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- #1
- Posted: 07/26/2018 23:13
- Post subject: Best Ever Neo-Noir Films/Modern Film Noir [List]
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Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Here it is -- finally! I knew tallying was going to be a lot of work, but I didn't really know, you know? Learning spreadsheets on the job and doing this for the first time made it a lot harder. But, hey, now I have a new skill and the next one will be easier.
1. Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974) 636 points
2. Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986) 547 points
3. Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) 526 points
4. Blow Out (Brian De Palma, 1981) 492 points
5. Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) 470 points
6. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001) 468 points
7. The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973) 465 points
8. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011) 462 points
9. L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1998) 457 points
10. Blood Simple (Joel & Ethan Coen, 1984) 439 points
11. Point Blank (John Boorman, 1967)
12. Le Samourai (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967)
13. Thief (Michael Mann, 1981)
14. Oldboy (Chan-wook Park, 2003)
15. Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)
16. High and Low (Akira Kurosawa, 1963)
17. Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
18. Le Cercle Rouge (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1970)
19. Fargo (Joel Coen, 1996)
20. The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)
21. A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005)
22. A Simple Plan (Sam Raimi, 1998)
23. No Country For Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2007)
24. Klute (Alan J. Pakula, 1971)
25. Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)
26. Night Moves (Arthur Penn, 1975)
27. House of Games (David Mamet, 1987)
28. Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne, 1987)
29. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Sam Peckinpah, 1974)
30. The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Peter Yates, 1973)
31. Miller's Crossing (Joel Coen, 1990)
32. Se7en (David Fincher, 1995)
33. Collateral (Michael Mann, 2004)
34. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Shane Black, 2005)
35. Leon: The Professional (Luc Besson, 1994)
36. Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967)
37. Dressed to Kill (Brian De Palma, 1980)
38. Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
39. Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1997)
40. The Silent Partner (Daryl Duke, 1978)
41. Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan, 1981)
42. Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino, 1992)
43. The Driver (Walter Hill, 1978)
44. To Live and Die in L.A. (William Friedkin, 1985)
45. Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998)
46. Purple Noon (René Clément, 1960)
47. Brick (Rian Johnson, 2005)
48. Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966)
49. The Killer (John Woo, 1989)
50. The Grifters (Stephen Frears, 1990)
51. The Last Seduction (John Dahl, 1994)
52. Miami Blues (George Armitage, 1990)
53. Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971)
54. Le Deuxième Souffle (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1966)
55. Europa (Lars Von Trier, 1991)
56. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)
57. Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986)
58. Série Noire (Alain Corneau, 1979)
59. Black Widow (Bob Rafelson, 1987)
60. Body Double (Brian De Palma, 1984)
61. Straight Time (Ulu Grosbard, 1978)
62. The Place Beyond the Pines (Derek Cianfrance, 2012)
63. The Big Lebowski (Joel & Ethan Coen, 1998)
64. Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)
65. Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)
66. The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, 1980)
67. Thieves Like Us (Robert Altman, 1974)
68. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (Sidney Lumet, 2007)
69. Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
70. The Man Who Wasn't There (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2001)
71. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (Sydney Pollack, 1969)
72. Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973)
73. Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, 2003)
74. Hardcore (Paul Schrader, 1979)
75. The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995)
76. Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
77. Hard Boiled (John Woo, 1992)
78. Bad Lieutenant (Abel Ferrara, 1992)
79. Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)
80. The Conformist (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1971)
81. Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock, 1964)
82. Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991)
83. King of New York (Abel Ferrara, 1990)
84. The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006)
85. The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971)
86. The Nice Guys (Shane Black, 2017)
87. Twilight (Robert Benton, 1998)
88. Looper (Rian Johnson, 2012)
89. Sin City (Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez, 2005)
90. The Outfit (John Flynn, 1973)
91. Angel Heart (Alan Parker, 1987)
92. Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971)
93. The Parallax View (Alan J. Pakula, 1974)
94. The Cook, The Thief, The Wife & Her Lover (Peter Greenaway, 1989)
95. Le Boucher (Claude Chabrol, 1970)
96 Training Day (Antoine Fuqua, 2001)
97. The Limey (Steven Soderbergh, 1999)
98. The American Friend (Wim Wenders, 1977) 110 points
99. The Drowning Pool (Stuart Rosenberg, 1975) 110 points
100. Obsession (Brian De Palma, 1976) 110 points
ALSO-RANS (Films that appeared on more than one list)
101. Gone Girl 109 points
102. Drugstore Cowboy
103. Basic Instinct
104. Harper
105. The Road to Perdition
106. Insomnia
107. No Way Out
108. Pi
109. Sea of Love
110. Minority Report
111. The Dark Knight
112. The Getaway
113. Face/Off
114. Bad Influence
115. Prisoners
116. La Ceremonie
117. The Hit
118. After Dark, My Sweet
119. Devil in a Blue Dress
120. Fight Club
121. Jackie Brown
122. The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
123. John Wick
124. Wild at Heart
125. Cape Fear
126. Barton Fink
127. Chungking Express
128. Farewell, My Lovely
129. Charley Varrick
130. Coup de Torchon
131. Hollywoodland
132. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
133. Internal Affairs
134. Serpico
135. Gone Baby Gone
136. Mona Lisa
137. The Nickel Ride
138. Shallow Grave
139. City of God
140. Cutter's Way
141. Phoenix
142. Children of Men
143. Inception
144. Madigan
145. One False Move
146. Winter's Bone
147. Following
148. Dog Day Afternoon
149. In Bruges
150. The Town
151. Hard Eight
152. The Spanish Prisoner
153. The Lookout
154. True Romance
155. The Cooler
156. Inside Man
157. Flesh and Bone
158. Snatch 22 points
10 lists were submitted. 308 unique films appeared on the lists. Blood Simple was the only film to appear on 9 lists, the highest number of them.
Last edited by PurpleHazel on 07/31/2018 08:47; edited 1 time in total
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badseed
Gender: Male
Age: 36
Location: FL
- #2
- Posted: 07/27/2018 03:43
- Post subject:
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This list actually turned out really good. Damn good. Top 25 is pretty spot on.
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- #3
- Posted: 07/27/2018 05:53
- Post subject:
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Yeah, it turned out quite well. That I don't have a strong objection to a single film on it qualifying is a small miracle. Some nice left-field choices on there too -- The Silent Partner, The Outfit, Serie Noire etc. Given no one 100-film list, especially of this less-well-established genre/style, is going to satisfy everybody, I really couldn't have expected it to turn out much better.
Blow Out had quite a last-minute surge there.
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CA Dreamin
Gender: Male
Location: LA
- #4
- Posted: 07/27/2018 06:35
- Post subject:
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Again, I consider Neo-Noir a cycle, not a genre. There are a few films on here I will never consider a Noir...Bonnie and Clyde and The Departed, for example. Nevertheless this is pretty cool list. Lots of good stuff on here. I'm pleasantly surprised by Twilight appearing on the list. Also a little surprised Curtis Hanson's Bad Influence did not make it. I think it's a great movie that perfectly fits the Neo-Noir description. Do people just not like that movie?
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badseed
Gender: Male
Age: 36
Location: FL
- #5
- Posted: 07/27/2018 07:05
- Post subject:
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Added Bad Influence to my watchlist on Letterboxd on that alone. There's somewhere between 10 and 15 films on the list I haven't seen as well.
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- #6
- Posted: 07/27/2018 08:50
- Post subject:
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StreetSpirit wrote: | Again, I consider Neo-Noir a cycle, not a genre. |
Aw man, I included the word "style" just for you, guessing incorrectly that you preferred that to "cycle."
Quote: | There are a few films on here I will never consider a Noir...Bonnie and Clyde and The Departed, for example.
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I agree with you about Bonnie and Clyde, though I do consider most young lovers on the run movies to be noir, because of the classic noirs Gun Crazy and They Live By Night.
Regarding The Departed, practically all undercover cop movies between 1941 and 1964 are considered film noir -- T-Men, The Border Incident, The Mob etc. Add a police department mole and you have a pretty dark crime brew. Do you object to it because of the presence of the Boston mob?
Quote: | I'm pleasantly surprised by Twilight appearing on the list. |
You can thank Gowi for that (along with yourself).
Quote: | Also a little surprised Curtis Hanson's Bad Influence did not make it. I think it's a great movie that perfectly fits the Neo-Noir description. Do people just not like that movie? |
It was on bobbyb5's list too, but he only ranked it at #100 (if he'd ranked it at #82 it would've made the cut). I'm old enough to remember when it came out. After Fatal Attraction there was a deluge of these type of movies and I think it got somewhat lost in the flood. Hanson himself also directed The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Bad Influence didn't particularly stand out to me at the time (haven't seen it since -- I should check it out again) -- Hanson's The River Wild made a little more of an impression (dunno if everyone would count this as neo-noir, but the stalker premise is vaguely similar to Fatal Attraction). There are quite a few really good neo-noirs from the 80s and 90s that have fallen into obscurity today.
For instance, I was disappointed no one else included John Dahl's Red Rock West. It was Dahl's previous film to The Last Seduction and I actually like it a little more, though I'm very fond of both. Great premise and well-constructed.
Three prolific neo-noir directors mentioned in this post who are less famous than the Coen Brothers-level ones: Curtis Hanson, John Dahl and Robert Benton. Walter Hill's another one.
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bobbyb5
Gender: Male
Location: New York
- #7
- Posted: 07/27/2018 15:36
- Post subject:
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The results turned out really good!!! I like it.
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bobbyb5
Gender: Male
Location: New York
- #8
- Posted: 07/27/2018 15:51
- Post subject:
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PurpleHazel wrote: | Aw man, I included the word "style" just for you, guessing incorrectly that you preferred that to "cycle."
Quote: | There are a few films on here I will never consider a Noir...Bonnie and Clyde and The Departed, for example.
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I agree with you about Bonnie and Clyde, though I do consider most young lovers on the run movies to be noir, because of the classic noirs Gun Crazy and They Live By Night.
Regarding The Departed, practically all undercover cop movies between 1941 and 1964 are considered film noir -- T-Men, The Border Incident, The Mob etc. Add a police department mole and you have a pretty dark crime brew. Do you object to it because of the presence of the Boston mob?
Quote: | I'm pleasantly surprised by Twilight appearing on the list. |
You can thank Gowi for that (along with yourself).
Quote: | Also a little surprised Curtis Hanson's Bad Influence did not make it. I think it's a great movie that perfectly fits the Neo-Noir description. Do people just not like that movie? |
It was on bobbyb5's list too, but he only ranked it at #100 (if he'd ranked it at #82 it would've made the cut). I'm old enough to remember when it came out. After Fatal Attraction there was a deluge of these type of movies and I think it got somewhat lost in the flood. Hanson himself also directed The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Bad Influence didn't particularly stand out to me at the time (haven't seen it since -- I should check it out again) -- Hanson's The River Wild made a little more of an impression (dunno if everyone would count this as neo-noir, but the stalker premise is vaguely similar to Fatal Attraction). There are quite a few really good neo-noirs from the 80s and 90s that have fallen into obscurity today.
For instance, I was disappointed no one else included John Dahl's Red Rock West. It was Dahl's previous film to The Last Seduction and I actually like it a little more, though I'm very fond of both. Great premise and well-constructed.
Three prolific neo-noir directors mentioned in this post who are less famous than the Coen Brothers-level ones: Curtis Hanson, John Dahl and Robert Benton. Walter Hill's another one. |
Yeah, I seem to remember Red Rock West getting a lot of attention when it first came out and there was a lot of talk about it. Maybe people have just forgotten about it.
I picked Bonnie and Clyde, even though like you, for the most part I really don't think of it as noir but just as a movie movie. But since it's one of my favorite movies I included it, plus It just fits so many of the characteristics that people say you need to have in order for a film to be noir. But a lot of other movies that I like I just couldn't get myself to include because they seem to be just movie movies and not noir movies. For instance, I really like the French Connection and Taxi Driver, but I just don't feel like they fit because there's no mystery in them, and no surprising plot twists or big revelations that explains it all and all that kind of stuff. They're just movie movies.
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- #9
- Posted: 07/27/2018 20:21
- Post subject:
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bobbyb5 wrote: | I picked Bonnie and Clyde, even though like you, for the most part I really don't think of it as noir but just as a movie movie. But since it's one of my favorite movies I included it, plus It just fits so many of the characteristics that people say you need to have in order for a film to be noir. But a lot of other movies that I like I just couldn't get myself to include because they seem to be just movie movies and not noir movies. For instance, I really like the French Connection and Taxi Driver, but I just don't feel like they fit because there's no mystery in them, and no surprising plot twists or big revelations that explains it all and all that kind of stuff. They're just movie movies. |
French Connection is definitely a borderline case. It took me a pretty long time to wrap my head around the idea of Taxi Driver being noir. In the Film Noir Encyclopedia's second edition (1992), it not only included Taxi Driver as noir, but listed it as the last classic noir film. If you list a movie as the last of something, that suggests that you feel pretty strongly about it.
The Stephen Hunter article I excerpted in the poll thread (I posted the part about Pulp Fiction), also asserts that Taxi Driver was the last classic noir film and he writes about it at length. I don't agree with it being classic film noir -- I think the 1964 cutoff for (American) films works best -- but it does demonstrate how confident some critics are about it being some kind of noir. I do understand the reluctance some people may have about it qualifying, because it took me a while to get used to the idea myself.
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- #10
- Posted: 07/27/2018 21:43
- Post subject:
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Great work! List turned out awesome... for the most part. Some observations:
- really sad that Mamet's Homicide didn't make it, especially considering his first film placed so highly... just going to assume most people haven't seen it (the alternative that they have seen it and didn't vote for it is sadder for me).
- Robert Benton's Twilight kind of stinks, honestly. Tons of more deserving titles that didn't make the list.
- pleasantly surprised that The Outfit made it. Always thought that one was a bit underseen.
- something from Truffaut would have been nice...
- surprised Blood Simple placed higher than both Fargo and No Country for Old Men... I mean, it's definitely more noir-ish... but not nearly as good as either.
- I'm not really feeling The Conformist as a neo-noir at all...
- holy crap, Nightcrawler is way too high! wow...
and what I haven't seen, for future reference:
48. The Killer (John Woo, 1989)
55. Europa (Lars Von Trier, 1991)
59. Black Widow (Bob Rafelson, 1987)
69. Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
76. Hard Boiled (John Woo, 1992)
78. Band of Outsiders (Jean-Luc Godard, 1964)
93. Le Boucher (Claude Chabrol, 1970)
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