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Nobody wears a fedora in these,which was the usual for earlier noir films. Now, neo-noir takes the old crime-movie mood, the rain, the bad decisions, the feeling that somebody has already lost, and drops it into the present day, where people have cell phones, cameras are everywhere, and the hero could just as easily be a stringer chasing car crashes as a detective in a trench coat.
The stories are all different, but the feeling is definitely the same. You can tell early on that it won’t end well for most of the people involved. These are the six I think do it best from the last fifteen years. From a loud, funny buddy mystery to a Batman movie that looks like an actual detective story.
6
‘The Nice Guys’ (2016)
It’s 1977 in Los Angeles, and Holland March (Ryan Gosling), a drunk, barely competent private investigator, ends up working with Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe), a guy who breaks people’s arms for a living. They get tangled up in the search for a missing girl, Amelia, and the trail leads through the porn industry and the auto business. March’s daughter, Holly (Angourie Rice), tags along and ends up smarter than both of them. Shane Black, who wrote Lethal Weapon, directed The Nice Guys.
Gosling plays March as a coward with a surprising talent for slapstick, and he falls off a balcony, screams like a kid, and finds a dead body in a way that never gets old. Crowe is the straight man, and the two of them are very good together. It didn’t make much money, which is a shame, because the jokes land and the mystery actually holds up.
5
‘Nightcrawler’ (2014)
Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a petty thief in Los Angeles who discovers he can make money filming car crashes and crime scenes and selling the footage to local news. He hires a desperate assistant, Rick (Riz Ahmed), and builds a relationship with a news director, Nina (Rene Russo), who wants the bloodiest footage she can get. Dan Gilroy made his directing debut with Nightcrawler, and Russo, his real-life wife, plays Nina.
Gyllenhaal lost around twenty pounds for the part, and he looks hollow and hungry, with eyes that never blink enough. Lou talks in a strange, corporate-speak that sounds like a motivational book, and the more he talks, the more frightening he gets. He crosses lines nobody else would, and there’s no moment where he gets punished for it. It’s a dark joke about local news, and it still feels sharp.
4
‘Blue Ruin’ (2013)
Dwight (Macon Blair) is a drifter living out of a rusty car on the Delaware coast until he hears that the man who killed his parents is getting out of prison. He drives to Virginia to take revenge, and he’s terrible at it. He leaves his keys behind, gets hurt, and starts a feud with the man’s family that spirals out of control. Sam (Amy Hargreaves), his sister, is pulled into it all. Jeremy Saulnier wrote and directed Blue Ruin.
Saulnier raised some of the money on Kickstarter, and Blair, a childhood friend of his, plays Dwight as a quiet, scared man who isn’t built for violence. The movie premiered at Cannes and won a critics’ prize there. Revenge stories usually make killing look cool, and this one shows how clumsy and painful it would be in real life.
3
‘You Were Never Really Here’ (2017)
Joe (Joaquin Phoenix) is a hired fixer who rescues kidnapped girls, usually with a hammer, and he’s barely holding himself together. When a senator’s daughter, Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov), goes missing, Joe takes the job and finds a conspiracy that reaches far above him. He also takes care of his elderly mother at home, and those scenes are among the movie’s most tender. Lynne Ramsay directed You Were Never Really Here from a short novel by Jonathan Ames.
It runs only about 89 minutes, and she cuts most of the violence out of frame, so you see the aftermath more than the act. Phoenix puts on weight and he plays Joe with constant pain. He won Best Actor at Cannes, and Ramsay shared the Best Screenplay prize. Jonny Greenwood’s score hums and screeches in all the right places.
2
‘Drive’ (2011)
A nameless Hollywood stunt driver (Ryan Gosling) also works as a getaway driver for hire, and he falls for his neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan). When her husband gets out of prison owing money to dangerous people, the Driver steps in to help, and a robbery goes wrong. Shannon (Bryan Cranston), his boss, tries to look out for him. Nicolas Winding Refn directed Drive, and he won Best Director at Cannes for it.
Albert Brooks, known for comedy, plays the gangster Bernie Rose against type, and he’s terrifying in a calm, polite way. The Driver barely speaks, and Gosling does a lot with silence and a toothpick. The silver scorpion jacket became famous, and so did the synth soundtrack, especially “Nightcall” and “A Real Hero.” The elevator scene still leaves people breathless.
1
‘The Batman’ (2022)
Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson) is only in his second year as Batman, still a rumor to most of Gotham, when the Riddler (Paul Dano) starts killing city officials and leaving him cryptic clues. Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz) helps him follow the trail, and the Penguin (Colin Farrell), buried under prosthetics, runs a nightclub with ties to the mob. Jeffrey Wright plays Gordon, and Andy Serkis plays Alfred, two of the most versatile actors.
Matt Reeves, the director of the film, has said he drew from Chinatown and Se7en, and wrote parts of the script listening to Nirvana, which is why “Something in the Way” plays early in the movie. Greig Fraser shot it in rain and shadow, and Michael Giacchino’s score has a heavy four-note theme that sticks. So, all in all this is only the Batman movie closest to real noir.
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https://collider.com/best-neo-noirs-since-2010-ranked/
Safwan Azeem
Almontather Rassoul
