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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My first thought is that Gregory peck was not in a single film noir movie. Am I wrong?
“Cape Fear” might qualify if there are enough venetian blinds in it, Down.
Cape Fear is clearly a noir film in my book (as well as the book Film Noir (Ward \ Silver), and I assume many other books on the topic).
DGF being wrong is as common as finding Mitchum in a noir film.
Wrong. As others have pointed out he was in several noir titles.
I’m also a big fan of Hitchcock and Peck was in two of them:
Spellbound and The Paradine case
Hey Down Goes Frazier, GP Fan…..To make this list. A movie had to be mentioned in 5 of the 11 sources I used…using that criteria…Gregory Peck had 5 movies from 1940 to 1959 that got considered Film Noir.
The Gunfighter, Spellbound, The Macomber Affair, The Great Sinner and The Paradine Case. I have only seen two of this movies…so I really have no idea if they are film noir at all.
Goodness gracious this is an eye opening page. Enjoyed the comments as well. Seems you have struck some nerves with this one. Thumbs up!
Thank you Helakoski. Glad my page was an eye opener. Thanks for stopping by.
The list has OX-Bow Incident at 18, Gunfighter at 26, and both are great films, but film noir? Same can be said for Winchester 73 Bad Day, and Johnny Guitar…and how can a film in color be considered noir? Also. Night and the City at 106? IMO it’s one of the best film noirs period. Criss Cross at 60? And how does Invasion of Body Snatchers make it? I’d much rather have seen your list based on your experience, based on what you’ve seen than this.
I agree the westerns seem out of place. Johnny Guitar was listed in 8 different sources and in many cases very highly ranked.
Bruce, you did a yeoman’s job here, but like Lou, I am puzzled by man of the choices here. One quick example: I think ATTACK is a great film. One of the best war films ever, but how does it make it as a film noir? What arguement can be made for it? Are we on the verge of classifying every film that is black and white, or may have one aspect of film noir as a film noir? You have enough knowledge and have seen enough films to make your own decisions on what you feel. I don’t think you need all those books to tell you what is or what is not film noir.
Hey Robert thanks for checking out my page and for commenting. I returned almost all of the books….but the one I own talks about Attack! They put it in their “Combat Noir Group”…with Noir themes of Betrayal, paranoia and revenge. I am a huge movie buff….watch about 600 to 700 movies a year…but I have to admit my “film noir” knowledge is not one of my strengths. So I had to rely on the “experts” I used as resources. When 5 of the “experts” listed the movie…it made my table. This was a request from one of my readers…and I felt I needed to include as many movies as possible.
My weird idea of what a Film Noir movie is. At the beginning of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet….we see a beautiful house…deep green grass…white picket fence….and an All-American dad watering his plants. Then the hose tangles up….the dad has a heart attack and falls to the ground….the camera drops below the grass….and shows the brutal world of the insects..which are in a life and death fight. To me that is what a Film Noir movie is….the horrible stuff happening right underneath our noses. I know weird…I tried to explain this to my wife..and all I got was a vacant stare…lol.
Bruce, as a reply to a request you certainly went above and beyond. Using the criteria you used for ATTACK, the perhaps Paths of Glory as well.
Well that is why our website is called…Ultimate Movie Rankings….many pages list their Top 10 Cary Grant movies….not many rank 58 Cary Grant movies…lol. I agree Paths of Glory…has the same things as Attack!….but not a single source listed that one. Even with noir legends like Douglas and Kubrick
I am viewing MULHOLLAND DRIVE which I think is fantastic, Lynch’s best IMO, and yes the beginning of BVelvet is in many ways terrifying. The apsect of sudden death is also in MDrive when that guy has a heart attack in after seeing the homeless man behind the diner. Lynch’s films are not that pleasant, one does not leave with singing tip toe through the tulips, but films like BV and MDrive are frightening in seeing the vile underbelly of what on the surface seems pleasant.
David Lynch’s list of great film noir movies would be a fascinating read. Mulholland Drive is a wonderful movie. My theory on that movie? The entire movie is Aunt Ruth looking back on her life. I recently watched Experiment in Terror (another film noir movie made after 1959) that heavily influenced Lynch and his Twin Peaks work.
Bruce Cogerson, sorry, but this is too good. I’m LOL @ your comment “I know weird…I tried to explain this to my wife..and all I got was a vacant stare…lol.
I found it funny as well.
Thank you….I appreciate the kind words. In hindsight I should have done a better job of explaining of why the movies were included and who thought they should be included. I am currently working on a western movie page which is even more massive than this one.
Great, but noir started in 1939 not to be picky!! That is according to a book on B-noirs called Death on the Cheap.