Sort by Popularity - Most Popular Film-Noir Movies and TV Shows tagged with keyword "blackmail"
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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: 236,516
2. 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: 141,048 | Gross: $7.63M
3. 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: 109,827 | Gross: $2.24M
4. 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: 90,534 | Gross: $6.54M
5. 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: 40,937
6. The Breaking Point (1950)
Approved | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An otherwise moral captain of a charter boat becomes financially strapped and is drawn into illegal activities in order to keep up payments on his boat.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: John Garfield, Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter, Juano Hernandez
Votes: 4,403
7. 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: 28,677
8. Dark Passage (1947)
Passed | 106 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
A man convicted of murdering his wife escapes from prison and works with a woman to try to prove his innocence.
Director: Delmer Daves | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bruce Bennett, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 21,982
9. 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: 29,185
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: 22,891 | Gross: $8.33M
11. The Dark Corner (1946)
Passed | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A secretary tries to help her boss who's been framed for murder.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: Lucille Ball, Clifton Webb, William Bendix, Mark Stevens
Votes: 5,207
12. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Approved | 96 min | Drama, Film-Noir
Powerful but unethical Broadway columnist J.J. Hunsecker coerces unscrupulous press agent Sidney Falco into breaking up his sister's romance with a jazz musician.
Director: Alexander Mackendrick | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner
Votes: 35,715
13. The Big Knife (1955)
Passed | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Hollywood actor Charles Castle is pressured by his studio boss into a criminal cover-up to protect his valuable career.
Director: Robert Aldrich | Stars: Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen
Votes: 4,267
14. 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: 14,604
15. 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: 16,157
16. 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: 19,200
17. All the King's Men (1949)
Approved | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir
The rise and fall of a corrupt politician, who makes his friends richer and retains power by dint of a populist appeal.
Director: Robert Rossen | Stars: Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Joanne Dru, John Derek
Votes: 16,594
18. Angels with Dirty Faces (1938)
Passed | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A priest tries to stop a gangster from corrupting a group of street kids.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan
Votes: 23,209
19. 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: 4,714
20. Nightmare Alley (1947)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir
The rise and fall of Stanton Carlisle, a mentalist whose lies and deceit prove to be his downfall.
Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker
Votes: 13,420
21. The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)
Not Rated | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An artist forms an attachment with a woman on holiday in the country. As the relationship develops, his behavior and information about his past cause her increasing concern.
Director: Peter Godfrey | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Barbara Stanwyck, Alexis Smith, Nigel Bruce
Votes: 4,907
22. 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: 14,703
23. 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: 17,785
24. Detour (1945)
Passed | 66 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The life of Al Roberts, a pianist in a New York nightclub, turns into a nightmare when he decides to hitchhike to Los Angeles to visit his girlfriend.
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer | Stars: Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake, Edmund MacDonald
Votes: 19,715 | Gross: $0.02M
25. Too Late for Tears (1949)
Not Rated | 99 min | Crime, Film-Noir
Through a fluke circumstance, a ruthless woman stumbles across a suitcase filled with $60,000, and is determined to hold onto it even if it means murder.
Director: Byron Haskin | Stars: Lizabeth Scott, Don DeFore, Dan Duryea, Arthur Kennedy
Votes: 5,695
26. Quicksand (1950)
Approved | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
After taking 20 dollars from his employer to go on a date with plans to repay it the next day, an auto mechanic falls into increasingly disastrous circumstances for more and more money which rapidly spirals out of his control.
Director: Irving Pichel | Stars: Mickey Rooney, Jeanne Cagney, Barbara Bates, Peter Lorre
Votes: 2,673
27. Human Desire (1954)
Not Rated | 91 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A Korean War vet returns to his job as a railroad engineer and becomes involved in an affair with a co-worker's wife following a murder on a train where they meet.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Broderick Crawford, Edgar Buchanan
Votes: 6,348
28. 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: 11,090
29. Pickup on South Street (1953)
Passed | 80 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
A pickpocket unwittingly lifts a message destined for enemy agents and becomes a target for a Communist spy ring.
Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye
Votes: 16,156
30. This Gun for Hire (1942)
Passed | 81 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
When assassin Philip Raven shoots a blackmailer and his beautiful female companion dead, he is paid off in marked bills by his treasonous employer who is working with foreign spies.
Director: Frank Tuttle | Stars: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar
Votes: 10,623
31. Violence (1947)
Passed | 72 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Undercover reporter Ann Mason infiltrates a neo-fascist group that recruits disgruntled veterans, but amnesia prevents her from exposing them.
Director: Jack Bernhard | Stars: Nancy Coleman, Michael O'Shea, Sheldon Leonard, Peter Whitney
Votes: 481
32. Road House (1948)
Passed | 95 min | Action, Drama, Film-Noir
A night club owner becomes infatuated with a torch singer and frames his best friend/manager for embezzlement when the chanteuse falls in love with him.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm, Richard Widmark
Votes: 3,161
33. The Blue Dahlia (1946)
Passed | 96 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
An ex-bomber pilot is suspected of murdering his unfaithful wife.
Director: George Marshall | Stars: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Howard Da Silva
Votes: 9,667 | Gross: $2.70M
34. Scandal Sheet (1952)
Passed | 82 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The editor of an exploitation newspaper commits a murder and assigns his protégé to investigate hoping to divert attention away from himself.
Director: Phil Karlson | Stars: John Derek, Donna Reed, Broderick Crawford, Rosemary DeCamp
Votes: 3,480
35. Confidential Report (1955)
Not Rated | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An elusive billionaire hires an American smuggler to investigate his past, leading to a dizzying descent into a cold-war European landscape.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Peter van Eyck, Michael Redgrave, Patricia Medina
Votes: 9,241
36. She Played with Fire (1957)
Approved | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An insurance investigator runs into an ex-girlfriend, who is still as beautiful as he remembered her, but is now married. He soon finds himself involved in arson, blackmail, and murder.
Director: Sidney Gilliat | Stars: Jack Hawkins, Arlene Dahl, Dennis Price, Violet Farebrother
Votes: 863
37. The Suspect (1944)
Passed | 85 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
An unhappily married man begins a flirtation with a younger woman. When his wife threatens to ruin her, he decides to take action.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Charles Laughton, Ella Raines, Dean Harens, Stanley Ridges
Votes: 3,548
38. Hollow Triumph (1948)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Pursued by the big-time gambler he robbed, John Muller assumes a new identity, with unfortunate results.
Directors: Steve Sekely, Paul Henreid | Stars: Paul Henreid, Joan Bennett, Eduard Franz, Leslie Brooks
Votes: 3,187
39. Flamingo Road (1949)
Approved | 94 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A corrupt small town sheriff manipulates local candidates to the state legislature but he eventually comes into conflict with a visiting carnival dancer.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Sydney Greenstreet, David Brian
Votes: 3,624 | Gross: $2.26M
40. A Woman's Face (1941)
Passed | 106 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
A female blackmailer with a disfiguring facial scar meets a plastic surgeon who offers her the possibility of looking like a normal woman.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Conrad Veidt, Osa Massen
Votes: 3,781
41. The Glass Key (1942)
Passed | 85 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A crooked politician finds himself being accused of murder by a gangster from whom he refused help during a re-election campaign.
Director: Stuart Heisler | Stars: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Brian Donlevy, Bonita Granville
Votes: 7,401
42. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)
Passed | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Wrongly convicted James Allen serves in the intolerable conditions of a Southern chain gang, which later comes back to haunt him.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Paul Muni, Glenda Farrell, Helen Vinson, Noel Francis
Votes: 14,438 | Gross: $1.42M
43. Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948)
Approved | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Fugitive Bill Saunders and lonely nurse Jane Wharton are crossed by fate when he hides out in her apartment.
Director: Norman Foster | Stars: Joan Fontaine, Burt Lancaster, Robert Newton, Lewis L. Russell
Votes: 2,155
44. Deadline - U.S.A. (1952)
Passed | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
With his newspaper about to be sold, crusading editor Ed Hutcheson tries to complete an exposé on gangster Rienzi.
Director: Richard Brooks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Ethel Barrymore, Kim Hunter, Ed Begley
Votes: 4,103
45. Unmasked (1950)
Approved | 60 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Roger Lewis, publisher of a vicious scandal sheet, is in the habit of tricking wealthy, gullible women into investing in his ventures. His latest conquest is a shapely ex-showgirl, Doris ... See full summary »
Director: George Blair | Stars: Robert Rockwell, Barbra Fuller, Raymond Burr, Hillary Brooke
Votes: 113
46. A Woman's Vengeance (1948)
Approved | 96 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A cheating husband is charged in the poisoning death of his invalid wife, in spite of other women and suicide also being suspected.
Director: Zoltan Korda | Stars: Charles Boyer, Ann Blyth, Jessica Tandy, Cedric Hardwicke
Votes: 824
47. Desert Fury (1947)
Approved | 96 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The daughter of a Nevada casino owner gets involved with a racketeer, despite everyone's efforts to separate them.
Director: Lewis Allen | Stars: John Hodiak, Lizabeth Scott, Burt Lancaster, Wendell Corey
Votes: 1,973
48. Whirlpool (1950)
Approved | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A woman suffering from kleptomania is hypnotized in an attempt to cure her. Soon afterwards, she's found at the scene of a murder with no memory of how she got there, and seemingly no way to prove her innocence.
Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Gene Tierney, Richard Conte, José Ferrer, Charles Bickford
Votes: 4,798
49. Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950)
Approved | 102 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
Starting with a violent prison break, clever, ruthless Ralph Cotter corrupts everyone around him.
Director: Gordon Douglas | Stars: James Cagney, Barbara Payton, Helena Carter, Ward Bond
Votes: 2,463
50. They Won't Believe Me (1947)
Approved | 95 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
On trial for murdering his girlfriend, philandering stockbroker Larry Ballentine takes the stand to claim his innocence and describe the actual, but improbable-sounding, sequence of events that led to her death.
Director: Irving Pichel | Stars: Robert Young, Susan Hayward, Jane Greer, Rita Johnson
Votes: 2,961