If you’ve spent any amount of time at all on this blog, you know that I love film noir. Yet my interest in it has really developed over just the past few years. There are so many film noir movies I haven’t seen, but I’m getting through most of the major ones.
Depending on how you define film noir, I watched at least 75 movies from that genre/style this year, most of them for the first time. I picked my Top 20 film noir movies from those I’d never seen before this year, appearing by release date. (Click on the titles for more thoughts on these films.)
Phantom Lady (1944) Robert Siodmak
The Woman in the Window (1944) Fritz Lang
Leave Her to Heaven (1945) John M. Stahl
Odd Man Out (1947) Carol Reed
Possessed (1947) Curtis Bernhardt
Ride the Pink Horse (1947) Robert Montgomery
The Big Clock (1948) John Farrow
Pitfall (1948) André de Toth
The Set-Up (1949) Robert Wise
Thieves’ Highway (1949) Jules Dassin
In a Lonely Place (1950) Nicholas Ray
Night and the City (1950) Jules Dassin
Woman on the Run (1950) Norman Foster
The Prowler (1951) Joseph Losey
Angel Face (1952)
The Narrow Margin (1952) Richard Fleischer
The Hitch-Hiker (1953) Ida Lupino
The Big Combo (1955) Joseph H. Lewis
Bob le flambeur (1956) Jean-Pierre Melville
The Lineup (1958) Don Siegel
(Photos: Criterion, Village Voice, Train Bellies, The Movie Gourmet, NewsWhistle, Comic Book and Movie Reviews)
Journeys in Darkness and Light 