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”

  4. Too many westerns at the expense of some good noirs. Where is Cry of the City, or did I miss it? Should be top ten. Some films are better regarded and understood than they were at the time. Plenty of classics there though and a good search tool. Congrats on only including classic era noirs.

    Reply

    1. Hey Lee. Seems I missed that one. I will have to research that one when I get home from work. and get it on the page. The book on my desk…gave it a 4 star review.

      Reply

  5. The Narrow Margin should be on the list. It mostly takes place on a train and is a tight little suspenser.

    Reply

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