Curated List
Film Noir
Four films, 1931 to 1958
Film noir is a category applied after the fact to a body of films, most of them made in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, dealing with crime, shot in high contrast, and often using voiceover and flashback. French critics gave it the name in 1946. The earliest film here was made in Germany and is usually counted among the sources.
- 01
M
1931
Fritz Lang
Fritz Lang's first sound film, from 1931, with Peter Lorre, drawing on German press reports of serial killings.
- 02
Double Indemnity
1944
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder's 1944 film. Raymond Chandler had never written a screenplay before, and the collaboration went badly. It took seven Academy Award nominations and won none.
- 03
Touch of Evil
1958
Orson Welles
Orson Welles's 1958 film. Universal recut it after he left the production, and a version following his written memo was assembled and released in 1998.
- 04
Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Blvd. · 1950
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder's 1950 film, with Gloria Swanson and Erich von Stroheim, both of whom had worked in the silent period. It received the Academy Award for best story and screenplay.