Film Noir Movies

Film-Noir-WallpaperWant to know the best Film Noir movies?  How about the worst Film Noir movies?  Curious about Film Noir’s box office grosses or which Film Noir movie picked up the most Oscar® nominations? Need to know which Film Noir movie got the best reviews from critics and audiences and which got the worst reviews? Well you have come to the right place….because we have all of that information.

What is Film Noir?  One definition of film noir is….a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly such that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Film noir in French means black film.  Before researching this page…we pretty much thought a film noir movie was a black and white, dark, crime movie.  Well after researching these movies for the last couple of months we no longer have any idea what a film noir movie really is anymore.

Part of our research was finding and reading lots of film noir books and lots of internet lists that named the best film noir movies.  We found Film Noir Guide by Michael F. Keaney. Encyclopedia of Film Noir by Geoff Mayer and Brian McDonnell, Dark Cinema: American Film Noir in Cultural Perspective by Jon Tuska and Film Noir and the Cinema of Paranoia by Wheeler Winston Dixon very useful.  Every book we read had a different definition of film noir.  At one point it seemed that every movie ever made was a form of film noir.

So how did we come up with these 263 movies on the following table?  First of all we picked one timeline…..1940-1959.  Any movie labeled a film noir that was not made in those 19 years was excluded from our table.  This rule pretty much destroyed many of the internet film noir lists.  We actually found one internet list that only had 6 movies made before 1970 on their all-time film noir list.  Next we created a excel spreadsheet.  We used 11 different sources (books and internet resources). Once a movie was labeled a film noir movie in 5 different sources…it made our table.

Double Indemnity is the best reviewed film noir movie on our page.
Double Indemnity is the best reviewed film noir movie on our page.

Film Noir Movies Can Be Ranked 6 Ways In This Table

The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies anyway you want.

  • Sort Film Noir movies by the stars or director of movie.
  • Sort Film Noir movies by adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost (in millions)
  • Sort Film Noir movies by yearly domestic box office rank
  • Sort Film Noir movies how they were received by critics and audiences.  60% rating or higher should indicate a good movie.
  • Sort by how many Oscar® nominations each Film Noir movie received and how many Oscar® wins each Film Noir movie won.
  • Sort Film Noir movies by Ultimate Movie Rankings (UMR) Score.  UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score

FINAL

And finally:  This is obviously not every single film noir movie ever made.  There are 1000s and 1000s of movies that many people consider film noir.  We made 250 movies as our cut off point.  Hopefully we have included the most popular film noir movies…though I am sure the good folks at the TCM message boards will find another 250 movies that need to be on the list. This was a request from Flora Breen Robison. Hey Flora….this was officially the most difficult requested page ever…but well worth the effort considering how supportive you are of our little old website.

So are you thinking….250 Film Noir movies is nice but I want more.  Then check out this wonderful Film Noir page by the people at TheCinemaCafe.com. Plundering The Genre: Film Noir.

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179 thoughts on “Film Noir Movies”

  1. You did the right thing there Bruce Cogerson by listing films that others have decided are noir. Anyone can decide for themselves if a given film is noir or not, despite what the “experts” (who often disagree with themselves) say, but if it’s not listed at all, then obviously that “decision” is taken away from us. Did you limit your list to U.S. produced noirs in your given timeline

    Reply

    1. Hey Arthur.. I read so many books with so many different definitions of “film noir” that at one point it seemed that every movie ever made feel into a film noir category. I did not have a rule on U.S. productions versus International productions…..but in the end only a few International movies made my table. One of the sources I used..”Film Noir Guide” had the most International movies listed. The rest of the sources pretty much stuck with U.S. only movies. Thanks for checking out my page.

      Reply

  2. Thanks for my requested page, Bruce!

    I have seen 186 of these movies.

    Lots more for me to see!

    Have I told you lately how much I adore your wesbite, your family, your love of movies and the fact that you were so interested in finding how I was?

    I won’t list what ones I have seen or not seen.

    You already know what I love.

    Have a Happy Easter Weekend Bruce.

    Love, Flora aka GregoryPeckfan and Jack the cat and my Mom.

    Reply

    1. Hey Flora…..186 movies watched. You know I never count until either you or Steve comment….let me see….counting….this is going to take a moment…61 of the Top 100….not too bad. 21 for 101 to 200…and 4 of the last 50…for a grand total of 86…..only a 100 movies behind.

      Thanks for the nice words about our website. It has been fun watching it grow and grow over the last year. Thanks for the Easter wishes. Our little ones are very excited about Sunday morning when the Easter bunny gets here. Hope you and your family have a great holiday too.

      Reply

  3. Bad Day At Black Rock is not a noir film. And a whole bunch of others too. Like Winchester 73, The Ox-Bow Incident, Beat THe Devil, Monsieur Verdoux, etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.

    Reply

    1. Hey Dre…I agree with you. But source after source kept listing them. I used 11 sources….if a movie reached 5 sources it made my table. That is one of the reasons it took so long (2 months) to put this together.

      Reply

      1. Winchester 73…Noir Type: Horse Opera. Noir Themes: Revenge, obsession, betrayal. From Film Noir Guide by Michael F.Keaney. As for Bad Day At Black Rock….I thought no way…but source after source not only listed the movie…but had it very highly ranked….so in the end I went with the sources I was using for the research.

        Reply

      1. Hey Flora…I had no idea that “noir” had so many sub categories. I used to think noir was …black and white…low budget…..crime dramas. That really only represents a small % of noir movies. Glad you like your requested page.

        Reply

    3. All the movies you mentioned do have noir elements and many writers and critics consider them border line noir. No one is an expert on exactly what defines a noir.

      Reply

      1. Hey Jeff. I agree with you 100%. I felt like Alice in Wonderland….going down the rabbit hole. The more I researched film noir the more my eyes opened to the fact that film noir covers a lot more movies than I originally thought. I am sure the French film critic that came up with the term in 1946…would probably say all the experts are looking at it wrong. Thanks for stopping by.

        Reply

  5. Your work boggles my mind. Simply an outstanding list. Interesting that a few westerns were included. Keep it up!

    Reply

    1. Hey Jim….thanks for the great compliment. I gotta admit when I started seeing so many movies that did not meet my personal criteria of film noir show up on so many lists…I thought I would never finish this page. The westerns stick out….they are good westerns but when watching movies like The Man From Colorado and many of the Stewart westerns…at no time did I think I was watching a film noir page. The same could be said for Bad Day At Black Rock…for awhile I refused to put it on the list….but it kept showing up on all of the sources I was using…and showing up very high in their rankings. So in the end…it like the westerns made the page. Thanks for checking out our latest page.

      Reply

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