Slant Magazine The 100 Best Film Noirs of All Time
Created by espjoh.
Favorited 6 times, disliked 0 times, added to 7 watchlists.
Purists will argue that film noir was born in 1941 with the release of John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon and died in 1958 with Marlene Dietrich traipsing down a long, dark, lonely road at the end of Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil. And while this period contains the quintessence of what Italian-born French film critic Nino Frank originally characterized as film noir, the genre has always been in a constant state of flux, adapting to the different times and cultures out of which these films emerged.
Noir came into its own alongside the ravages of World War II, with the gangster and detective films of the era drastically transforming into something altogether new as the aesthetics of German Expressionism took hold in America, and in large part due to the influx of German expatriates like Fritz Lang. These already dark, hardboiled films suddenly gained a newfound viciousness and sense of ambiguity, their dangers and existential inquiries directed at audiences through canted camera angles and a shroud of smoke and shadows.
As the war reached its end stage, soldiers came home to find a once-unquestioned era of male authority put in the crosshairs of changing cultural norms. And in lockstep, the protagonists of many a noir began to feel as if they were living in a newly vulnerable world, taking cover beneath trench coats and fedoras, adopting cynical, wise-cracking personae, and packing heat at all times while remaining hyper-aware of the feminine dangers that surrounded them. Jean-Luc Godard once said that “all you need for a movie is a gun and a girl,” and in noir, the latter was often the most dangerous. Indeed, Barbara Stanwyck’s anklet in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and Ann Savage’s icy stare in Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour are as deadly as any bullet.
Our list acknowledges the classics of the genre, the big-budget studio noirs and the cheapest of B noirs made on the fringes of the Hollywood studio system. But we’ve also taken a more expansive view of noir, allowing room for supreme examples of the proto-noirs that anticipated the genre and the neo-noirs that resulted from the genre being rebooted in the midst of the Cold War, seemingly absorbing the world’s darkest and deepest fears. Then and now, the best examples of this genre continue to evoke—shrewdly and with the irrepressible passion of the dispossessed—humanity’s eternal fear of social disruption.
Filter
-
100 new
House of Bamboo
1955, in 3 top lists Check -
99 new
Varastettu kuolema
1938 — a.k.a. Stolen Death, in 2 top lists Check -
98 new
Brighton Rock
1948, in 8 top lists Check -
97 new
One False Move
1991, in 8 top lists Check -
96 new
Caught
1949, in 2 top lists Check -
95 new
While the City Sleeps
1956, in 5 top lists Check -
94 new
Der amerikanische Freund
1977 — a.k.a. The American Friend, in 8 top lists Check -
93 new
The Postman Always Rings Twice
1946, in 9 top lists Check -
92 new
The Asphalt Jungle
1950, in 15 top lists Check -
91 new
The Killers
1946, in 15 top lists Check -
90 new
Ascenseur pour l'échafaud
1958 — a.k.a. Elevator to the Gallows, in 10 top lists Check -
89 new
Odds Against Tomorrow
1959, in 3 top lists Check -
88 new
Pépé le Moko
1937, in 10 top lists Check -
87 new
The Hitch-Hiker
1953, in 7 top lists Check -
86 new
The Breaking Point
1950, in 3 top lists Check -
85 new
Inherent Vice
2014, in 6 top lists Check -
84 new
Ministry of Fear
1944, in 3 top lists Check -
83 new
The Crimson Kimono
1959, in 1 top list Check -
82 new
Le deuxième souffle
1966 — a.k.a. Second Breath, in 5 top lists Check -
81 new
La nuit du carrefour
1932 — a.k.a. Night at the Crossroads, in 4 top lists Check -
80 new
The Sound of Fury
1950, in 2 top lists Check -
79 new
The Big Knife
1955, in 3 top lists Check -
78 new
Where the Sidewalk Ends
1950, in 3 top lists Check -
77 new
The Big Lebowski
1998, in 26 top lists Check -
76 new
White Heat
1949, in 15 top lists Check -
75 new
L.A. Confidential
1997, in 27 top lists Check -
74 new
The Fallen Idol
1948, in 10 top lists Check -
73 new
Mauvais sang
1986 — a.k.a. Mauvais Sang, in 5 top lists Check -
72 new
You and Me
1938, in 3 top lists Check -
71 new
La bête humaine
1938 — a.k.a. The Human Beast, in 9 top lists Check -
70 new
Raw Deal
1948, in 5 top lists Check -
69 new
The Stranger
1946, in 3 top lists Check -
68 new
Quai des Orfèvres
1947 — a.k.a. Jenny Lamour, in 7 top lists Check -
67 new
Crime Wave
1953, in 2 top lists Check -
66 new
The Phenix City Story
1955, in 6 top lists Check -
65 new
The Tall Target
1951, in 2 top lists Check -
64 new
Ossessione
1943, in 12 top lists Check -
63 new
Fargo
1996, in 27 top lists Check -
62 new
Kansas City Confidential
1952, in 3 top lists Check -
61 new
Vertigo
1958, in 42 top lists Check -
60 new
Panique
1946, in 5 top lists Check -
59 new
The Prowler
1951, in 4 top lists Check -
58 new
Cutter's Way
1981, in 6 top lists Check -
57 new
The Big Combo
1955, in 7 top lists Check -
56 new
Basic Instinct
1992, in 10 top lists Check -
55 new
The Naked Kiss
1964, in 6 top lists Check -
54 new
Side Street
1950, in 2 top lists Check -
53 new
Mildred Pierce
1945, in 17 top lists Check -
52 new
Blood Simple
1984, in 10 top lists Check -
51 new
Gun Crazy
1950, in 17 top lists Check
Last updated on Apr 17, 2019; source