Top 150 Classic US Noir

by urbanalien | created - 1 month ago | updated - 2 weeks ago | Public

1940-59

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1. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Approved | 96 min | Drama, Film-Noir

100 Metascore

Powerful but unethical Broadway columnist J.J. Hunsecker coerces unscrupulous press agent Sidney Falco into breaking up his sister's romance with a jazz musician.

Director: Alexander Mackendrick | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner

Votes: 35,720

2. The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

97 Metascore

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: 97,406 | Gross: $0.65M

3. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Passed | 108 min | Film-Noir, Thriller

94 Metascore

A teenage girl, overjoyed when her favorite uncle comes to visit the family in their quiet California town, slowly begins to suspect that he is in fact the "Merry Widow" killer sought by the authorities.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Macdonald Carey, Henry Travers

Votes: 70,524

4. The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Passed | 100 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

97 Metascore

San Francisco private detective Sam Spade takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a gorgeous liar and their quest for a priceless statuette, with the stakes rising after his partner is murdered.

Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre

Votes: 166,626 | Gross: $2.11M

5. Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir

94 Metascore

A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return.

Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson

Votes: 236,534

6. Double Indemnity (1944)

Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

95 Metascore

A Los Angeles insurance representative lets an alluring housewife seduce him into a scheme of insurance fraud and murder that arouses the suspicion of his colleague, an insurance investigator.

Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Byron Barr

Votes: 167,518 | Gross: $5.72M

7. Pickup on South Street (1953)

Passed | 80 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

A pickpocket unwittingly lifts a message destined for enemy agents and becomes a target for a Communist spy ring.

Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye

Votes: 16,156

8. To Have and Have Not (1944)

Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Comedy, Film-Noir

90 Metascore

During World War II, American expatriate Harry Morgan helps transport a French Resistance leader and his beautiful wife to Martinique while romancing a sensuous lounge singer.

Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran

Votes: 38,017

9. Ride the Pink Horse (1947)

Passed | 101 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery

WW2 veteran Lucky Gagin arrives in a New Mexico border-town intent on revenging against mobster Frank Hugo but FBI agent Bill Retz, who also wants Hugo, tries to keep Gagin out of trouble.

Director: Robert Montgomery | Stars: Robert Montgomery, Thomas Gomez, Wanda Hendrix, Andrea King

Votes: 3,428

10. 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: 6,872

11. House by the River (1950)

Approved | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A deranged writer murders a maid after she resists his advances. The writer engages his brother's help in hiding the body, causing unexpected problems for both of them.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Louis Hayward, Lee Bowman, Jane Wyatt, Dorothy Patrick

Votes: 4,169

12. Flamingo Road (1949)

Approved | 94 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance

A corrupt small town sheriff manipulates local candidates to the state legislature but he eventually comes into conflict with a visiting carnival dancer.

Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Sydney Greenstreet, David Brian

Votes: 3,624 | Gross: $2.26M

13. 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: 22,093

14. 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: 4,568

15. Out of the Past (1947)

Approved | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

85 Metascore

A private eye escapes his past to run a gas station in a small town, but his past catches up with him. Now he must return to the big city world of danger, corruption, double crosses, and duplicitous dames.

Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming

Votes: 40,939

16. The Prowler (1951)

Approved | 92 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller

After Susan Gilvray reports a prowler outside her house police officer Webb Garwood investigates and sparks fly. If only her husband wasn't in the way.

Director: Joseph Losey | Stars: Van Heflin, Evelyn Keyes, John Maxwell, Katherine Warren

Votes: 4,095

17. Touch of Evil (1958)

PG-13 | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

99 Metascore

A stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping and police corruption in a Mexican border town.

Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Charlton Heston, Orson Welles, Janet Leigh, Joseph Calleia

Votes: 109,831 | Gross: $2.24M

18. Force of Evil (1948)

Passed | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

89 Metascore

An unethical lawyer who wants to help his older brother becomes a partner with a client in the numbers racket.

Director: Abraham Polonsky | Stars: John Garfield, Thomas Gomez, Beatrice Pearson, Marie Windsor

Votes: 7,674

19. Ruthless (1948)

Passed | 104 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance

A poor boy who saved a rich girl from drowning is adopted by her family, but he grows into a money-hungry ruthless businessman who would step on others to get to the top of the social ladder.

Director: Edgar G. Ulmer | Stars: Zachary Scott, Louis Hayward, Diana Lynn, Sydney Greenstreet

Votes: 1,410

20. Notorious (1946)

Not Rated | 102 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance

100 Metascore

The daughter of a convicted German spy is asked by American agents to gather information on a ring of German scientists in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern

Votes: 107,302 | Gross: $10.46M

21. He Ran All the Way (1951)

Passed | 77 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Nick and his partner Al stage a payroll holdup. Al is shot, and Nick kills a policeman. Nick hides out at a public pool, where he meets Peg Dobbs. They go back to her apartment, and he forces her family to hide him from the police manhunt.

Director: John Berry | Stars: John Garfield, Shelley Winters, Wallace Ford, Selena Royle

Votes: 3,020

22. Laura (1944)

Passed | 88 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery

A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he is investigating.

Directors: Otto Preminger, Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price

Votes: 51,466 | Gross: $4.36M

23. Gilda (1946)

Approved | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance

A small-time gambler hired to work in a Buenos Aires casino discovers his employer's new wife is his former lover.

Director: Charles Vidor | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready, Joseph Calleia

Votes: 35,286

24. In a Lonely Place (1950)

Not Rated | 94 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery

A potentially violent screenwriter is a murder suspect until his lovely neighbor clears him. However, she soon starts to have her doubts.

Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid

Votes: 35,282

25. Ace in the Hole (1951)

Approved | 111 min | Drama, Film-Noir

72 Metascore

A frustrated former big-city journalist now stuck working for an Albuquerque newspaper exploits a story about a man trapped in a cave to rekindle his career, but the situation quickly escalates into an out-of-control circus.

Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Kirk Douglas, Jan Sterling, Robert Arthur, Porter Hall

Votes: 39,130 | Gross: $3.97M

26. The Shanghai Gesture (1941)

Approved | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

In Shanghai, dragon lady 'Mother' Gin Sling operates a gambling house for wealthy patrons but she clashes with influential land developer Sir Guy Charteris who wants to put her out of business.

Director: Josef von Sternberg | Stars: Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Victor Mature, Ona Munson

Votes: 2,966

27. The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Passed | 112 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

85 Metascore

A major heist goes off as planned, but then double crosses, bad luck and solid police work cause everything to unravel.

Director: John Huston | Stars: Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore

Votes: 29,972

28. Woman on the Run (1950)

Not Rated | 77 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Frank Johnson becomes an eyewitness to a murder. He's pursued around San Francisco by his wife, the police, and the killer.

Director: Norman Foster | Stars: Ann Sheridan, Dennis O'Keefe, Robert Keith, John Qualen

Votes: 4,843

29. Key Largo (1948)

Approved | 100 min | Action, Crime, Drama

A man visits his war buddy's family hotel and finds a gangster running things. As a hurricane approaches, the two end up confronting each other.

Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore

Votes: 43,991

30. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

Unrated | 116 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance

A man is reunited with his childhood friend and her husband who believes he knows the truth about the death of her rich aunt years earlier.

Director: Lewis Milestone | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas

Votes: 11,091

31. The Big Clock (1948)

Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A magazine tycoon commits a murder and pins it on an innocent man, who then tries to solve the murder himself.

Director: John Farrow | Stars: Ray Milland, Maureen O'Sullivan, Charles Laughton, George Macready

Votes: 9,539

32. Road House (1948)

Passed | 95 min | Action, Drama, Film-Noir

A night club owner becomes infatuated with a torch singer and frames his best friend/manager for embezzlement when the chanteuse falls in love with him.

Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Ida Lupino, Cornel Wilde, Celeste Holm, Richard Widmark

Votes: 3,161

33. High Sierra (1940)

Passed | 100 min | Action, Adventure, Drama

After being released from prison, notorious thief Roy Earle is hired by his old boss to help a group of inexperienced criminals plan and carry out the robbery of a California resort.

Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Curtis, Arthur Kennedy

Votes: 19,243

34. Raw Deal (1948)

Approved | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Joe Sullivan (Dennis O'Keefe) has taken the rap for Rick (Raymond Burr), who double-crosses him with a flawed escape plan and other means intended to get rid of him.

Director: Anthony Mann | Stars: Dennis O'Keefe, Claire Trevor, Marsha Hunt, John Ireland

Votes: 5,611

35. Moonrise (1948)

Passed | 90 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Danny is despised by his schoolmates because his father was accused of killing another man and sentenced to death.

Director: Frank Borzage | Stars: Dane Clark, Gail Russell, Ethel Barrymore, Allyn Joslyn

Votes: 2,973

36. The Big Sleep (1946)

Passed | 114 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

86 Metascore

Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a wealthy family. Before the complex case is over, he's seen murder, blackmail and what might be love.

Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers

Votes: 90,540 | Gross: $6.54M

37. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Passed | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

84 Metascore

A married woman and a drifter fall in love and then plot to murder her husband.

Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn

Votes: 22,893 | Gross: $8.33M

38. Caught (1949)

Approved | 88 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

An ambitious young LA department store model gets her wish of marrying a millionaire but she eventually discovers that rich life isn't always a happy one.

Director: Max Ophüls | Stars: James Mason, Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Ryan, Frank Ferguson

Votes: 4,357

39. The Reckless Moment (1949)

Not Rated | 82 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

After discovering the dead body of her teenage daughter's lover, a housewife takes desperate measures to protect her family from scandal.

Director: Max Ophüls | Stars: James Mason, Joan Bennett, Geraldine Brooks, Henry O'Neill

Votes: 5,657

40. Murder, My Sweet (1944)

Approved | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

After being hired to find an ex-con's former girlfriend, Philip Marlowe is drawn into a deeply complex web of mystery and deceit.

Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger

Votes: 14,706

41. They Live by Night (1948)

Passed | 95 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Romance

82 Metascore

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: 9,357

42. On Dangerous Ground (1951)

Approved | 82 min | Drama, Film-Noir

78 Metascore

Rough city cop Jim Wilson is disciplined by his captain and is sent upstate, to a snowy mountain town, to help the local sheriff solve a murder case.

Directors: Nicholas Ray, Ida Lupino | Stars: Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond, Charles Kemper

Votes: 8,067

43. Scarlet Street (1945)

Approved | 102 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A man in mid-life crisis befriends a young woman, though her fiancé persuades her to con him out of the fortune they mistakenly assume he possesses.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, Margaret Lindsay

Votes: 19,205

44. 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: 17,787

45. The Breaking Point (1950)

Approved | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

An otherwise moral captain of a charter boat becomes financially strapped and is drawn into illegal activities in order to keep up payments on his boat.

Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: John Garfield, Patricia Neal, Phyllis Thaxter, Juano Hernandez

Votes: 4,405

46. Body and Soul (1947)

Approved | 104 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Sport

A talented boxer's young career hits difficult terrain when an unethical promoter takes interest in him.

Director: Robert Rossen | Stars: John Garfield, Lilli Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere

Votes: 5,368

47. The Face Behind the Mask (1941)

Approved | 69 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A disfigured watch-maker with a grudge against society embarks on a life of crime.

Director: Robert Florey | Stars: Peter Lorre, Evelyn Keyes, Don Beddoe, George E. Stone

Votes: 1,875

48. The Lost Weekend (1945)

Passed | 101 min | Drama, Film-Noir

The desperate life of a chronic alcoholic is followed through a four-day drinking bout.

Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard Da Silva

Votes: 40,212 | Gross: $9.46M

49. Cry of the City (1948)

Passed | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Police Lieut. Candella, longtime friend of the Rome family, walks a tightrope in the case of cop-killer Martin Rome.

Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Victor Mature, Richard Conte, Fred Clark, Shelley Winters

Votes: 3,735

50. Panic in the Streets (1950)

Approved | 96 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A doctor and a policeman in New Orleans have only 48 hours to locate a killer infected with pneumonic plague.

Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes, Jack Palance

Votes: 8,855

51. White Heat (1949)

Not Rated | 114 min | Action, Crime, Drama

89 Metascore

A psychopathic criminal with a mother complex makes a daring break from prison and leads his old gang in a chemical plant payroll heist.

Director: Raoul Walsh | Stars: James Cagney, Virginia Mayo, Edmond O'Brien, Margaret Wycherly

Votes: 35,766

52. Pitfall (1948)

Not Rated | 86 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller

Married insurance adjuster John Forbes falls for femme fatale Mona Stevens while her boyfriend is in jail and all suffer serious consequences as a result.

Director: André De Toth | Stars: Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, Jane Wyatt, Raymond Burr

Votes: 4,543

53. Tension (1949)

Passed | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A meek pharmacist creates an alternate identity under which he plans to murder the bullying liquor salesman who has become his wife's lover.

Director: John Berry | Stars: Richard Basehart, Audrey Totter, Cyd Charisse, Barry Sullivan

Votes: 3,576

54. Mildred Pierce (1945)

Approved | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

88 Metascore

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: 28,681

55. Nightmare Alley (1947)

Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir

75 Metascore

The rise and fall of Stanton Carlisle, a mentalist whose lies and deceit prove to be his downfall.

Director: Edmund Goulding | Stars: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker

Votes: 13,419

56. Clash by Night (1952)

Approved | 105 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance

Mae Doyle comes back to her hometown a cynical woman. Her brother Joe fears that his love, fish cannery worker Peggy, may wind up like Mae. Mae marries Jerry and has a baby; she is happy but restless, drawn to Jerry's friend Earl.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Ryan, Paul Douglas, Marilyn Monroe

Votes: 7,361

57. The Lady from Shanghai (1947)

Not Rated | 87 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Fascinated by gorgeous Mrs. Bannister, seaman Michael O'Hara joins a bizarre yachting cruise, and ends up mired in a complex murder plot.

Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Rita Hayworth, Orson Welles, Everett Sloane, Glenn Anders

Votes: 33,329 | Gross: $0.01M

58. The Woman on the Beach (1947)

Approved | 71 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A Coast Guardsman suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress becomes involved with a beautiful and enigmatic seductress married to a blind painter.

Director: Jean Renoir | Stars: Joan Bennett, Robert Ryan, Charles Bickford, Nan Leslie

Votes: 2,648

59. Angel Face (1952)

Approved | 91 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Ambulance driver Frank Jessup is ensnared in the schemes of the sensuous but dangerous Diane Tremayne.

Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, Mona Freeman, Herbert Marshall

Votes: 9,033

60. Dark Passage (1947)

Passed | 106 min | Film-Noir, Thriller

68 Metascore

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: 21,984

61. 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: 8,659

62. I Walk Alone (1947)

Approved | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

55 Metascore

Frankie Madison leaves prison expecting a share from his ex-partner. But Prohibition bootlegging didn't prepare Frankie for Big Business.

Director: Byron Haskin | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, Wendell Corey

Votes: 3,293

63. The Chase (1946)

Approved | 86 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Romance

Chuck Scott gets a job as chauffeur to tough guy Eddie Roman; but Chuck's involvement with Eddie's fearful wife becomes a nightmare.

Director: Arthur Ripley | Stars: Robert Cummings, Michèle Morgan, Steve Cochran, Lloyd Corrigan

Votes: 2,653

64. The Killers (1946)

Passed | 103 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Hit men kill an unresisting victim, and investigator Reardon uncovers his past involvement with beautiful, deadly Kitty Collins.

Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Albert Dekker

Votes: 23,639

65. 99 River Street (1953)

Not Rated | 83 min | Action, Crime, Drama

A former boxer turned cab driver has to hide from the police when his badgering wife is murdered by the jewel thief she was having an affair with.

Director: Phil Karlson | Stars: John Payne, Evelyn Keyes, Brad Dexter, Frank Faylen

Votes: 3,439

66. 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: 3,259

67. The Sound of Fury (1950)

Approved | 91 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A man who is down on his luck falls in with a criminal.

Director: Cy Endfield | Stars: Frank Lovejoy, Kathleen Ryan, Richard Carlson, Lloyd Bridges

Votes: 1,947

68. Drive a Crooked Road (1954)

Passed | 83 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

An upright car mechanic falls in love with the girlfriend of a gangster. This forces him to participate in the criminal underworld.

Director: Richard Quine | Stars: Mickey Rooney, Dianne Foster, Kevin McCarthy, Jack Kelly

Votes: 2,019

69. 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: 5,390

70. 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: 29,189

71. Cry Danger (1951)

Passed | 79 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Ex-con Rocky Mulloy seeks the real culprit in the crime for which he was framed in a night world of deceptive dames and double crosses.

Directors: Robert Parrish, Dick Powell | Stars: Dick Powell, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Erdman, William Conrad

Votes: 2,739

72. Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)

Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Det. Sgt. Mark Dixon wants to be something his old man wasn't: a guy on the right side of the law. Will Dixon's vicious nature get the better of him?

Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Gary Merrill, Bert Freed

Votes: 9,968

73. The Window (1949)

Approved | 73 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller

To avoid the heat of a sweltering summer night a 9-year-old Manhattan boy decides to sleep on the fire escape and witnesses a murder, but no one will believe him.

Director: Ted Tetzlaff | Stars: Bobby Driscoll, Barbara Hale, Arthur Kennedy, Paul Stewart

Votes: 4,858

74. When Strangers Marry (1944)

Passed | 67 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A naive small-town girl comes to New York City to meet her husband, and discovers that he may be a murderer.

Director: William Castle | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Kim Hunter, Dean Jagger, Neil Hamilton

Votes: 1,376

75. 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: 2,463

76. 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: 8,146

77. Criss Cross (1949)

Not Rated | 84 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

An armored truck driver and his ex-wife conspire with a gang to have his own truck robbed on the route.

Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Burt Lancaster, Yvonne De Carlo, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally

Votes: 9,602

78. Black Angel (1946)

Passed | 81 min | Adventure, Crime, Film-Noir

When Kirk Bennett is convicted of a singer's murder, his wife tries to prove him innocent...aided by the victim's ex-husband.

Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre, Broderick Crawford

Votes: 3,955

79. Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)

Approved | 81 min | Crime, Drama, Fantasy

After phony stage mentalist Triton mysteriously acquires supernatural powers of precognition, he becomes frightened and abandons his act to live in anonymity.

Director: John Farrow | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Gail Russell, John Lund, Virginia Bruce

Votes: 1,746

80. Ministry of Fear (1944)

Passed | 86 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Stephen Neale has just been released from an asylum during World War II in England when he accidentally stumbles onto a deadly Nazi spy plot and tries to stop it.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond, Hillary Brooke

Votes: 8,958

81. Undercurrent (1946)

Passed | 116 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller

Middle-aged bride Ann Hamilton soon begins to suspect that her charming husband is really a psychotic who plans to murder her.

Director: Vincente Minnelli | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Robert Taylor, Robert Mitchum, Edmund Gwenn

Votes: 3,547

82. Guilty Bystander (1950)

Passed | 91 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

An alcoholic ex-cop, now the house detective at a scuzzy hotel in an even scuzzier part of town, stumbles through New York City's sleazy underworld searching for his kidnapped son.

Director: Joseph Lerner | Stars: Zachary Scott, Faye Emerson, Mary Boland, Sam Levene

Votes: 1,079

83. Fallen Angel (1945)

Approved | 98 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

A slick con man arrives in a small town looking to make some money, but soon gets more than he bargained for.

Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Charles Bickford

Votes: 6,517

84. He Walked by Night (1948)

Approved | 79 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller

This film-noir piece, told in semi-documentary style, follows police on the hunt for a resourceful criminal who shoots and kills a cop.

Directors: Alfred L. Werker, Anthony Mann | Stars: Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Roy Roberts, Whit Bissell

Votes: 6,711

85. The Big Knife (1955)

Passed | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Hollywood actor Charles Castle is pressured by his studio boss into a criminal cover-up to protect his valuable career.

Director: Robert Aldrich | Stars: Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen

Votes: 4,277

86. All the King's Men (1949)

Approved | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir

The rise and fall of a corrupt politician, who makes his friends richer and retains power by dint of a populist appeal.

Director: Robert Rossen | Stars: Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Joanne Dru, John Derek

Votes: 16,595

87. A Double Life (1947)

Approved | 104 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A celebrated actor struggles to distinguish his own life from that of his most recent stage role, Othello.

Director: George Cukor | Stars: Ronald Colman, Edmond O'Brien, Signe Hasso, Shelley Winters

Votes: 3,973

88. The Blue Dahlia (1946)

Passed | 96 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

An ex-bomber pilot is suspected of murdering his unfaithful wife.

Director: George Marshall | Stars: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Howard Da Silva

Votes: 9,668 | Gross: $2.70M

89. Strangers on a Train (1951)

PG | 101 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

88 Metascore

A psychopathic man tries to forcibly persuade a tennis star to agree to his theory that two strangers can get away with murder by submitting to his plan to kill the other's most-hated person.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Farley Granger, Robert Walker, Ruth Roman, Leo G. Carroll

Votes: 141,059 | Gross: $7.63M

90. The Spiral Staircase (1946)

Approved | 83 min | Drama, Horror, Mystery

In 1916, a shadowy serial killer is targeting women with "afflictions"; one night during a thunderstorm, the mute Helen feels menaced.

Director: Robert Siodmak | Stars: Dorothy McGuire, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, Kent Smith

Votes: 11,276

91. The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)

Passed | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Mystery writer Cornelius Leyden becomes intrigued after the murdered body of a vicious career criminal washes up in the Bosphorus.

Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Zachary Scott, Faye Emerson

Votes: 3,963

92. No Way Out (1950)

Passed | 106 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Two hoodlum brothers are brought into a hospital for gunshot wounds, and when one of them dies the other accuses their black doctor of murder.

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz | Stars: Richard Widmark, Linda Darnell, Stephen McNally, Sidney Poitier

Votes: 6,284

93. 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: 14,786

94. Detour (1945)

Passed | 66 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

The life of Al Roberts, a pianist in a New York nightclub, turns into a nightmare when he decides to hitchhike to Los Angeles to visit his girlfriend.

Director: Edgar G. Ulmer | Stars: Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake, Edmund MacDonald

Votes: 19,722 | Gross: $0.02M

95. 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: 3,331

96. Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

Approved | 89 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery

While on the telephone, an invalid woman overhears what she thinks is a murder plot and attempts to prevent it.

Director: Anatole Litvak | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster, Ann Richards, Wendell Corey

Votes: 12,557

97. While the City Sleeps (1956)

Approved | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A serial killer has been killing beautiful women in New York and the new owner of a media company offers a high ranking job to the first of his senior executives who can get the earliest scoops on the case.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders, Howard Duff

Votes: 7,084

98. The Bigamist (1953)

Approved | 80 min | Drama, Film-Noir

A man secretly married to two women feels the pressure of his deceit.

Director: Ida Lupino | Stars: Joan Fontaine, Ida Lupino, Edmund Gwenn, Edmond O'Brien

Votes: 4,732

99. Party Girl (1958)

Approved | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Lawyer Tommy Farrell is a defender of crooks. Vicki Gaye encourages him to go straight, but mob king Rico Angelo insists otherwise.

Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: Robert Taylor, Cyd Charisse, Lee J. Cobb, John Ireland

Votes: 3,747

100. The Set-Up (1949)

Approved | 73 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Sport

Expecting the usual loss, a boxing manager takes bribes from a betting gangster without telling his fighter.

Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias, Alan Baxter

Votes: 10,091



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