Top 50 Film-Noir Movies
1. Dial 1119 (1950)
Passed | 75 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
An escaped psychiatric patient causes havoc.
Director: Gerald Mayer | Stars: Marshall Thompson, Virginia Field, Andrea King, Sam Levene
Votes: 1,445
2. 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: 40,307 | Gross: $4.50M
3. 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: 226,944
4. 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: 162,309 | Gross: $2.11M
5. 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: 140,835 | Gross: $4.36M
6. 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: 175,413 | Gross: $0.45M
7. 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: 160,873 | Gross: $5.72M
8. 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: 92,380 | Gross: $0.65M
9. 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: 103,677 | Gross: $10.46M
10. 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: 27,375
11. 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: 92,677
12. 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: 106,960 | Gross: $2.24M
13. 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: 13,898 | Gross: $1.42M
14. 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: 38,957
15. Nora Prentiss (1947)
Passed | 111 min | Drama, Film-Noir
A doctor spins an ever-growing web of lies after a taste of the excitement that he was missing in his conventional life, thanks to a chance meeting with a nightclub singer.
Director: Vincent Sherman | Stars: Ann Sheridan, Kent Smith, Bruce Bennett, Robert Alda
Votes: 1,879
16. 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: 33,826
17. 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: 42,568
18. 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: 136,920 | Gross: $7.63M
19. 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: 88,008 | Gross: $6.54M
20. Knock on Any Door (1949)
Passed | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An attorney defends a hoodlum of murder, using the oppressiveness of the slums to appeal to the court.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, John Derek, George Macready, Allene Roberts
Votes: 3,942
21. Born to Kill (1947)
Approved | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A calculating divorcée risks her chances at wealth and security with a man she doesn't love by getting involved with the hotheaded murderer romancing her foster sister.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, Walter Slezak, Phillip Terry
Votes: 5,666
22. 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: 29,102
23. 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: 36,453
24. 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: 49,137 | Gross: $4.36M
25. Crossroads (1942)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An amnesiac French diplomat is blackmailed for crimes that he committed before he lost his memory.
Director: Jack Conway | Stars: William Powell, Hedy Lamarr, Claire Trevor, Basil Rathbone
Votes: 1,623
26. 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: 67,767
27. Call Northside 777 (1948)
Approved | 112 min | Drama, Film-Noir
Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal re-opens a decade-old murder case.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: James Stewart, Richard Conte, Lee J. Cobb, Helen Walker
Votes: 9,732
28. 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: 33,559
29. Stray Dog (1949)
Not Rated | 122 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
During a sweltering summer, a rookie homicide detective tries to track down his stolen Colt pistol.
Director: Akira Kurosawa | Stars: Toshirô Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji, Eiko Miyoshi
Votes: 17,991
30. 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: 38,678 | Gross: $9.46M
31. 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: 50,230 | Gross: $7.00M
32. 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: 33,151
33. 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: 3,372 | Gross: $2.26M
34. Ace in the Hole (1951)
Approved | 111 min | Drama, Film-Noir
A frustrated former big-city journalist now stuck working for an Albuquerque newspaper exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to rekindle his career, but the situation quickly escalates into an out-of-control circus.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall
Votes: 37,449 | Gross: $3.97M
35. 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: 29,880
36. 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: 21,017
37. 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: 22,626
38. 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: 4,587
39. The Naked City (1948)
Not Rated | 96 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A step-by-step look at a murder investigation on the streets of New York.
Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor
Votes: 14,525
40. White Heat (1949)
Not Rated | 114 min | Action, Crime, Drama
A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist.
Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly
Votes: 34,290
41. 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: 31,703 | Gross: $0.01M
42. Shanghai Express (1932)
Approved | 82 min | Adventure, Drama, Film-Noir
A notorious woman rides a train through a dangerous situation with a British captain she loved.
Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong, Warner Oland
Votes: 9,729
43. 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: 28,526
44. The Fallen Sparrow (1943)
Passed | 94 min | Film-Noir, Mystery
In 1940, an American former Republican prisoner during the Spanish Civil War, John McKittrick, is determined to find the killer of NYPD Lieutenant Louie Lepetino, who had helped him escape.
Director: Richard Wallace | Stars: John Garfield, Maureen O'Hara, Walter Slezak, Patricia Morison
Votes: 1,832
45. The File on Thelma Jordon (1949)
Passed | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Assistant district attorney Cleve Marshall falls for the mysterious Thelma Jordon when she seeks help solving robberies of her aunt's estate.
Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Wendell Corey, Paul Kelly, Joan Tetzel
Votes: 2,870
46. Tokyo Joe (1949)
Approved | 88 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An American returns to Tokyo try to pick up threads of his pre-WW2 life there, but finds himself squeezed between criminals and the authorities.
Director: Stuart Heisler | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Alexander Knox, Florence Marly, Sessue Hayakawa
Votes: 2,446
47. 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: 13,989
48. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Passed | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A married woman and a drifter fall in love, then plot to murder her husband.
Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn
Votes: 21,907 | Gross: $8.33M
49. Storm Warning (1950)
Approved | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Marsha Mitchell, a traveling dress model, stops in a southern town to see her sister who has married a Ku Klux Klansman. Marsha sees the KKK commit a murder and helps District Attorney Burt Rainey in bringing the criminals to justice.
Director: Stuart Heisler | Stars: Ginger Rogers, Ronald Reagan, Doris Day, Steve Cochran
Votes: 2,211
50. 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: 18,724