Popular film noir movies;

1) The Double Indemnity;

Late one night, successful insurance salesman Walter Neff breaks into his office building in Los Angeles.  Bleeding and in pain, he begins to recite his story into a Dictaphone for his colleague Barton Keyes to find the next morning.  His story is one of deception and betrayal.  So begins Billy Wilder’s gritty masterpiece, based on the book by James M Cain.  As we sit and watch, we learn how Walter began an affair with the captivating Phyllis Dietrichson, played by the ultimate femme fatale actress, Barbara Stanwyck.  It isn’t long before she convinces him to help her murder her husband, Mr. Dietrichson, in order to collect his life insurance money.  


                             2) The Big Sleep

This has what could very well be the most complicated plot in film noir history.  Even Raymond Chandler, the author of the book that it was based on, once famously admitted that he didn’t know the answer to all of the plot twists and holes.  But despite the nearly incomprehensible plot, The Big Sleep is universally regarded as one of the definitive masterpieces of the genre.  This time Humphrey Bogart plays the famous hardboiled detective character (this time the famous Philip Marlowe). He finds himself in the employ of the sick and dying General Sternwood, who asks him to keep an eye on his daughter Carmen who has fallen in with a bad group of people.  


                           3) The Maltese Falcon

Considered by many to be the very first film noir, John Huston’s directorial debut would go down in history as one of the great detective movies.  The film is based on Dashiell Hammett’s book (also called The Maltese Falcon) and star Humphrey Bogart in one of his best roles as private eye Sam Spade. The story starts with the murder of Spade’s partner Miles Archer. Although he never really liked him, Spade is honor bound by his personal code of ethics to track down his killers.  Along the way he will get involved with the sultry Miss Wanderly and a group of criminals who seek a gold-encrusted falcon sculpture known as the Maltese Falcon. 

                                 4) Sweet Smell of Success

In the city of New York, your reputation is everything.  If you are not careful, it could easily be destroyed overnight.  Or it could be protected, for the right price.  Such is the world of Sweet Smell of Success, the gritty, grimy noir from famous screenwriter Ernest Lehman (he also wrote the screenplays for Sound of Music and North by Northwest).  Director Alexander Mackendrick, who had made his name doing comedies for England’s Ealing Studios, transforms New York City into a dystopia soaked with jazz, smoke, and criminals.  We follow Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis), a press agent without the burdens of morality. He is hired by J.J. Hunsecker, New York’s premier newspaper columnist, to stop his sister from marrying Steve Dallas, a fresh, young jazz guitarist. So, Sidney plants some reefer on him and spreads rumors that he is a Communist. Things work at first and the relationship is destroyed.

                      5) Out Of The Past;

A perennial favorite by film critics and directors alike, Out of the Past is universally regarded as one of the definitive examples of film noir.  It has all of the bells and whistles of great noir: stunning chiaroscuro cinematography, a beautiful femme fatale, and an intricate storyline.  But key to its charm is the lead, Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum), who like the title indicates, is running from a past that he cannot escape from.  At the start of the film, we find Bailey as the operator of a small town gas station.  But one day, he is forced to meet with a gambler named Whit Sterling.  On the way to the meeting, he confesses his past to his girlfriend.  It turns out that he was once a private eye who was hired by Sterling to find his mistress Kathie after she shot him and stole $40,000 from him.  Bailey managed to track her down to Acapulco.  Too bad he ended up falling in love with her.  But one murder and terrible discovery later, he decided to leave her.  Now, his past has caught up with him as he travels to meet the man that he betrayed.