Want 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 b
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.
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
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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This is really interesting, must have been a ton of work. Thanks for posting.
Hey Chris…two months to research…about a weekend to write…a difficult and at times very frustrating page…but in the end…it was well worth the effort. Glad you thought it was interesting.
This seems to be primarily US based film noir although I think there are a few from England in the list also but still very limited.. So in addition to other films made in England I think there were some film noir films made in France, Italy, Germany and a few other countries in this time period. Any particular reason you’ve not listed those?
http://www.noirfilm.com/foreign_film_noir.htm
http://www.listal.com/list/foreign-classic-film-noir
Hey Gary….I agree there are only a few non-US movies in the table. Thanks for the links. I will be sure to check them out. This has turned out to be a very popular page….I am thinking I need to do another film noir page in the future…I will be sure to use your links as a resource. Thanks for stopping by….sorry your comment…had to be approved. The multiple links required an approval.
Hey Bruce Cogerson This is “Film Noir” at its finest. It’s called Chiaroscuro, and here’s a good “Film Noir” Glossary for your reference: http://www.filmnoirstudies.com/glossary/index.asp. Thank you Michael Keller for your great post!
Hey Lou Eskoz That is a great link! My list has 86 of the 92 he listed. And on the source links…that is some of the ones I used to get the other 178 movies listed on my page. Thanks for sharing the link.
It’s a very broad view, including films such as The Gunfighter and Bad Day at Black Rock plus some Jimmy Stewart westerns. All excellent films, but questionable as noirs. As always, it’s a popularity contest, so most people will have a different list of the top ten or top twenty anyway..
Hey Bart…when I got this request to do this page. I thought it would be easy to come up with a Top 50 list….the more I researched film noir…the further I feel down the rabbit hole. So far I have only removed one movie from the list (My Favorite Brunette) and added 7 more movies. In the end…I listed as you said a “very broad view”. I think all of the great film noir movies made the page. Thanks for the comment.
So I sent you down the rabbit hole…sorry…..but I know you like to talk about movies, so I thought that it would be fun. I see you have done another page.
Flora
This has been an interesting ride. The majority of the comments have been pretty nice…..but there have been some very critical ones as well. I will gladly take those comments…..if the views keep coming in. This is quickly moving up the ranks…in terms of views. Closing in on 4,000 views in 3 or 4 days. I like it….lol.
Since when (and in what alternate universe) does “Invasion Of The Body Snatchers” qualify as “Film Noir”?
Hey Deborah. At one point I had 8 Film Noir books in the house….5 of them had Invasion listed as a film noir movie. Sadly the only one I have left is Film Noir Guide by Michael Keaney….he wrote.. Noir Type…Impersonator Noir Themes: Paranoia, betrayal, distrust. I did not think it was film noir either but it kept showing up in my research sources.
Okay, but if you know something doesn’t belong, it should be removed from future consideration. Using the very broad term “noir type” (whatever that means) could put nearly every film ever made into consideration, in my opinion. Films should only be considered if they fit the original definition of a “film noir”. Other than that, it just becomes diluted and therefore, meaningless, in my opinion.
Hey Deborah If I learned anything about film noir while researching this page..it is everybody has a different view of what a film noir movie is. Of the 257 movies listed…there seem to be about 20 or 30 movies people do not think need to be on the page. Yet others think they need to be on the page. It is a no win situation. So in the end…I went with including all the ones I could find box office information on….as I would rather have too many movies than not enough. Since doing the page…I have added 7 movies…and taken one off. It is just meant to be a fun list with hard to find box office grosses….which is really my website’s specialty ….finding box office information from yesteryear. Thanks for the comments…they are greatly appreciated.
Not to sound redundant Cogerson, but it’s like Deborah is reading my mind. I couldn’t phrase her reply any better.
Ditto.
Thank you Deborah
Hey Lou E. Glad you and Deborah are on the same thought process. Great minds thinking alike. I respect your opinion.
Deborah posted:
Since when (and in what alternate universe) does “Invasion Of The Body Snatchers” qualify as “Film Noir”?
You see Cogerson? This is what I’m talking about. I saw my post here right below Deborah’s.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers doesn’t belong on the list! She’s EXACTLY right. Almost as worse, is you have Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” as #2!!! LMAO! (sorry). But this is ridiculous.
I would humbly suggest you start from the beginning: Find out FIRST what other members of our group consider as film noir. Marie Tinnelli Vita ran a voting survey last summer – member voted their personal top 20 and she ran the numbers. Obviously you weren’t a member because if you had listed “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” they would have laughed you out go the group.
Why not post Marie Tinneli Vita and click when FB activates her name. Ask her to run another top 20 and then go from there.
Good luck Cogerson!
Hey Lou. That is a good suggestion….but there are many Film Noir groups out there….and they all think different things. For every comment that says Invansion and Vertigo do not belong…I have a comment or source that says they do belong. Some of the movies I do not agree are crime noir….but before doing this page….my list would have been about 25 film noir lists. I have some lists that are over 800 movies…books that breakdown 500 movies….so in the end I still think using the criteria of when a movie reached 5 sources it made it in. Maybe I will go back and add in the sources. So movies like Detour and Gun Crazy would show 11 sources…while some of the questionable movies like Bad Day At Black Rock and Winchester ’73 would show only 5 sources. That way you could see what everybody agrees is a film noir movie…and what everybody is arguing over.
I will check and see what Marie has to say….thanks for the passionate comment….I greatly appreciate it….even if we are not agreeing on this subject.