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Genre Index
Newest Reviews

Act of Violence

Angels and Demons

Animal Kingdom

Argo

Armored Car Robbery

Angel Heart

Berberian Sound Studio

Bernie

The Big Combo

The Big Heat

The Big Knife

The Big Sleep (1946)

Billion Dollar Brain

The Black Angel

Blast of Silence

Born to Kill

Bound

Branded to Kill

Broken Embraces

Call Northside 777

Cape Fear (1991)

Cell 211

The Chaser

Cold in July

Cold Weather

The Conversation

Crime Wave (1954)
(revisited)

Crimes at the Black House

Croupier

The Demon

Detour

Dexter
(Season 4)

Don't Look for Me

Double Indemnity

Drive

Drug War

The East

Exam

Fargo

Femme Fatale

The File on Thelma Jordan

Frenzy

Get Carter (2000)

The Ghost Writer

The Gift

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

The Girl Who Played With Fire
(plus some additional thoughts)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Haywire

Headhunters

High and Low

A History of Violence

Honour

The House on 92nd Street

The Imitation Game

Jackie Brown

Jamaica Inn (1939)

Kill List

Kiss Me, Deadly

Kiss of Death (1948)

Laura

Law Abiding Citizen

Leave Her To Heaven

The Leopard Man

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Memento

Miss Bala

A Most Wanted Man

Mother

Mr. Holmes

Mud

Nightmare Alley
(additional thoughts)

No Country for Old Men

No Man of Her Own (1950)

Noise

North by Northwest

Now You See Me

Out of the Past

Parker

A Perfect Murder

Perversion Story

Phantom Lady

Phoenix

Private Hell 36

Psycho

A Quiet Life

Raw Deal (1948)

Revanche

The Red Riding Trilogy

Rififi

The Road to Perdition

Saboteur

The Scar
(revisited)

Scarlet Street

The Secret in Their Eyes

The Set-Up

Sexton Blake and the Hooded Terror

Shanghai

Sherlock
(Series 1)

Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows

Shock (1946)

Shutter Island

Side Effects

The Silence of the Lambs
(some additional thoughts)

A Simple Plan

Sleep Tight

The Square

The Sting

The Stranger (1946)

The Stranger By the Lake

The Street With No Name

Stoker

Suspense (television series)

The Talented Mr. Ripley

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

The Thin Man

Three Days of the Condor

The Ticket of Leave Man

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Topkapi

Under Capricorn

Underworld USA

Viva Riva!

A Walk Among the Tombstones

Winter's Bone

World for Ransom

The Yellow Sea

Young Sherlock Holmes

Zero Focus

Raymond Chandler described the landscape of the hard-boiled mystery, what the French called "roman noir," as a place where the streets are dark with something more than night. The hardboiled stories of Chandler, Dashiel Hammett, James M. Cain, Cornell Woolrich, Horace McCoy, David Goodis, Chester Himes, and Jim Thompson were characterized by cynical fatalism, a brutal existentialism, and casual, almost banal, nihilism. It's no wonder it was so appealing to the French.

Of course, not all mystery and supsense movies are descended from the bleak worldview of the hard-boiled writers, but the films that ARE descended from hard-boiled constitute their own sub-genre: Film Noir. This is a grouping of films that collectively influence the rest of cinema more than just about any other type of movie--out of all proportion to their numbers or their box office success.

The poet laureate of the Mystery and Suspense movie is Alfred Hitchock, a director whose films are suffused with such a darkness of heart and which are mounted with such a mastery of cinematic technique that his name has become an adjective. So distinctive is the stamp of Hitchcock's anima on his films that many critics and viewers assign him his own sub-genre.





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