Her granddad hires him. Things get nasty.
Directors: Eshom Nelms, Ian Nelms | Stars: John Hawkes, Anthony Anderson, Octavia Spencer, Robert Forster
Votes: 12,445
38. Goldstone (2016)
R | 110 min | Action, Crime, Mystery
Indigenous detective Jay Swan arrives in the town of Goldstone to search for a missing person, and his simple duty becomes complicated when he uncovers a web of crime and corruption.
Director: Ivan Sen | Stars: Aaron Pedersen, Alex Russell, Jacki Weaver, David Wenham
Votes: 6,228 | Gross: $0.09M
39. Serie Noire (1979)
Not Rated | 116 min | Crime, Drama
Franck Poupart is a slightly neurotic door-to-door salesman in a sinister part of Paris' suburbs. He meets Mona, a teenager, who's been made a prostitute by her own aunt. Franck would like ... See full summary »
Director: Alain Corneau | Stars: Patrick Dewaere, Myriam Boyer, Marie Trintignant, Bernard Blier
Votes: 3,504
40. This World, Then the Fireworks (1997)
R | 100 min | Crime, Drama
In 1950s, two incestuous lovers, a depraved suave journalist and his equally depraved prostitute sister, plan to get rich through seduction and murder. Things complicate when their feeble-minded mother begins to suspect something.
Director: Michael Oblowitz | Stars: Billy Zane, Gina Gershon, Christian Durango, Sloan Cobb
Votes: 1,324 | Gross: $0.01M
41. The Late Show (1977)
PG | 93 min | Comedy, Mystery, Thriller
A grumpy semi-retired private investigator partners with a quirky female client to catch the people who murdered his partner.
Director: Robert Benton | Stars: Art Carney, Lily Tomlin, Bill Macy, Eugene Roche
Votes: 3,291
42. Dragged Across Concrete (2018)
R | 159 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Once two overzealous cops get suspended from the force, they must delve into the criminal underworld to get their proper compensation.
Director: S. Craig Zahler | Stars: Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, Tory Kittles, Michael Jai White
Votes: 55,106
43. Gumshoe (1971)
GP | 86 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama
Inspired by his love for Dashiell Hammett novels, nightclub comedian Eddie Ginley puts an ad in the paper as a private eye. The case he gets turns out to be a strange setup and as he digs to the bottom of it his life starts falling apart.
Director: Stephen Frears | Stars: Albert Finney, Billie Whitelaw, Frank Finlay, Janice Rule
Votes: 1,791 | Gross: $0.14M
44. The Hit (1984)
R | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Ten years after ratting on his old mobster friends in exchange for personal immunity, two hit men drive a hardened criminal to Paris for his execution. However, while on the way, whatever can go wrong, does go wrong.
Director: Stephen Frears | Stars: Freddie Stuart, Ralph Brown, A.J. Clarke, Terence Stamp
Votes: 9,518 | Gross: $0.88M
45. The Burnt Orange Heresy (2019)
R | 99 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Hired to procure a rare painting from one of the most enigmatic painters of all time, an ambitious art scholar becomes consumed by his own greed and insecurity as the operation spins out of control.
Director: Giuseppe Capotondi | Stars: Claes Bang, Elizabeth Debicki, Mick Jagger, Donald Sutherland
Votes: 6,100
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