Films

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14 films

Genre: Film noirClear filters
A blurred pale portrait in an ornate frame stands above LAURA lettering on a dark, reflective floor.
Laura
1944 · Otto Preminger88 min · Film noir

A detective investigating a woman’s murder becomes fascinated by the portrait, apartment, and testimony that survive her.

MysteryRomanticEasy
A painted eye is seen in extreme close-up beneath glass reflecting a dark human silhouette.
The Woman in the Window
1944 · Fritz Lang99 min · Film noir

A professor’s encounter with the woman depicted in a gallery portrait draws him into killing, concealment, and blackmail.

TenseMysteryEasy
A palette knife drags thick scarlet paint over a partly buried signature on pale linen canvas.
Scarlet Street
1945 · Fritz LangFilm noir

A lonely amateur painter is drawn into a relationship built on deception, desire, and other people’s willingness to profit from his work.

BleakTenseModerate
Original illustration: A black evening glove draped over a casino chair, with a guitar, roulette table and burgundy curtains beneath Gilda lettering.
Gilda
1946 · Charles Vidor110 min · Film noir

A gambler joins a Buenos Aires casino and discovers that the owner’s new wife is the woman whose memory he has been trying to erase.

RomanticTenseEasy
Interlocking green THE BIG SLEEP lettering fills a rain-speckled surface beside pale pink orchids.
The Big Sleep
1946 · Howard Hawks114 min · Film noir

Private detective Philip Marlowe takes a blackmail case for a wealthy family and enters a chain of disappearances, debts, murders, and withheld loyalties.

MysteryTenseModerate
THE BLUE DAHLIA in large ultramarine serif lettering on ice-blue paper, beside a layered blue dahlia bloom. 1946.
The Blue Dahlia
1946 · George MarshallFilm noir

A returning serviceman becomes the prime suspect in his estranged wife’s murder and enters a nocturnal search for the truth.

MysteryTenseModerate
Torn fragments of dark suits surround a strip bearing the title, with yellow gaps between them.
Crossfire
1947 · Edward Dmytryk86 min · Film noir

A police captain investigates a murder among demobilised soldiers and discovers that antisemitic hatred, not robbery, shaped the crime.

TenseBleakEasy
Original illustration for Out of the Past: A small roadside petrol station by a still lake lies below a vast diagonal night shadow that becomes a distant city street.
Out of the Past
1947 · Jacques Tourneur97 min · Film noir

A former private investigator’s quiet new life ends when the criminal past he tried to leave behind sends for him.

TenseRomanticEasy
Three cropped figures face different directions: a man in a hat between two women.
Raw Deal
1948 · Anthony Mann78 min · Film noir

An escaped convict travels towards revenge with the loyal woman who arranged his escape and the legal assistant who believes he deserves another chance.

TenseBleakEasy
Original illustration: Torn mirror-shaped paper panels frame a yacht, sea, chess knight and anonymous figures beside the title.
The Lady from Shanghai
1948 · Orson WellesFilm noir

An Irish sailor enters the orbit of a glamorous woman and her wealthy husband, then finds desire, employment, and murder folding into one another.

MysteryStrangeModerate
Gun Crazy — A couple, reflected light and a car meet a dark marsh landscape.
Gun Crazy
1950 · Joseph H. LewisFilm noir

A gifted marksman and a thrill-seeking sharpshooter fall in love, then turn their shared fascination with guns into a life of robbery and flight.

RomanticTenseEasy
NIGHT AND THE CITY lettering rises like tightly packed buildings in petrol green, ivory and vermilion, crossed by a thin wrestling-rope line. 1950.
Night and the City
1950 · Jules Dassin95 min · Film noir

A London hustler tries to control professional wrestling and discovers that every shortcut places him deeper inside another person’s territory.

TenseBleakEasy
Pickup on South Street — A purse and microfilm appear over fragments of a city map.
Pickup on South Street
1953 · Samuel Fuller80 min · Film noir

A pickpocket unknowingly steals microfilm from a courier and becomes the target of both federal agents and Communist spies.

TenseRomanticEasy
The Hitch-Hiker — A watching eye in a rear-view mirror interrupts a lonely desert road.
The Hitch-Hiker
1953 · Ida Lupino71 min · Film noir

Two friends offer a stranger a lift and find themselves trapped on a desert road by a killer who never seems to sleep.

TenseBleakEasy

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