The 10 Best Film Noir Movies of All Time, Ranked

Singling out great film noir movies can be easier than singling out great movies from other genres, depending on how you define the genre. It did exist, in the traditional sense, only from the early 1940s until the late 1950s, with it being easy to find sentiments surrounding The Maltese Falcon (1941) being one of the earliest true film noir movies and Touch of Evil (1958) being one of the last, if not the very last.

But there are also neo-noir movies, which kept the genre going from the 1960s onwards, and to celebrate some, there are going to be a few of those mentioned below… one from the 1960s, one from the 1970s, and one released as late as the 1970s. Sorry. But this is a middle ground, acknowledging some neo-noir movies while still keeping an undeniable focus on the classic noir period, all in an attempt to highlight some of the very best film noir movies in cinema history. There will also be so many omissions, including the aforementioned The Maltese Falcon and Touch of Evil. Once again, sorry.

10

‘Out of the Past’ (1947)

Image via RKO Pictures

There are some nearly perfect film noir movies that are definitely worth checking out, without a doubt, but things are going to start off with something that’s genuinely hard to fault, just so you know straight away the caliber of movies being dealt with. Out of the Past is the first great and hard-to-fault classic noir film worth mentioning, and it kind of has to be great and all, with a title as attention-grabbing and evocative as “Out of the Past.”

It alludes to a shady past, perhaps unsurprisingly, and what happens when a man who’d tried to leave that past behind finds himself reconnected to it because an old associate finds him. Chaos follows, of course. You’ve got some great performances here, especially from Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas (the latter in something of a breakout role), and Jacques Tourneur, otherwise fairly well-known for his horror movies, does a lot to make Out of the Past stylish and undoubtedly atmospheric on a technical front.

9

‘Elevator to the Gallows’ (1958)

Image via Lux Compagnie Cinématographique de France

Well, okay, Out of the Past is a great title, but Elevator to the Gallows might well be even stronger, as a title. And, given it’s ranked one place ahead, maybe it’s a hair better, too. It’s got a simple narrative that escalates quite wonderfully throughout, though it never really becomes complicated in the way some other classic film noir movies do. In a sense, you always sort of know where this one’s going, even if you don’t know the title somehow, but if you do know the title… well, then you definitely know things will end in tears.

Basically, a crime is committed, and then the perpetrator tries to get away with it, but very slowly finds that’s easier said than done. It’s almost a little Kafkaesque, and definitely feels like the sort of thing that would’ve influenced the Coen Brothers, paving the way for movies like Blood Simple and Fargo (1996). And it came out right around the end of the classic film noir era, so Elevator to the Gallows is being included as one movie from said era right here and right now.

8

‘The Third Man’ (1949)

Image via StudioCanal

If you’re watching The Third Man just for Orson Welles… well, you won’t be entirely disappointed. But he plays an important role without a ton of screen time, if that makes sense. Even that’s saying too much. But it’s not an Orson Welles film, even if it has Welles and also Joseph Cotten, the latter in the lead role, and they were, of course, collaborators on Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, but it’s probably director Carol Reed who’s the star here.

Reed and the setting of Vienna, which The Third Man is so memorably set in, with Cotten playing a man who, while there, investigates the mysterious disappearance of his friend, Welles’ character, and then, in classic film noir fashion, that seemingly simple investigation spirals into something far more out of control as things go along. It’s a dizzying and very engaging film, especially considering its age, and it does indeed stand as one of the more approachable classic film noir titles out there, from that “classic” and/or definite era of the genre.

7

‘Le Samouraï’ (1967)

Image via S.N. Prodis

There’s something undeniably cool about Le Samouraï, with it being the first technically post-film noir movie here worth mentioning among the film noir movies (sorry). It’s about a hitman who finds himself having to go on the run because of things relating to a job he takes on, which is what happens to any hitman in any movie or story about hitmen, basically. But the execution really sells it.

Le Samouraï wouldn’t have been described as a “vibes-only movie” when it came out in 1967 (“67”, though… eh… 6-7), but that’s what it is. It’s all about the vibes, and the vibes are perfect. It’s deliberately paced without ever running the risk of feeling slow or too boring, and it’s a testament to how great Alain Delon was, and how great the casting choice was, that he can really make not doing much at all still seem so interesting. If you’re talking film noir movies with a bit of an arthouse spin, they don’t get much better than Le Samouraï.

6

‘Notorious’ (1946)

Image via RKO Pictures

Imagine if you had an editor who would probably order a hit on you, making you like a hapless side character in a film noir movie, if you didn’t include Notorious in a ranking of iconic film noir movies? No, seriously, imagine it, because it definitely wouldn’t happen to anyone in real life and it’s not something anyone would realistically have to worry about, no sirree.

No, but really, no one would have to worry about it because it’s great in any event. If you’re willing to be a little broader with your definition of “film noir,” and include what is kind of a romantic spy film with some certainly prominent noir elements, then Notorious is easy to appreciate and include here. It might well be the most classic and quintessential noir movie Alfred Hitchcock ever directed, though there is one other made about a decade later that, if you’re willing to classify it as film noir, is even better (obviously, more on that shortly, and hopefully that same hypothetical editor won’t, uh, mind its placement, hypothetically).

5

‘L.A. Confidential’ (1997)

Image via Warner Bros.

Well beyond the realm of traditional film noir, as in the period that spanned throughout the 1940s and 1950s, here’s 1997’s L.A. Confidential, and it’s still very much worth considering. Part of that does come down to it being set around the same time most of those classic film noir movies were, since L.A. Confidential takes place in Los Angeles (obviously, given the title) during the 1950s, and so it has that distinctly noir flavor in that way.

Beyond that, though, it’s almost like hyper-noir, or heightened film noir, being the kind of movie that noir directors might’ve made back then if they hadn’t had so many restrictions imposed upon them. So, it’s the best of both worlds, retaining a film noir feel while also being a little darker and grittier, so really, if you’ve somehow never seen anything classic film noir movies before, but you don’t want to jump straight into the deep end, L.A. Confidential is an ideal gateway film.

4

‘Double Indemnity’ (1944)

Image via Paramount Pictures

Alfred Hitchcock is someone who earns having two movies in this ranking, and so is Billy Wilder, perhaps even more deservedly so, since many of his best movies belong, in one way or another, to the noir genre. And one of those is Double Indemnity, which feels like it hits all the expected beats for a classic film noir movie, to the point where if you watch it nowadays, you might well even feel like it’s a noir parody.

But Double Indemnity just hit all the right points unnervingly well, and yes, maybe that means it feels like a homage to film noir more than a film noir movie in the traditional sense, but it was a film noir movie in the traditional sense, made early on during that whole era. So, calling it a formative film noir movie would be a massive understatement, with it defining, in so many ways, how these sorts of movies could – and maybe even should – play out going forward.

3

‘Vertigo’ (1958)

Image via Paramount Pictures

When talking about Notorious before, there was a mention of an even better Alfred Hitchcock movie that sort of counts as a film noir movie, and here it is: Vertigo. It’s more than just a film noir movie, and it’s also made in color, which makes it stand out from a lot of classic noir, but still, Vertigo does involve a protagonist with an investigator kind of role (to keep things vague) who does indeed investigate things, and finds troubling things throughout that whole investigation.

Also, Vertigo unfolds pretty slowly, but you can say that about quite a few classic noir titles, so that’s okay. And the payoffs when it comes to Vertigo really make it worth it and so, in the end, it does well and truly earn its reputation as one of the best and most essential movies of all time (just in general; not just in terms of film noir or noir-adjacent movies).

2

‘Chinatown’ (1974)

Neo-noir crime mysteries don’t get a whole lot more iconic than Chinatown, and so here it is, as the last neo-noir movie worthy of being mentioned alongside the more definitive film noir ones from the genre’s heyday, or classic period. Like with L.A. Confidential, it goes back in time, which gives it something of a classic feel, but here, it does admittedly go back further than the 1940s and 1950s, though not by much, just into the ‘30s.

The plot here gets complicated fast, but the premise itself is like a lot of the other movies here: there’s an investigation that sees an investigator getting over his head. The places Chinatown goes, slowly but surely, really do prove quite staggering if you give yourself over to the movie and its patient sense of pacing, and it really does epitomize everything great about mystery/crime-related film noir (and neo-noir) movies.

1

‘Sunset Boulevard’ (1950)

Image via Paramount Pictures

Billy Wilder strikes back, or strikes again, because even if Sunset Boulevard might not feel quite so quintessentially noir as Double Indemnity, it is the best movie of his that feels film noir enough to count here. It’s the somewhat odd tone that actually helps Sunset Boulevard, more than anything. It’s more that the dark humor here is especially pronounced, and doubled down upon compared to most film noir movies that might be slightly funny in a dark way, not to mention only from a certain point of view.

Sunset Boulevard is like proto-camp, or classy camp, knowing when to be funny and knowing when to get all downbeat and critical of Hollywood and the nature of celebrity, with the contrast between the humor/satire and the tragic stuff really being what makes it special. Or what makes it the most special. There’s a lot that’s special and worthy of praise here, with Sunset Boulevard doing just about everything right, and being pretty much the best film noir movie ever made in the process.

Sunset Boulevard

Release Date

August 10, 1950

Runtime

110 minutes

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  Gloria Swanson

  Norma Desmond

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  William Holden

  Joe Gillis