The 20 Best Noir Movies Ever Made, Ranked

Noir was coined in 1946 by a group of French critics of Cahiers Du Cinema to describe the black-and-white Hollywood production code that followed some stories, including movement and execution. Hollywood films had stark contrasts and dark shadows that were taken from German expressionism films, where art was an essential element. Sounds Perfect! Noir does have an amazing list of movies ever made.

They used light clouds and mise-en-scene to heighten the emotion and induce the emotion in the audience that they wanted them to feel and communicate. The movie’s theme was pessimistic and included anti-heroes and femme Fatales.

Most noir films are adapted from novels and stories. Noir movies were considered B-grade films because of the seductive plots using women for seduction. But then, these movies had unexpected plot twists and would excite the audience. Noir films were also used to comment on and show the after-effects of World war ii and the emergence of the cold war.

Filmmaker views

Many noir films couldn’t do wonders when they were released, but they became excellent film noir movies that are learned and seen to date. Filmmakers today make inferences from those films to make crime or gangster films to attract an audience.

Films in the noir genre are an essential movement because they brought out the expressionist movement to the forefront in a different way.

The use of shadows, the use of time, the use of action. In all the films, you will find a private investigator, a female actress trying to seduce, or a man falling for the lady, and the story unravels.

The movie noir genre included gamblers, alcoholics, thieves, dancers, and desperate genders, which the film before couldn’t.

Jean Luc Godard commented on this movement and said that the only thing needed to make a movie is a gun and a girl, which was the case in noir films and is why it became popular.

These films were inexpensive to make and attracted the maximum crowd due to the controversial, action, girl, and gun plot it cast the stars. Film Noir Genre included Los Angeles a lot which would be the conventional noir set up for the film, thus showing the life there.

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Noir films also had a sub-category called neo-noir, which we get to see in today’s movies that use noir elements. Many classic film noir has a noir canon: stories and characters depicting cynical attitudes and motives. Several aspiring screenwriters grew out because of this movement and its popularity. This movement also gave birth to a new visual style in films today.

It can be said that the noir age was a golden age for American movies. Noir, even though a low-grade film in consideration, became a part of the film history that aspiring directors and filmmakers read today.

Film noirs like Kiss Me Deadly, Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Big Sleep, Touch Of Evil, and Asphalt Jungle, have given us stories including lonely places and small towns, which was common in other films too.

Still, in noir, it had a storyline that always would include investigators like insurance investigators or some other femme fatale. In addition, it has given us personalities like Stanley Kubrick, Philip Marlowe, and Jane Greer. This movement also became the directorial debut for several.

Today’s article will share with you some film noirs or a list of best noir films you must watch once in your life to explore the crime.

A thriller not just because of the story but the use of light, camera movements, drama, shadow, heightened emotion, and music score that is too difficult to find in the movie today or can be found in neo-noir films.

20. The Prowler

Directed By: Joseph Losey
Written By: Dalton Trumbo and Hugo Butler
Cast: Van Heflin, Evelyn Keyes, John Maxwell, Katherine Warren, Emerson Treacy, Madge Blake
IMDB Rating: 7.2/10
Where To Watch: Amazon Prime Video.

The Prowler is an American film noir thriller. This film has affected several, as the Hollywood Blacklist blacklisted many who worked on this film. Another femme fatale movie revolves around a cop who needs to investigate a report of a peeping tom or vouyer reported by a woman whose husband works at Night as a radio personality.

The cop falls in love with the woman and asks her out, though initially, she rejects her but later, they get involved in adultery. This movie is not the simple drama of an affair as the husband is out but has horror elements in it.

The husband is possessive and doesn’t trust and asks to listen to his show at NightNight and signs off from the show with a creepy ending line. The woman’s loneliness is taken advantage of.

The film shows fear of invasion, being caught, manipulation, and taking advantage of a woman by keeping an eye on her. If you have seen Psycho, do remember that this film is, in a way, an inspiration for the shower scene.

19. Detour

Directed by: Edgar G Ulmer
Written By: Martin Goldsmith and Martin Mooney
Cast: Tom Neal, Ann Savage
IMDB Rating: 7.3/10
Where To Watch: The film has been made available on public domains for free

The film is based on the novel of the same name by Martin Goldsmith. As the name suggests, this film is a detour based on a tour that changes everything. It revolves around a hitchhiker who is incapable of stopping the events that are taking place since he has taken the ride from a driver on the highway who eventually dies.

He takes everything from that dead man, including his identity, and drives away, intending to leave the car near Los Angeles. He then picks up a woman who finds out the truth and starts blackmailing him. However, the story does not end here. Trust me, and there is another tour in the film, which you must find out by watching because it can be a spoiler.

The Library of Congress also preserved this film in National Film Registry.

18. Criss Cross

Directed By: Robert Siodmak
Written By: Daniel Fuchs
Cast: Robert Mitchum, Burt Lancaster, Yvonne de Carlo, Dan Duryea
IMDB Rating: 7.4/10
Where To Watch: The film can be rented on Google play

The film is based on a novel of the same name by Don Tracy. This movie, in particular, gained attention for Burt Lancaster, the he-man of that time with the femme Fatales. This film is also a heist film noir that goes wrong as Lancaster is caught in by his ex-wife. the film has double-crossed, and you will find out once you see it

The movie is quite famous for the track shot and the dreamy flashbacks. The film is a melodrama about gangsters filled with suspense and action.

17. They Live By Night

Directed by: Nicholas Ray
Written By: Charles Schnee and Nicholas Ray
Cast: Cathy O’Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva, Jay C.Flippen, Helen Craig, Ian Wolfe
IMDB Rating: 7.4/10
Where To Watch: The film can be watched on Mubi, Dailymotion.com, and Amazon Prime Videos.

They live by the Night is Nicholas’s debut feature film and is based on the Thieves By Us written by Edward Anderson. This is a film noir that revolves around a young couple who are running from their past. At the young age of 16, the boy killed his father’s murderer and was imprisoned.

However, he was wrongly convicted of the crime and escaped jail with some bank robbers. His young blood and loyalty led him to join the robbers in a crime. While on a hideout, he falls in love with a woman and tries to start a life with her.

The energy does not turn out easy for him. Things go as planned but with some mishaps, which leads the boy to run with the woman to start a new life.

The film bonds the audience with its music, camera movements, and lighting. The film is romantic, with crime attached to it.

16. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Directed By: Robert Aldrich
Written By: A.I. Bezzerides and Robert Aldrich
Cast: Ralph Meeker, Maxine Cooper, Paul Stewart, Albert Dekker, Cloris Leachman, Marian Carr.
IMDB Rating: 7.5/10
Where To Watch: The film can be watched on MX Player, Directv

Kiss Me Deadly is an independent American film noir loosely based on the novel of the same name written by Mickey Spillane. The story revolves around a private detective in Los Angeles who is out on a search to take revenge for a murder that happened while he was unconscious as a woman tortured to death whom he picked up from the road.

This film brings out the emotion of anxiety and paranoia among the audience and shows the situation of America under Eisenhower.

This film is considered one of the essential noir films but, at the same time, has been criticized for being a bad influence on the youth. Nevertheless, this movie played a huge role in the life of renowned directors like Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and Quentin Tarantino.

Therefore, the movie is kept as a culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant work in the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

15. Gun Crazy

Directed by: Joseph H Lewis
Written By: Dalton Trumbo and MacKinlay Kantor
Cast: Peggy Cummins and John Dall
IMDB Rating: 7.6/10
Where To Watch: The movie can be rented on Google Play

The film is a crime film noir based on the Gun Crazy story in Saturday Evening Post by MacKinlay Kantor. The story is about the crime heist of a couple with guns.

As the film’s poster says, it is thrill crazy and kill-crazy; it is indeed crazy as you learn from the flashbacks and the events that eventually occur. The Library of Congress also preserves this film in National Film Registry.

14. Nightmare Alley

Directed by: Edmund Goulding
Written By: Jules Furthman.
Cast: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, and Helen Walker
IMDB Rating: 7.7/10
Where To Watch: The film is available for free on public domains

Nightmare Alley is a film noir based on the novel of the same name written by William Lindsay Gresham. The story revolves around a hustler working hard to reach a successful societal position.

He does everything he can, which includes murder as well. He is a carnival barker who takes his set to the city after something that you have to find out after watching the film. The film does not talk about murder much but about what happens after that, which leads the barker back to where he was.

Nightmare Alley, in a way, shows the life circle where you come back to the place from where you started. The film did not do much when it was released but ended up becoming a classic film noir.

13. The Asphalt Jungle

Directed by: John Huston
Written By: Ben Meadow and John Huston
Cast: Marilyn Monroe, Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, Sam Jaffe, James Whitmore
IMDB Rating; 7.8/10
Where To Watch: The film can be rented on Google Play

The Asphalt jungles heist film noir is based on the novel of the same name by W.R.Burnett. The story is of a jewel robbery. The film includes proper planning and preparation for a jewelry heist by a newly released criminal mastermind from prison that eventually goes wrong. This is one of the best heist films with noir elements. It is also one of its first works of Monroe.

The Library of Congress also preserved this film in National Film Registry.

12. Scarlet Street

Directed by: Fritz Lang
Written By: Dudley Nichols
Cast: Edward G Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Rosalind Ivan, Margaret Lindsay, Jess Barker
IMDB Rating: 7.8/10
Where To Watch: The film can be watched on Classix, MX Player, and Tubi

The film noir is based on a french novel called La Chienne by George de La Foucardiere and revolves around the story of two criminals taking advantage of a middle-aged painter. They want to steal his artwork for their benefit. It might sound like a simple story but is dark indeed.

The thieves think that the older man is rich, but it is a wrong assumption because all the money is with his wife. The middle-aged man feels for the young woman (one of the criminals), but he cannot show that as they ask for things in the assumption that the man is rich.

The craze that the middle-aged man has leads him to do things like murder and disgrace just to please the woman is what captures the interest of the audience.

11. The Big Heat

Directed By: Fritz Lang
Written By: Sydney Boehm
Cast: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando
IMDB Rating: 7.9/10
Where To Watch: The film can be watched on Apple Tv and can be rented on Google Play Movies and TV and YouTube

The Big Heat is an American Noir film based on crime. The film is loosely based on the Saturday Evening Post ad novel by William P. McGivern. The story is about a cop on a mission to clean the city. However, he is called to investigate the suicide of his fellow officer.

The film is based on crime and thriller and is also preserved in the US US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

10. Laura

Directed by: Otto Preminger
Written By: Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffesnstein, Elizabeth Reinhardt and Ring Lardner Jr.
Cast: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson, Grant Mitchell
IMDB Rating: 7.9/10
Where To Watch: The film can be rented on Google Play

The story is adapted from the novel of the same name by Vera Caspary. It revolves around a detective working on a murder mystery and eventually falls in love with the dead woman he is investigating.

As we discussed at the beginning, noir films use women as mere objects for men to express their desires, so here also, the detective does the same no matter if the woman is dead. The twist happened when the dead woman appeared one NightNight when the investigator was sleeping by her portrait.

This makes the whole situation not just complicated to find out who died but also to find out who was killed.

The film includes love, passion, jealousy, twists, crime, and everything that packs a movie together, especially a noir film. The Library of Congress also preserved Laura in National Film Registry. It is considered one of the ten best mystery films.

9. Night And The City

Directed by: Jules Dassin
Written By: Austin Dempster and William E Watts
Cast: Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers, Hugh Marlow, Stanislaus Zbyszko, Herbert Lom
IMDB Rating; 7.9/10
Where To Watch: The film can be rented on Google Play

The film is based on the novel of the same name by Gerald Kersh. This film is shot in London, and the story revolves around a hustler and con man who is very ambitious but meets continuous failures.

The film is known for the long fight scene, which is quite challenging and includes a famous wrestler Stanislaus Zbyszko. In this film, you can find the hustler running all the time from someone or something as things always go out of his control.

The director of the movie said that he never read the novel on which the film is based.

8. The Big Sleep (1946)

Directed By: Howard Hawks
Written By: William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Martha Vickers, Dorothy Malone
IMDB Rating: 7.9/10
Where To Watch: The film can be watched on Amazon Prime Videos and can be rented on Google Play

The American film noir Big Sleep is based on Raymond chandler’s novel of the same name. The story includes a detective solving gambling debts between a father and their young daughter. As he leaves, he is stopped by the eldest daughter as she finds out the real motive behind hiring the detective. The crime occurs at the bookstore nearby, leading to a series of events that cannot be missed at any cost.

The story is about the investigation process, not the result it brings and includes the ultimate femme fatale. The Library of Congress also preserved this film in National Film Registry.

7. The Maltese Falcon

Directed by: John Huston
Written By: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Mary Astor, Elisha Cook Jr, Lee Patrick
IMDB Rating: 8/10
Where To Watch: The film can be rented on Google Play and can be watched on Amazon Prime Videos

The film is a heist film based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett of the same name. This film noir is the debut of John as director John Huston. Humphrey Bogart, as the private investigator, deals with jewelry heists.

He tries to investigate the death of his partner, who becomes a heist for jewelry, the Maltese Falcon. In his hunt, he meets other characters who are on the hunt for the falcon just like him.

The film is entertaining as we see different characters on the hunt with an investigator who is simultaneously shown as cynical and romantic.

6. Touch Of Evil

Directed By: Orson Welles
Written By: Orson Welles
Cast: Orson welles, Janet Leigh, Marlene Dietrich, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff Valentin de Vargas
IMDB Rating: 8/10
Where To Watch: The film can be rented on Google Play and can be watched on Amazon Prime Videos

The movie is loosely based on the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson. The movie is known to show complex shots of that time, with beautiful images being juxtaposed. The film includes explosion, romance, and adventure.

In addition, the film is acclaimed for using crane shots in a way never used before. In the movie, a car bomb explosion occurs on the US/Mexico border on the American side. As the investigation starts, it can be seen that an innocent man is being framed for the incident.

The film shows beautiful shots with everything you need in a movie. The film also comments on Corruption in society. The Library of Congress also preserves this film in National Film Registry.

5. The Sweet Smell Of Success

Directed By: Alexander Mackendrick
Written By: Clifford Odets, Ernest Lehman, Alexander Mackendrick. It i
Cast: Burt Lancaster. Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Miller, Chico Hamilton, James Hill
IMDB Rating: 8/10
Where To Watch; Apple Tv

The sweet smell of success is one movie set out in Los Angele. It is based on the novel named Tell me About It Tomorrow by Ernest Lehman. It is a shadowy noir film in New York.

The story is set on the premise of an influential columnist who uses his power and connection to ruin his sister’s life by destroying her relationship with a man as he is not worthy enough for him.

This film was also not received well in the beginning when it was released but then gradually picked up and got high acclaim. The Library of Congress also preserved this movie in National Film Registry

4. The Third Man (1949)

Directed by: Carol Reed
Written By: Graham Greene
Cast: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard, Oswald Hafenrichter, and Bernard Lee
IMDB Rating: 8.1/10
Where To Watch: The movie is available on Dailymotion and can be rented on Google Play

The film noir Third Man revolves around an American who has come to Vienna to take up a job with his friend but finds out that his friend is dead. The death seems suspicious to him, and thus he decides to stay back and investigate the matter.

The Third man as a movie has used influences of german expressionism in cinematography. The main feature of this film is harsh light from, dutch angle to give the audience a sense of suspicion, thrill, scare, and something unusual and wrong.

The film shows the situation in Vienna post-war and the beginning of the cold war, which also acts as a commentary on the situation. This film garnered a lot of acclaim and was considered the second-best British film ever made

3. Vertigo

Directed By: Alfred Hitchcock
Written By: Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor
Cast: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Tom Helmore, Barbara Bel Geddes, Henry Jones
IMDB Rating: 8.3/10
Where To Watch: The film can be watched on Apple Tv and can be rented on Google Play Movies and TV and YouTube

Vertigo is based on a D’entre Les Morts (From Among The Dead) by Pierre Boileau Thomas Narcejac. It is a psychological thriller by one of the greatest directors.

The film noir revolves around a police detective named John Scottie Ferguson, who has retired due to acrophobia and vertigo during an incident. He gets hired by Gavin, known as a private detective, to follow his wife, who has been acting strange lately.

This film is credited with using the dolly zoom for the first time to create disorientation for presenting the vertigo effect on screen. The film is one of the greatest works of Hitchcock. This film is also preserved in the US US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

2. Double Indemnity (1944)

Directed By: Billy Wilder
Written By: Billy Wilder and Raymond chandler
Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Edward G.Robinson, Jean Heather, Porter Hall, Byron Barr
IMDB Rating: 8.3/10
Where To Watch: The film is available on Amazon Prime Videos, Vudu, Roku

The film noir is adapted from the novel of the same name, Double Indemnity, written by James M. Cain. The film has been hailed as one of the best films to date, be it in terms of filmmaking or story, or execution.

The story is about a woman who joins hands with an insurance salesperson to kill her husband to get the comprehensive policy. the audience sees all everything at the beginning, and then the narration begins

1. Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Directed By: Billy Wilder
Written By: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, D.M. Marshman Jr.
Cast: Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich Von Stroheim, Nancy Olsen, Jack Webb, Fred Clark.
IMDB Rating: 8.4/10
Platform : The film can be watched on Amazon Prime Videos.

Another groundbreaking film-noir named Sunset Boulevard by Wilder. The movie is a black comedy that tells the sad story of stardom that has faded. The film opens with the floating dead guy in a swimming pool and then from the narration audience learns the reason behind it.

The floating dead guy was a screenwriter struggling for that one break that could change everything. He finally gets employed by a former star who wants to return to the screen. The story starts taking twists; once he gets used as the former actress, he gets possessive and dominating, and he is not being able to escape.

This film has shown Hollywood’s realities that try to keep the truth away and show the good side. It also shows how everyone in Hollywood wants to stay in the limelight.

The name given to the film is a clever choice to hint that it is about Hollywood. It is a Hollywood story in a noir style. The Library of Congress also preserved this film in the National Film Registry.