Top 50 Film-Noir Movies and TV Shows
1. Raw Deal (1948)
Not Rated | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Joe Sullivan (Dennis O'Keefe) has taken the rap for Rick (Raymond Burr) who double-crosses him with a flawed escape plan and other means intended to get rid of him.
Director: Anthony Mann | Stars: Dennis O'Keefe, Claire Trevor, Marsha Hunt, John Ireland
Votes: 4,898
2. Strangers on a Train (1951)
PG | 101 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A psychopath forces a tennis star to comply with his theory that two strangers can get away with murder.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll
Votes: 133,393 | Gross: $7.63M
3. The Third Man (1949)
Approved | 93 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller
Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.
Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard
Votes: 170,722 | Gross: $0.45M
4. 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: 219,886
5. 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: 30,410 | Gross: $0.01M
6. Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951)
Approved | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An ex-convict and a woman fall in love, after she shoots her police Lt. boyfriend dead in self defense, and falsely leads him to believe that he did the shooting.
Director: Felix E. Feist | Stars: Ruth Roman, Steve Cochran, Lurene Tuttle, Ray Teal
Votes: 1,425
7. 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: 8,534
8. The Killing (1956)
Approved | 84 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Crook Johnny Clay assembles a five-man team to plan and execute a daring racetrack robbery.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen
Votes: 89,391
9. Rebecca (1940)
Approved | 130 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
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: 136,360 | Gross: $4.36M
10. 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: 26,596
11. Lightning Strikes Twice (1951)
Passed | 91 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Sent to a dude ranch in the west to recover her health, a New York actress falls in love with a ranch owner recently acquitted of the murder of his wife.
Director: King Vidor | Stars: Richard Todd, Ruth Roman, Mercedes McCambridge, Zachary Scott
Votes: 944
12. 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: 156,011 | Gross: $5.72M
13. Mara Maru (1952)
98 min | Adventure, Crime, Drama
An American salvage diver plunges into dangerous intrigue around a sunken treasure in the Philippines.
Director: Gordon Douglas | Stars: Errol Flynn, Ruth Roman, Raymond Burr, Paul Picerni
Votes: 624
14. 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: 85,466 | Gross: $6.54M
15. 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: 104,168 | Gross: $2.24M
16. 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: 157,903 | Gross: $2.11M
17. Notorious (1946)
Not Rated | 102 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
The daughter of a convicted Nazi spy is asked by American agents to gather information on a ring of Nazi 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: 100,808 | Gross: $10.46M
18. Down Three Dark Streets (1954)
Passed | 85 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An FBI agent investigates the murder of his partner by taking over the 3 cases he was working on, determined to find his killer.
Director: Arnold Laven | Stars: Broderick Crawford, Ruth Roman, Martha Hyer, Marisa Pavan
Votes: 1,378
19. 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: 65,290
20. Niagara (1953)
Not Rated | 92 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
As two couples are visiting Niagara Falls, tensions between one wife and her husband reach the level of murder.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, Max Showalter
Votes: 17,523
21. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid the $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
Director: Charles Laughton | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason
Votes: 89,071 | Gross: $0.65M
22. 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: 12,963
23. The Man I Love (1946)
96 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Music
A homesick, no-nonsense, lounge singer decides to leave New York City to spend some time visiting her two sisters and brother on the West Coast, and eventually falling in love with down-and-out ex-jazz pianist.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Ida Lupino, Robert Alda, Andrea King, Martha Vickers
Votes: 1,102
24. 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: 4,204
25. Journey Into Fear (1943)
Approved | 68 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
An American ballistics expert in Turkey finds himself targeted by Nazi agents. Safe passage home by ship is arranged for him, but he soon discovers that his pursuers are also on board.
Directors: Norman Foster, Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dolores del Rio, Ruth Warrick
Votes: 4,370
26. Out of the Past (1947)
Not Rated | 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: 37,172
27. Key Largo (1948)
Not Rated | 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: 40,853
28. A Kiss Before Dying (1956)
Approved | 94 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
A ruthless college student resorts to murder in an attempt to marry an heiress.
Director: Gerd Oswald | Stars: Robert Wagner, Jeffrey Hunter, Virginia Leith, Joanne Woodward
Votes: 3,819
29. 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: 27,157
30. Cast a Dark Shadow (1955)
Approved | 82 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
A British fortune-hunter playboy is killing his rich wives in order to inherit their wealth.
Director: Lewis Gilbert | Stars: Dirk Bogarde, Margaret Lockwood, Kay Walsh, Kathleen Harrison
Votes: 2,471
31. 5 Steps to Danger (1956)
Approved | 81 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
During the 1950s, a man's car trip from L.A. to Texas turns into a Cold-War espionage drama when his car breaks down and he accepts a lift from a stranger.
Director: Henry S. Kesler | Stars: Ruth Roman, Sterling Hayden, Werner Klemperer, Richard Gaines
Votes: 1,013
32. The Unsuspected (1947)
Approved | 103 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
The secretary of an affably suave radio mystery host mysteriously commits suicide after his wealthy young niece disappears.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Claude Rains, Joan Caulfield, Audrey Totter, Constance Bennett
Votes: 3,242
33. In a Lonely Place (1950)
Not Rated | 94 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A potentially violent screenwriter is a murder suspect until his lovely neighbor clears him. However, she soon starts to have her doubts.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid
Votes: 31,566
34. They Drive by Night (1940)
Approved | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
When one of two truck-driving brothers loses an arm, they both join a transport company where the other is falsely charged as an accessory in the murder of the owner.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: George Raft, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino
Votes: 8,029
35. 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: 31,995
36. Laura (1944)
Passed | 88 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he is investigating.
Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price
Votes: 47,362 | Gross: $4.36M
37. Killer's Kiss (1955)
Not Rated | 67 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Ready to catch a train to his hometown, a washed-up boxer tells us about the strange and twisty events that happened to him the past couple of days.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Frank Silvera, Irene Kane, Jamie Smith, Jerry Jarrett
Votes: 23,992
38. To Have and Have Not (1944)
Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Comedy, Film-Noir
During World War II, American expatriate Harry Morgan helps transport a French Resistance leader and his beautiful wife to Martinique while romancing a sensuous lounge singer.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran
Votes: 34,639
39. Scarface (1932)
PG | 93 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An ambitious and nearly insane violent gangster climbs the ladder of success in the mob, but his weaknesses prove to be his downfall.
Directors: Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson | Stars: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Perkins
Votes: 27,945
40. 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: 12,087
41. 5 Against the House (1955)
Approved | 84 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Four vets attending college on the GI Bill and a cabaret singer try to rob a Reno Casino and pull off the perfect crime.
Director: Phil Karlson | Stars: Guy Madison, Kim Novak, Brian Keith, Alvy Moore
Votes: 1,778
42. 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: 32,271
43. 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: 38,437 | Gross: $4.50M
44. 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: 48,560 | Gross: $7.00M
45. The Wrong Man (1956)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama, Film-Noir
In 1953, an innocent man named Christopher Emanuel "Manny" Balestrero is arrested after being mistaken for an armed robber.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone
Votes: 28,552
46. Born to Be Bad (1950)
Approved | 94 min | Drama, Film-Noir
A woman's attempt to appear innocent and sweet clashes with her lover who sees through her act and the wealthy man she tries to trick into marrying her.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Mel Ferrer, Joan Fontaine, Robert Ryan, Zachary Scott
Votes: 2,400
47. 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: 21,300
48. 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: 25,901
49. No Way Out (1950)
Passed | 106 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Two hoodlums, brothers, are shot and wounded during an attempted robbery. They are taken to a nearby hospital where one brother dies. The surviving brother, a rabid racist, blames the African-American doctor for his death.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Sidney Poitier
Votes: 5,608
50. Scarlet Street (1945)
Approved | 102 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
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: 16,851