Best of Film-Noir
by elephant999 | created - 04 Mar 2014 | updated - 30 Jul 2017 | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir
A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson
Votes: 236,367
10/10
2. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A self-proclaimed preacher marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real dad hid the $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
Director: Charles Laughton | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason
Votes: 97,308 | Gross: $0.65M
10/10
3. The Killers (1946)
Passed | 103 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Hit men kill an unresisting victim, and investigator Reardon uncovers his past involvement with beautiful, deadly Kitty Collins.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Dekker
Votes: 23,627
10/10
4. Psycho (1960)
R | 109 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller
A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin
Votes: 718,066 | Gross: $32.00M
10/10
5. Double Indemnity (1944)
Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, an insurance investigator.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Byron Barr
Votes: 167,410 | Gross: $5.72M
10/10
6. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Passed | 100 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
San Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre
Votes: 166,535 | Gross: $2.11M
10/10
7. Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A writer falls in love with a young socialite and they're soon married, but her obsessive love for him threatens to be the undoing of them both as well as everyone around them.
Director: John M. Stahl | Stars: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price
Votes: 14,770
10/10
8. Mildred Pierce (1945)
Approved | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A hard-working mother inches towards disaster as she divorces her husband and starts a successful restaurant business to support her spoiled daughter.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden
Votes: 28,646
10/10
9. Laura (1944)
Passed | 88 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he is investigating.
Directors: Otto Preminger, Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price
Votes: 51,402 | Gross: $4.36M
10/10
10. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Passed | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A married woman and a drifter fall in love and then plot to murder her husband.
Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn
Votes: 22,871 | Gross: $8.33M
10/10
11. Out of the Past (1947)
Approved | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A private eye escapes his past to run a gas station in a small town, but his past catches up with him. Now he must return to the big city world of danger, corruption, double crosses, and duplicitous dames.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming
Votes: 40,898
10/10
12. Murder, My Sweet (1944)
Approved | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger
Votes: 14,702
10/10
13. Gilda (1946)
Approved | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A small-time gambler hired to work in a Buenos Aires casino discovers his employer's new wife is his former lover.
Director: Charles Vidor | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready, Joseph Calleia
Votes: 35,254
10/10
14. Rear Window (1954)
PG | 112 min | Mystery, Thriller
A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his Greenwich Village courtyard apartment window and, despite the skepticism of his fashion-model girlfriend, becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter
Votes: 521,916 | Gross: $36.76M
10/10
15. Vertigo (1958)
PG | 128 min | Mystery, Romance, Thriller
A former San Francisco police detective juggles wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with the hauntingly beautiful woman he has been hired to trail, who may be deeply disturbed.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore
Votes: 426,764 | Gross: $3.20M
10/10
16. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Passed | 108 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
A teenage girl, overjoyed when her favorite uncle comes to visit the family in their quiet California town, slowly begins to suspect that he is in fact the "Merry Widow" killer sought by the authorities.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Macdonald Carey, Henry Travers
Votes: 70,481
10/10
17. The Big Heat (1953)
Passed | 89 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
Tough cop Dave Bannion takes on a politically powerful crime syndicate.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby
Votes: 29,155
10/10
18. Touch of Evil (1958)
PG-13 | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping and police corruption in a Mexican border town.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Janet Leigh, Joseph Calleia
Votes: 109,788 | Gross: $2.24M
10/10
19. The Lost Weekend (1945)
Passed | 101 min | Drama, Film-Noir
The desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four-day drinking bout.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard Da Silva
Votes: 40,180 | Gross: $9.46M
10/10
20. Rebecca (1940)
Approved | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance
A self-conscious woman juggles adjusting to her new role as an aristocrat's wife and avoiding being intimidated by his first wife's spectral presence.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson
Votes: 146,675 | Gross: $4.36M
10/10
21. The Big Sleep (1946)
Passed | 114 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a wealthy family. Before the complex case is over, he's seen murder, blackmail and what might be love.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers
Votes: 90,500 | Gross: $6.54M
10/10
22. The Letter (1940)
Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The wife of a rubber plantation administrator shoots a man to death and claims it was self-defense, but a letter written in her own hand may prove her undoing.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Bette Davis, Herbert Marshall, James Stephenson, Frieda Inescort
Votes: 14,594
10/10
23. Gaslight (1944)
Passed | 114 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Ten years after her aunt was murdered in their London home, a woman returns from Italy in the 1880s to resume residence with her new husband. His obsessive interest in the home rises from a secret that may require driving his wife insane.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Charles Boyer, Ingrid Bergman, Joseph Cotten, May Whitty
Votes: 33,875
10/10
24. Strangers on a Train (1951)
PG | 101 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A psychopathic man tries to forcibly persuade a tennis star to agree to his theory that two strangers can get away with murder by submitting to his plan to kill the other's most-hated person.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll
Votes: 140,976 | Gross: $7.63M
10/10
25. The Blue Gardenia (1953)
Not Rated | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A telephone operator ends up drunk and at the mercy of a cad in his apartment. The next morning she wakes up with a hangover and the terrible fear she may be a murderess.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Anne Baxter, Richard Conte, Ann Sothern, Raymond Burr
Votes: 6,191
10/10
26. Sudden Fear (1952)
Approved | 110 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
After an ambitious actor insinuates himself into the life of a wealthy middle-aged playwright and marries her, he plots with his mistress to murder her.
Director: David Miller | Stars: Joan Crawford, Jack Palance, Gloria Grahame, Bruce Bennett
Votes: 7,336
10/10
27. Blade Runner (1982)
R | 117 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
A blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.
Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos
Votes: 822,854 | Gross: $32.87M
10/10
28. No Way Out (1950)
Passed | 106 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Two hoodlum brothers are brought into a hospital for gunshot wounds, and when one of them dies the other accuses their black doctor of murder.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Sidney Poitier
Votes: 6,277
10/10
29. Notorious (1946)
Not Rated | 102 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
The daughter of a convicted German spy is asked by American agents to gather information on a ring of German scientists in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern
Votes: 107,243 | Gross: $10.46M
10/10
30. Detective Story (1951)
Approved | 103 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
On one day in the 21st Precinct squad room, assorted characters form a backdrop for the troubles of hard-nosed Detective Jim McLeod.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, William Bendix, Cathy O'Donnell
Votes: 9,483
10/10
31. The Stranger (1946)
Passed | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An investigator from the War Crimes Commission travels to Connecticut to find an infamous Nazi.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Philip Merivale
Votes: 28,707
10/10
32. Caged (1950)
Not Rated | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A gentle, naive, pregnant 19-year-old widow is slowly, inexorably ground down by the hardened criminals, sadistic guards, and matron at a woman's prison. Will she be the same person when her sentence is up?
Director: John Cromwell | Stars: Eleanor Parker, Agnes Moorehead, Ellen Corby, Hope Emerson
Votes: 4,704
10/10
33. Possessed (1947)
Approved | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
After being found wandering the streets of Los Angeles, a severely catatonic woman tells a doctor the complex story of how she wound up there.
Director: Curtis Bernhardt | Stars: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks
Votes: 5,911 | Gross: $1.99M
10/10
34. The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Passed | 112 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A major heist goes off as planned, but then double crosses, bad luck and solid police work cause everything to unravel.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore
Votes: 29,937
10/10
35. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
Passed | 126 min | Adventure, Drama, Western
Two down-on-their-luck Americans searching for work in 1920s Mexico convince an old prospector to help them mine for gold in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett
Votes: 132,400 | Gross: $5.01M
10/10
36. Purple Noon (1960)
PG-13 | 118 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Tom Ripley is a talented mimic, moocher, forger and all-around criminal improviser; but there's more to Tom Ripley than even he can guess.
Director: René Clément | Stars: Alain Delon, Maurice Ronet, Marie Laforêt, Erno Crisa
Votes: 19,341
9/10
37. Key Largo (1948)
Approved | 100 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A man visits his war buddy's family hotel and finds a gangster running things. As a hurricane approaches, the two end up confronting each other.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore
Votes: 43,965
9/10
38. The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
Not Rated | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Fascinated by gorgeous Mrs. Bannister, seaman Michael O'Hara joins a bizarre yachting cruise, and ends up mired in a complex murder plot.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane, Glenn Anders
Votes: 33,297 | Gross: $0.01M
9/10
39. Scarlet Street (1945)
Approved | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A man in mid-life crisis befriends a young woman, though her fiancé persuades her to con him out of the fortune they mistakenly assume he possesses.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Margaret Lindsay
Votes: 19,170
9/10
40. The Woman in the Window (1944)
Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
When a conservative middle aged professor engages in a relationship with a femme fatale, he's plunged into a nightmarish world of blackmail and murder.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Edmund Breon
Votes: 17,769
9/10
41. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
Unrated | 116 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A man is reunited with his childhood friend and her husband who believes he knows the truth about the death of her rich aunt years earlier.
Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas
Votes: 11,086
9/10
42. The Petrified Forest (1936)
Passed | 82 min | Drama, Thriller
A waitress, a hobo and a bank robber get mixed up at a lonely diner in the desert.
Director: Archie Mayo | Stars: Leslie Howard, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Genevieve Tobin
Votes: 14,928
9/10
43. On Dangerous Ground (1951)
Approved | 82 min | Drama, Film-Noir
Rough city cop Jim Wilson is disciplined by his captain and is sent upstate, to a snowy mountain town, to help the local sheriff solve a murder case.
Directors: Nicholas Ray, Ida Lupino | Stars: Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond, Charles Kemper
Votes: 8,061
9/10
44. Gun Crazy (1950)
Passed | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Two disturbed young people release their fascination with guns through a crime spree.
Director: Joseph H. Lewis | Stars: John Dall, Peggy Cummins, Berry Kroeger, Morris Carnovsky
Votes: 14,830
9/10
45. The Prowler (1951)
Approved | 92 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
After Susan Gilvray reports a prowler outside her house police officer Webb Garwood investigates and sparks fly. If only her husband wasn't in the way.
Director: Joseph Losey | Stars: Van Heflin, Evelyn Keyes, John Maxwell, Katherine Warren
Votes: 4,085
9/10
46. Suspicion (1941)
Approved | 99 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller
A shy young heiress marries a charming gentleman, and soon begins to suspect he is planning to murder her.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce
Votes: 42,406 | Gross: $4.50M
9/10
47. I Confess (1953)
Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A priest, who comes under suspicion for murder, cannot clear his name without breaking the seal of the confessional.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Montgomery Clift, Anne Baxter, Karl Malden, Brian Aherne
Votes: 23,242
9/10
48. Brute Force (1947)
Passed | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
At a tough penitentiary, prisoner Joe Collins plans to rebel against Captain Munsey, the power-mad chief guard.
Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford, Yvonne De Carlo
Votes: 11,536
9/10
49. Spellbound (1945)
Approved | 111 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Romance
A psychiatrist protects the identity of an amnesia patient accused of murder while attempting to recover his memory.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll
Votes: 52,222 | Gross: $7.00M
9/10
50. Party Girl (1958)
Approved | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Lawyer Tommy Farrell is a defender of crooks. Vicki Gaye encourages him to go straight, but mob king Rico Angelo insists otherwise.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Robert Taylor, Cyd Charisse, Lee J. Cobb, John Ireland
Votes: 3,746
8/10
51. I Want to Live! (1958)
Approved | 120 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
A prostitute, sentenced to death for murder, pleads her innocence.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Susan Hayward, Simon Oakland, Virginia Vincent, Theodore Bikel
Votes: 7,346
8/10
52. Body Heat (1981)
R | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
During an extreme heatwave, a beautiful Florida woman and a seedy lawyer engage in an affair while plotting the murder of her rich husband.
Director: Lawrence Kasdan | Stars: William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Richard Crenna, Ted Danson
Votes: 40,122 | Gross: $24.06M
8/10
53. Nobody Lives Forever (1946)
Approved | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Ex-GI Nick Blake gets involved in a scheme to fleece a rich, young widow, but finds himself falling for her, much to the displeasure of his racketeer cohorts.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: John Garfield, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Walter Brennan, Faye Emerson
Votes: 1,869
8/10
54. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)
Not Rated | 80 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A novelist aided by his future father-in-law conspires to frame himself for the murder of a burlesque dancer as part of an effort to ban capital punishment.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Dana Andrews, Joan Fontaine, Sidney Blackmer, Arthur Franz
Votes: 5,900
8/10
55. Johnny Eager (1941)
Passed | 107 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
The step-daughter of a district attorney falls in love with a gangster on parole who her father originally imprisoned.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Robert Taylor, Lana Turner, Edward Arnold, Van Heflin
Votes: 3,421
8/10
56. The Woman on the Beach (1947)
Approved | 71 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A Coast Guardsman suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress becomes involved with a beautiful and enigmatic seductress married to a blind painter.
Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Joan Bennett, Robert Ryan, Charles Bickford, Nan Leslie
Votes: 2,648
8/10
57. Champion (1949)
Passed | 99 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Sport
Boxer Midge Kelly rises to fame...mainly by stepping on other people.
Director: Mark Robson | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Arthur Kennedy, Marilyn Maxwell, Paul Stewart
Votes: 4,757
8/10
58. Fallen Angel (1945)
Approved | 98 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
A slick con man arrives in a small town looking to make some money, but soon gets more than he bargained for.
Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Charles Bickford
Votes: 6,512
8/10
59. Blow Out (1981)
R | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
A movie sound recordist accidentally records the evidence that proves that a car accident was actually murder and consequently finds himself in danger.
Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz
Votes: 63,225 | Gross: $13.75M
8/10
60. Portrait in Black (1960)
Approved | 112 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
After a married woman and her lover murder her cruel husband, they find themselves targeted by someone who is aware of their crime.
Director: Michael Gordon | Stars: Lana Turner, Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart, Sandra Dee
Votes: 1,788
8/10
61. Stage Fright (1950)
Approved | 110 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller
A struggling actress tries to help a friend prove his innocence after he's accused of murdering the husband of a high-society entertainer.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Marlene Dietrich, Jane Wyman, Richard Todd, Michael Wilding
Votes: 16,135
8/10
62. Deadline at Dawn (1946)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
After a woman he meets is murdered, a soon-to-ship-out sailor has until dawn to find the killer, aided by a weary dance hall girl.
Directors: Harold Clurman, William Cameron Menzies | Stars: Susan Hayward, Paul Lukas, Bill Williams, Joseph Calleia
Votes: 2,134
8/10
63. The Window (1949)
Approved | 73 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
To avoid the heat of a sweltering summer night a 9-year-old Manhattan boy decides to sleep on the fire escape and witnesses a murder, but no one will believe him.
Director: Ted Tetzlaff | Stars: Bobby Driscoll, Barbara Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Paul Stewart
Votes: 4,854
8/10
64. Tension (1949)
Passed | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A meek pharmacist creates an alternate identity under which he plans to murder the bullying liquor salesman who has become his wife's lover.
Director: John Berry | Stars: Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Cyd Charisse, Barry Sullivan
Votes: 3,575
8/10
65. Deception (1946)
Approved | 115 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Music
After marrying her long-lost love, a musician finds the relationship threatened by a wealthy composer who is besotted with her.
Director: Irving Rapper | Stars: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, John Abbott
Votes: 4,134
8/10
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