Nail-Biting Film Noirs
by GeneralUrsus | created - 20 Mar 2011 | updated - 18 Jun 2019 | Public- Instant Watch Options
- Genres
- Movies or TV
- IMDb Rating
- In Theaters
- Release Year
- Keywords
1. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Not Rated | 106 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
A doomed female hitchhiker pulls Mike Hammer into a deadly whirlpool of intrigue, revolving around a mysterious "great whatsit".
Director: Robert Aldrich | Stars: Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Juano Hernandez
Votes: 22,071
2. The Narrow Margin (1952)
Approved | 71 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A woman planning to testify against the mob must be protected against potential assassins on the train trip from Chicago to Los Angeles.
Directors: Richard Fleischer, William Cameron Menzies | Stars: Charles McGraw, Marie Windsor, Jacqueline White, Gordon Gebert
Votes: 8,652
3. Cornered (1945)
Approved | 102 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
Canadian flyer Laurence Gerard finds that his wife has been murdered by a French collaborator. His quest for justice leads him to Switzerland and Argentina.
Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Dick Powell, Walter Slezak, Micheline Cheirel, Nina Vale
Votes: 2,464
4. Desperate (1947)
Approved | 73 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
A young married couple flee both the police and a gangster out for revenge.
Director: Anthony Mann | Stars: Steve Brodie, Audrey Long, Raymond Burr, Douglas Fowley
Votes: 2,613
5. The Woman in the Window (1944)
Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
When a conservative middle aged professor engages in a relationship with a femme fatale, he's plunged into a nightmarish world of blackmail and murder.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Edmund Breon
Votes: 17,764
6. Chinatown (1974)
R | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Thriller
A private detective hired to expose an adulterer in 1930s Los Angeles finds himself caught up in a web of deceit, corruption, and murder.
Director: Roman Polanski | Stars: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston, Perry Lopez
Votes: 349,698
7. Thieves' Highway (1949)
Passed | 94 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
A war veteran turned truck driver attempts to avenge the crippling and robbing of his father at the hands of an amoral produce scofflaw.
Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Richard Conte, Valentina Cortese, Lee J. Cobb, Barbara Lawrence
Votes: 6,866
8. Illegal (1955)
Approved | 88 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
After an overly aggressive district attorney unknowingly sends an innocent man to the chair, he resigns, turns to drinking, and acquires a criminal clientèle.
Director: Lewis Allen | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Nina Foch, Hugh Marlowe, Jayne Mansfield
Votes: 2,334
9. The Late Show (1977)
PG | 93 min | Comedy, Mystery, Thriller
A grumpy semi-retired private investigator partners with a quirky female client to catch the people who murdered his partner.
Director: Robert Benton | Stars: Art Carney, Lily Tomlin, Bill Macy, Eugene Roche
Votes: 3,304
10. Point Blank (2010)
R | 84 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Samuel, a male nurse, saves the life of a thief whose henchmen take Samuel's wife hostage and force him to spring their boss.
Director: Fred Cavayé | Stars: Gilles Lellouche, Roschdy Zem, Gérard Lanvin, Elena Anaya
Votes: 14,640 | Gross: $0.71M
11. The Big Steal (1949)
Approved | 71 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Romance
An army lieutenant accused of robbery pursues the real thief on a frantic chase through Mexico aided by the thief's fiancee.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, William Bendix, Patric Knowles
Votes: 5,387
12. Rififi (1955)
Not Rated | 118 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Four men plan a technically perfect crime, but the human element intervenes...
Director: Jules Dassin | Stars: Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Robert Manuel, Janine Darcey
Votes: 36,831 | Gross: $0.06M
13. The Big Sleep (1978)
R | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Grizzled American private detective in England investigates a complicated case of blackmail turned murder involving a rich but honest elderly general, his two loose socialite daughters, a pornographer and a gangster.
Director: Michael Winner | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Sarah Miles, Richard Boone, Candy Clark
Votes: 5,432
14. They Live by Night (1948)
Passed | 95 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Romance
An escaped convict injured during a robbery falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Cathy O'Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva, Jay C. Flippen
Votes: 9,351
15. Good Time (2017)
R | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
After a botched bank robbery lands his younger brother in prison, Connie Nikas embarks on a twisted odyssey through New York City's underworld to get his brother Nick out of jail.
Directors: Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie | Stars: Robert Pattinson, Benny Safdie, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Buddy Duress
Votes: 140,204 | Gross: $2.03M
16. Side Street (1949)
Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A struggling young father-to-be gives in to temptation and impulsively steals money from the office of a shady lawyer--with catastrophic consequences.
Director: Anthony Mann | Stars: Farley Granger, Cathy O'Donnell, James Craig, Paul Kelly
Votes: 3,330
17. Crime Wave (1953)
Approved | 73 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Reformed parolee Steve Lacey is caught in the middle when a wounded former cellmate seeks him out for shelter.
Director: André De Toth | Stars: Gene Nelson, Sterling Hayden, Phyllis Kirk, Ted de Corsia
Votes: 4,540
18. L.A. Confidential (1997)
R | 138 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
As corruption grows in 1950s Los Angeles, three policemen - one strait-laced, one brutal, and one sleazy - investigate a series of murders with their own brand of justice.
Director: Curtis Hanson | Stars: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger
Votes: 617,553 | Gross: $64.62M
19. Decoy (1946)
Approved | 76 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A mortally wounded female gangster recounts how she and her gang revived an executed killer from the gas chamber, to try and find out where he buried a fortune in cash.
Director: Jack Bernhard | Stars: Jean Gillie, Edward Norris, Robert Armstrong, Herbert Rudley
Votes: 2,194
20. The Samurai (1967)
GP | 101 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
After professional hitman Jef Costello is seen by witnesses his efforts to provide himself an alibi drive him further into a corner.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Alain Delon, François Périer, Nathalie Delon, Cathy Rosier
Votes: 57,099 | Gross: $0.04M
21. Nightfall (1956)
78 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Through a series of bizarre coincidences, an artist finds himself falsely accused of bank robbery and murder and is pursued by the authorities and the real killers.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith, Jocelyn Brando
Votes: 4,555
22. Dark Passage (1947)
Passed | 106 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
A man convicted of murdering his wife escapes from prison and works with a woman to try to prove his innocence.
Director: Delmer Daves | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bruce Bennett, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 21,958
23. Scandal Sheet (1952)
Passed | 82 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
The editor of an exploitation newspaper commits a murder and assigns his protégé to investigate hoping to divert attention away from himself.
Director: Phil Karlson | Stars: John Derek, Donna Reed, Broderick Crawford, Rosemary DeCamp
Votes: 3,476
24. The Phenix City Story (1955)
Passed | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A crime-busting lawyer and his initially reluctant attorney father take on the forces that run gambling and prostitution in their small Southern town.
Director: Phil Karlson | Stars: John McIntire, Richard Kiley, Kathryn Grant, Edward Andrews
Votes: 3,257
25. Drive (I) (2011)
R | 100 min | Action, Drama
A mysterious Hollywood action film stuntman gets in trouble with gangsters when he tries to help his neighbor's husband rob a pawn shop while serving as his getaway driver.
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn | Stars: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks
Votes: 704,135 | Gross: $35.06M
26. Nightcrawler (2014)
R | 117 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
When Louis Bloom, a con man desperate for work, muscles into the world of L.A. crime journalism, he blurs the line between observer and participant to become the star of his own story.
Director: Dan Gilroy | Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Bill Paxton, Riz Ahmed
Votes: 604,267 | Gross: $32.38M
27. Dead Reckoning (1946)
Passed | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A soldier runs away rather than receive the Medal of Honor, so his buddy gets permission to investigate, and love and death soon follow.
Director: John Cromwell | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lizabeth Scott, Morris Carnovsky, Charles Cane
Votes: 8,715
28. Mystery Street (1950)
Passed | 93 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A small-town policeman is assisted by a Harvard professor after the discovery of a human skeleton on a Massachusetts beach.
Director: John Sturges | Stars: Ricardo Montalban, Sally Forrest, Bruce Bennett, Elsa Lanchester
Votes: 3,451
29. Act of Violence (1948)
Passed | 82 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
An embittered, vengeful POW stalks his former commanding officer who betrayed his men's planned escape attempt from a Nazi prison camp.
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Van Heflin, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh, Mary Astor
Votes: 5,711
30. Call Northside 777 (1948)
Approved | 112 min | Drama, Film-Noir
Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal re-opens a decade-old murder case.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: James Stewart, Richard Conte, Lee J. Cobb, Helen Walker
Votes: 10,235
31. The Big Heat (1953)
Passed | 89 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
Tough cop Dave Bannion takes on a politically powerful crime syndicate.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby
Votes: 29,147
32. Elevator to the Gallows (1958)
Not Rated | 91 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A self-assured businessman murders his employer, the husband of his mistress, which unintentionally provokes an ill-fated chain of events.
Director: Louis Malle | Stars: Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Ronet, Georges Poujouly, Yori Bertin
Votes: 28,622 | Gross: $0.11M
33. The House on 92nd Street (1945)
Approved | 88 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Bill Dietrich becomes a double agent for the F.B.I. in a German spy ring.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: William Eythe, Lloyd Nolan, Signe Hasso, Gene Lockhart
Votes: 3,293
34. Whirlpool (1950)
Approved | 98 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A woman suffering from kleptomania is hypnotized in an attempt to cure her. Soon afterwards, she's found at the scene of a murder with no memory of how she got there, and seemingly no way to prove her innocence.
Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Gene Tierney, Richard Conte, José Ferrer, Charles Bickford
Votes: 4,792
35. The Hole (1960)
Not Rated | 131 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
Distrust and uncertainty arise when four long-term inmates cautiously induct a new prisoner into their elaborate prison-break scheme.
Director: Jacques Becker | Stars: André Bervil, Jean Keraudy, Michel Constantin, Philippe Leroy
Votes: 20,356 | Gross: $0.03M
36. The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)
R | 102 min | Crime, Drama
After his last crime has him looking at a long prison sentence for repeat offenses, a low level Boston gangster decides to snitch on his friends to avoid jail time.
Director: Peter Yates | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan, Steven Keats
Votes: 12,195
37. Dial M for Murder (1954)
PG | 105 min | Crime, Thriller
A former tennis star arranges the murder of his adulterous wife.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, John Williams
Votes: 188,700 | Gross: $0.01M
38. Kansas City Confidential (1952)
Not Rated | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An ex-con trying to go straight is framed for a million dollar armored car robbery and must go to Mexico in order to unmask the real culprits.
Director: Phil Karlson | Stars: John Payne, Coleen Gray, Preston Foster, Neville Brand
Votes: 8,137
39. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A self-proclaimed preacher marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real dad hid the $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
Director: Charles Laughton | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason
Votes: 97,289 | Gross: $0.65M
40. Impact (1949)
Passed | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A unfaithful wife plots with her lover to kill her husband, but the lover is accidentally killed instead. The husband stays in hiding and lets his wife be charged with conspiracy.
Director: Arthur Lubin | Stars: Brian Donlevy, Ella Raines, Charles Coburn, Helen Walker
Votes: 4,715
41. The Red Circle (1970)
Not Rated | 140 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
After leaving prison, master thief Corey crosses paths with a notorious escapee and an alcoholic former policeman. The trio proceed to plot an elaborate heist.
Director: Jean-Pierre Melville | Stars: Alain Delon, Bourvil, Gian Maria Volontè, Yves Montand
Votes: 28,137 | Gross: $0.37M
42. The Killing (1956)
Approved | 84 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Crook Johnny Clay assembles a five-man team to plan and execute a daring racetrack robbery.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen
Votes: 97,439
43. No Man of Her Own (1950)
Passed | 98 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A pregnant woman adopts the identity of a railroad-crash victim and starts a new life with the woman's wealthy in-laws, but is soon blackmailed by her devious ex.
Director: Mitchell Leisen | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, Jane Cowl, Phyllis Thaxter
Votes: 2,900
44. Backfire (1950)
Passed | 91 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
While recuperating from wartime back injuries at a hospital, veteran Bob Corey is visited on Christmas Eve by a beautiful stranger with an even stranger message.
Director: Vincent Sherman | Stars: Viveca Lindfors, Dane Clark, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien
Votes: 1,790
45. Dial 1119 (1950)
Passed | 75 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
An escaped psychiatric patient causes havoc.
Director: Gerald Mayer | Stars: Marshall Thompson, Virginia Field, Andrea King, Sam Levene
Votes: 1,582
46. Night Editor (1946)
Approved | 68 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A detective's dilemma. A murder investigation is compromised by the detective's compromised position in love.
Director: Henry Levin | Stars: William Gargan, Janis Carter, Jeff Donnell, Coulter Irwin
Votes: 1,084
47. The Desperate Hours (1955)
Approved | 112 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Three escaped convicts move in on and terrorize a suburban household.
Director: William Wyler | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Fredric March, Arthur Kennedy, Martha Scott
Votes: 10,870
48. Mildred Pierce (1945)
Approved | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A hard-working mother inches towards disaster as she divorces her husband and starts a successful restaurant business to support her spoiled daughter.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Eve Arden
Votes: 28,639
49. Winter's Bone (2010)
R | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
An unflinching Ozark Mountain girl hacks through dangerous social terrain as she hunts down her drug-dealing father while trying to keep her family intact.
Director: Debra Granik | Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Garret Dillahunt, Isaiah Stone
Votes: 150,515 | Gross: $6.53M
50. The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
Approved | 71 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Two fishermen pick up a psychopathic escaped convict who tells them that he intends to murder them when the ride is over.
Director: Ida Lupino | Stars: Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman, José Torvay
Votes: 10,515
51. Blast of Silence (1961)
Approved | 77 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
A hired killer from Cleveland has a job to do on a second-string mob boss in New York, but a special girl from his past and a gun dealer with pet rats get in his way.
Director: Allen Baron | Stars: Allen Baron, Molly McCarthy, Larry Tucker, Peter Clune
Votes: 5,666
52. The Drowning Pool (1975)
PG | 108 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Harper's a big-city PI, who travels to Louisiana to help an old girlfriend who's worried her husband will find out she's been cheating on him.
Director: Stuart Rosenberg | Stars: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Franciosa, Murray Hamilton
Votes: 6,185
53. Suspicion (1941)
Approved | 99 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller
A shy young heiress marries a charming gentleman, and soon begins to suspect he is planning to murder her.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce
Votes: 42,398 | Gross: $4.50M
54. The Enforcer (1951)
Approved | 87 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
A crusading district attorney finally gets a chance to prosecute the organizer and boss of Murder Inc.
Directors: Bretaigne Windust, Raoul Walsh | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Zero Mostel, Ted de Corsia, Everett Sloane
Votes: 5,638
55. Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
A writer falls in love with a young socialite and they're soon married, but her obsessive love for him threatens to be the undoing of them both as well as everyone around them.
Director: John M. Stahl | Stars: Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price
Votes: 14,766
56. Pushover (1954)
Passed | 88 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An undercover police officer falls for the beautiful moll of a bank robber on the run, and together they plan to double-cross the hood and the cops.
Director: Richard Quine | Stars: Fred MacMurray, Kim Novak, Philip Carey, Dorothy Malone
Votes: 4,112
57. This Gun for Hire (1942)
Passed | 81 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
When assassin Philip Raven shoots a blackmailer and his beautiful female companion dead, he is paid off in marked bills by his treasonous employer who is working with foreign spies.
Director: Frank Tuttle | Stars: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar
Votes: 10,615
58. I Wake Up Screaming (1941)
Passed | 82 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Why is Inspector Ed Cornell trying to railroad Frankie Christopher for the murder of model Vicky Lynn?
Director: H. Bruce Humberstone | Stars: Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Carole Landis, Laird Cregar
Votes: 5,374
59. One Girl's Confession (1953)
Passed | 74 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Another of the "Fate and Irony" films from director-writer-producer-actor Hugo Haas but this one has less hair-shirt torment than most of his offerings, although his camera, as usual, ... See full summary »
Director: Hugo Haas | Stars: Cleo Moore, Hugo Haas, Glenn Langan, Helene Stanton
Votes: 601
60. Small Town Crime (2017)
R | 91 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller
An alcoholic ex cop finds a woman on the roadside, left for dead. He offers to find the killer pro bono as P.I. Her granddad hires him. Things get nasty.
Directors: Eshom Nelms, Ian Nelms | Stars: John Hawkes, Anthony Anderson, Octavia Spencer, Robert Forster
Votes: 12,473
Tell Your Friends