Top 50 Film-Noir Movies
1. The Big Caper (1957)
Approved | 84 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A "confidence couple" pose as husband and wife while attempting a bank heist.
Director: Robert Stevens | Stars: Rory Calhoun, Mary Costa, James Gregory, Robert H. Harris
Votes: 746
2. The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Passed | 112 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
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: 29,101
3. A Woman's Face (1941)
Passed | 106 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Thriller
A female blackmailer with a disfiguring facial scar meets a plastic surgeon who offers her the possibility of looking like a normal woman.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Joan Crawford, Melvyn Douglas, Conrad Veidt, Osa Massen
Votes: 3,660
4. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir
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: 231,429
5. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
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: 94,981 | Gross: $0.65M
6. Touch of Evil (1958)
PG-13 | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
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: 108,208 | Gross: $2.24M
7. Rebecca (1940)
Approved | 130 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A self-conscious woman juggles adjusting to her new role as an aristocrat's wife and avoiding being intimidated by his first wife's spectral presence.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Judith Anderson
Votes: 143,609 | Gross: $4.36M
8. The Third Man (1949)
Approved | 93 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller
Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, Harry Lime.
Director: Carol Reed | Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard
Votes: 178,375 | Gross: $0.45M
9. Kiss of Death (1947)
Approved | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Nick Bianco is caught during a botched jewellery heist. The prosecution offer him a more lenient sentence if he squeals on his accomplices but he doesn't roll over on them. Three years into the sentence an event changes his mind.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy, Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark
Votes: 9,275
10. Double Indemnity (1944)
Passed | 107 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
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: 163,938 | Gross: $5.72M
11. Suspicion (1941)
Approved | 99 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Thriller
A shy young heiress marries a charming gentleman, and soon begins to suspect he is planning to murder her.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine, Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce
Votes: 41,136 | Gross: $4.50M
12. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Passed | 100 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
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: 164,187 | Gross: $2.11M
13. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
Passed | 108 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
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: 69,048
14. Notorious (1946)
Not Rated | 102 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance
The daughter of a convicted Nazi spy is asked by American agents to gather information on a ring of Nazi 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: 105,232 | Gross: $10.46M
15. Secret Beyond the Door... (1947)
Not Rated | 99 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
After a lovely woman and her new husband settle in an ancient mansion on the East coast, she discovers that he may want to kill her.
Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Joan Bennett, Michael Redgrave, Anne Revere, Barbara O'Neil
Votes: 5,538
16. The Killing (1956)
Approved | 84 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Crook Johnny Clay assembles a five-man team to plan and execute a daring racetrack robbery.
Director: Stanley Kubrick | Stars: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen
Votes: 95,128
17. Strangers on a Train (1951)
PG | 101 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
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: 138,810 | Gross: $7.63M
18. Out of the Past (1947)
Approved | 97 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
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: 39,831
19. The Big Sleep (1946)
Passed | 114 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery
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: 89,010 | Gross: $6.54M
20. Laura (1944)
Passed | 88 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery
A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he is investigating.
Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price
Votes: 49,935 | Gross: $4.36M
21. 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: 34,289
22. 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: 3,889
23. Spellbound (1945)
Approved | 111 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Romance
A psychiatrist protects the identity of an amnesia patient accused of murder while attempting to recover his memory.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll
Votes: 51,092 | Gross: $7.00M
24. Cry Terror! (1958)
Not Rated | 96 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
Duped by former Army pal Paul Hoplin into building a time-bomb, New York shop owner Jim Molner and his family become hostages of Hoplin who uses bomb-threats to extort money from airlines.
Director: Andrew L. Stone | Stars: James Mason, Rod Steiger, Inger Stevens, Neville Brand
Votes: 1,401
25. Experiment Perilous (1944)
Approved | 91 min | Film-Noir, Romance, Thriller
In 1903, a doctor suspects murder in the gothic Bederaux family.
Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Hedy Lamarr, George Brent, Paul Lukas, Albert Dekker
Votes: 1,972
26. Impact (1949)
Passed | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A unfaithful wife plots with her lover to kill her husband, but the lover is accidentally killed instead. The husband stays in hiding and lets his wife be charged with conspiracy.
Director: Arthur Lubin | Stars: Brian Donlevy, Ella Raines, Charles Coburn, Helen Walker
Votes: 4,564
27. Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Passed | 70 min | Film-Noir, Horror, Sci-Fi
A mad doctor conducts ghastly genetic experiments on a remote island in the South Seas, much to the fear and disgust of the shipwrecked sailor who finds himself trapped there.
Director: Erle C. Kenton | Stars: Charles Laughton, Bela Lugosi, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams
Votes: 10,577
28. To Have and Have Not (1944)
Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Comedy, Film-Noir
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: 37,287
29. Mildred Pierce (1945)
Approved | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
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: 27,899
30. Terror by Night (1946)
Approved | 60 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
When the fabled Star of Rhodesia diamond is stolen on a London to Edinburgh train and the son of its owner is murdered, Sherlock Holmes must discover which of his suspicious fellow passengers is responsible.
Director: Roy William Neill | Stars: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Alan Mowbray, Dennis Hoey
Votes: 6,691
31. The Hunted (1948)
Passed | 88 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
Despite her pleas of innocence, an honest cop arrests his own girlfriend for her alleged part in a jewel robbery and he keeps hounding her after her release from prison, even though he still loves her.
Director: Jack Bernhard | Stars: Preston Foster, Belita, Pierre Watkin, Edna Holland
Votes: 560
32. Scarface (1932)
PG | 93 min | Action, Crime, Drama
An ambitious and nearly insane violent gangster climbs the ladder of success in the mob, but his weaknesses prove to be his downfall.
Directors: Howard Hawks, Richard Rosson | Stars: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley, Osgood Perkins
Votes: 29,580
33. 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: 32,376 | Gross: $0.01M
34. Phone Call from a Stranger (1952)
105 min | Drama, Film-Noir
While awaiting a delayed flight, a lawyer who has left his unfaithful wife, befriends three fellow passengers. After the plane crashes and he is among the few to survive, he feels compelled to contact the families of his dead friends.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Bette Davis, Shelley Winters, Gary Merrill, Michael Rennie
Votes: 2,892
35. 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: 34,079
36. The Wrong Man (1956)
Not Rated | 105 min | Drama, Film-Noir
In 1953, an innocent man named Christopher Emanuel "Manny" Balestrero is arrested after being mistaken for an armed robber.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Henry Fonda, Vera Miles, Anthony Quayle, Harold J. Stone
Votes: 30,603
37. Nightmare Alley (1947)
Passed | 110 min | Drama, Film-Noir
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: 13,009
38. 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: 43,254
39. Niagara (1953)
Not Rated | 92 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
As two couples are visiting Niagara Falls, tensions between one wife and her husband reach the level of murder.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Joseph Cotten, Jean Peters, Max Showalter
Votes: 19,256
40. Deception (1946)
Approved | 115 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Music
After marrying her long-lost love, a musician finds the relationship threatened by a wealthy composer who is besotted with her.
Director: Irving Rapper | Stars: Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, John Abbott
Votes: 4,009
41. 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: 28,340
42. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
Approved | 96 min | Drama, Film-Noir
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: 34,717
43. 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: 16,112
44. 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: 18,337
45. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
Passed | 113 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A married woman and a drifter fall in love, then plot to murder her husband.
Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: Lana Turner, John Garfield, Cecil Kellaway, Hume Cronyn
Votes: 22,324 | Gross: $8.33M
46. Cast a Dark Shadow (1955)
Approved | 82 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Thriller
Edward "Teddy" Bare is a delusional psychotic with a lust for wealth, older women and murder. Having committed what he thinks is the perfect murder of his elderly wife; Teddy sets his sights on new targets when her fortune goes elsewhere.
Director: Lewis Gilbert | Stars: Dirk Bogarde, Margaret Lockwood, Kay Walsh, Kathleen Harrison
Votes: 2,920
47. The Stranger (1946)
Passed | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
An investigator from the War Crimes Commission travels to Connecticut to find an infamous Nazi.
Director: Orson Welles | Stars: Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Philip Merivale
Votes: 27,935
48. Sudden Fear (1952)
Approved | 110 min | Film-Noir, Thriller
After an ambitious actor insinuates himself into the life of a wealthy middle-aged playwright and marries her, he plots with his mistress to murder her.
Director: David Miller | Stars: Joan Crawford, Jack Palance, Gloria Grahame, Bruce Bennett
Votes: 7,059
49. 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: 14,349
50. Ace in the Hole (1951)
Approved | 111 min | Drama, Film-Noir
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: 38,299 | Gross: $3.97M