The 15 best color film noir movies

Film noir means “black movie” and, most often, it means black & white. There’s been debate about its exact origins (though obviously the term was coined by the French) for decades. But most people agree that it emerged from the German Expressionism period of the 20’s and 30’s, and began around 1940, most probably with the movie, Stranger on the Third Floor. But the arrival of color to cinema, just one in a long line of decried technological advancements, was thought by many to be film noir’s death knell. It wasn’t. The definition of film noir is notoriously hard to pin down, and it’s one of the most mercurial genres of them all. Many of the truly dark, though Technicolor, movies that were expelled from the genre at the time have been since reconsidered in a new, full color light. Here are my picks for the best 15 of the bunch. And it’s a big bunch, so bring your own faves to the table.

Desert Fury, 1947.

Produced by the great Hal Willis (producer of such classic films as Casablanca, True Grit, The Maltese Falcon, Becket, Little Ceaser, and Yankee Doodle Dandy), Desert Fury follows Fritzi, the tough-as-nails dame who owns a Nevada saloon, and the return to town of two people who should never, ever get together: her daughter, and her ex-lover, a gangster. It’s the desert. Things get pretty hot. With Burt Lancaster and Mary Astor and co-written by Robert Rossen of “are you now or have you ever been?” fame. Rossen had left the pink party in ‘47, the year this film came out, and testified at the HUAC hearings in ‘51. So, though he “wasn’t now,” he had been, and his refusal to give details or name names bought him a one-way ticket on the blacklist bus, unlike some people who spilled the beans on their buddies and kept getting paychecks. Kazan, I’m talking to you.

Body Heat, 1981.

Really more of a neo-noir than true noir (the film is super self-aware of its style, playing like an homage) Body Heat is nevertheless a solidly made, and very entertaining movie. It features the great William Hurt as “everyman” Ned Racine (I’m just guessing that filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan named him after the writer, Racine, known for his tragedies, since Ned’s life, after meeting a smoldering femme fatale, fits pretty well into that category) and the incredibly sexy (in 1981, at least) Kathleen Turner as the archetypal evil woman. Boy howdy. Run away, run away! The plot is more or less lifted right from Double Indemnity (a sexy lady gets her dupe lover to kill her husband so that they can “be together.” Yeah right, Ned. Didn’t that sound just a teensy bit familiar? Put the hammer down, buddy…). One detail I love about the movie is that every time Hurt goes jogging, as soon as he’s done he smokes a cigarette. It was made to look like it belonged to another time and now it really does. The 80’s.

Le Crecle Rouge, 1970.

I like to think of Alain Delon as the Robert Mitchum of France. The ridiculously handsome (”pretty” is the right word) homme starred in several now-classic films noir, more than one of them made by the fantastic French filmmaker, Jean-Pierre Melville. It truly is a great film, in part because of the 30 minute heist scene that Melville orchestrates with very little dialogue. Of course, Jules Dassin had already filmed an amazingly, almost shockingly quiet 30-minute heist sequence in the French film Rififi, in 1955. This one’s getting the reboot treatment, thanks to Johnny To (not bad, with the Election trilogy, Fulltime Killer, Heroic Trio and other HK films under his belt) and, um, Orlando Bloom (uh… he’s pretty?). Liam Neeson and Chow Yun-Fat will also star in the new version, as well as, hold onto your little red socks, Alain Delon! Nice. We’ve come full circle.

Farewell, My Lovely, 1975.

Based on the Raymond Chandler novel Murder, My Sweet, the film stars Sharpet-faced Robert Mitchum as private dick Philip Marlowe (who shows up elsewhere on our list). Circumstances lead him to the painfully beautiful Charlotte Rampling, bodies pile up, and Marlowe tries very hard to keep his own from being added to the smelly stack. He’s drugged, held captive by a madman, and dodges lots of lead. It was directed by craftsman Rick Richards, who was more of a producer really (he won an Oscar for producing Tootsie). With this film, Mitchum added his fedora to the list of men who played Marlowe (a hell of a list, including James Garner, Humprey Bogart, Dick Powell, both Robert and George Montgomery (not related), and of course, Elliot Gould). Mitchum would step into Marlowe’s shoes again, though not so well, in the 1960 version of The Big Sleep which, for some strange reason, was set in London, rather than L.A.

Purple Noon, 1960.

More directly translated as ‘Blazing Sun,’ Purple Noon finds perfect noir garcon Alaine Delon starring as Mr. Ripley, the man with all the talent. Based on the Patricia Highsmith novel, the film marked the debut, more or less, of the expressionless Delon. You know the story, Tom Ripley, a sort of  Camus-like phantom, covets the life that his pal Phillip is living. Sent by Phillip’s parents to reign him in, Ripley instead stabs his pal to death, dumps the body, and assumes the identity. As you would. Delon is particularly good in this role; his glassy visage never shows a single sign of cracking. Well, almost never. There is a tiny glimmer of… something… near the end of the film, when Ripley’s game may, or may not, be up. Le jou sante fe? Perhaps.

The Grifters, 1990.

Another one that’s often called neo-noir (some of these distinctions are awfully slippery), The Grifters features a sexy, over-the-top turn from Annette Benning, the fabulous Anjelica Houston (whose father, John, directed The Maltese Falcon, based on the Hammet novel, among other great noirs, and of course starred in Chinatown, as the monster who so confused poor Faye), and John Cusack. Adapted from the Jim Thompson novel, it’s a tale of small time con men, and women, and the men, and women, who love them. Director Stephen Frears, a guy who can do almost anything (Dangerous Liaisons, Prick up Your Ears, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, The Queen, High Fidelity), keeps the dark proceedings light and snappy, like a good hot dog, often bisecting, or trisecting the screen to pack in the action. It works, and it’s a lot of fun. It’s one of those seductive “must watch” movies.

Leave Her to Heaven, 1945.

Leave Her to Heaven is perhaps one of the lesser known noirs now, but at the time of its release, it was HUGE, becoming Fox’s highest grossing film of the decade. The fabulous Gene Tierney (Laura, Night and the City, Heaven Can Wait) received an Oscar nomination for her performance as an insanely jealous woman that a sad novelist dupe meets on a train. They’re soon married (she gives her fiance Vincent Price a fast buh-bye; Price also starred with her in Laura), but the novelist’s life pretty quickly starts falling apart. First his handicapped younger brother dies (he had demanded an awful lot of his attention, after all); then his unborn son. It’s pretty perverse stuff, so of course the public ate it up. The title came from Halmlet: “…leave her to heaven, and to those thorns that in her bosom lodge to prick and sting her.” Well said, Shakesy.

Forget it, Jake.

Chinatown needs no introduction. Especially now that Mr. P is back in the news (sadly, it’s not for a new movie). If personal history tells us anything, the man will come out of this without a scratch. As a boy he slipped through a fence, escaping the concentration camp; he never saw his parents again. He hid in the woods, though not well; German soldiers saw him one day in a tree and started taking shots, “As if I was a squirrel,” he said. As a young man, he was on Charles Manson’s hit list, and lost his wife and unborn child in a grizzly murder perpetrated by Manson’s followers, who were after Polanski (he’d gone out). Then, of course, there was the 13 year old girl, followed by France. L’amour fou. All that aside, Chinatown is one of the few perfect movies. It features the best work from great people, all around, and is black to its core.

The Killers, 1964.

The Killers is an audacious movie. Based on Hemmingway’s 6 page short story (which provides nothing but a single scene; it’s a great short story and a great scene), the film was intended to be the very first “made for TV movie,” but was ultimately deemed too violent (what!? This is America, damn it! We like our violent movies) and released into theaters. It seems to me that the “made for TV movie” genre has really gone down hill in a freaking handbasket. 1971’s Duel was a made for TV movie. It’s not the best movie ever made, but it is a work of cinema. There is an attention to craft. The filmmakers working back then were, you know, filmmakers. They weren’t TV makers. Nothing had to have a moral lesson. Nothing had to “lift up our spirits” or “make us cry.” When did wom-jep and kid-jep stories become the go-to crap for the crap-box?

The Long Goodbye, 1973.

The Long Goodbye is one of Robert Altman’s loosest movies (he took huge liberties with the book), and that’s saying a lot. By casting Elliott Gould as Chandler’s anti-hero Philip Marlowe, Altman sorta spat in the face of the genre. But Gould is fantastic and hilarious as Marlowe, mumbling and shuffling his way through the picture like a sleep-walking schlemiel. The whole opening sequence, with Marlowe trying to feed his cat (a task that eats up several minutes and takes him to the grocery store) is brilliant, in large part because of the soundtrack. Altman hired John Williams (of Star Wars, Jaws, etc. fame) to pen a song called “The Long Goodbye” (It’s the loooong goodbyeeeee… and it happens every daaaaaaay), which in and of itself was a great idea. But Altman took it one step further, deciding to use that song exclusively in the movie (not counting the main and end title song), in a number of different styles (jazz on the radio, muzak in the store, Mexican in Mexico, etc.). It was a genius move and is one of the things that makes the movie so enjoyable.

Vertigo, 1958.

For some reason Alfred Hitchcock’s movies are not typically thought of as films noir. I think it’s because Hitchcock’s style was so distinct, and he made so many movies, that he became a genre unto himself. The same could almost be said of Spielberg. Not that I’m comparing, but their approach to making movies is somewhat related, and the films they made always bear their imprint, no matter what the subject matter. But with Vertigo, Hitchcock embraced his dark side, and pushed his actors to do the same. Jimmy Stewart has never been more convincingly obsessive. Your typical Hitchcock flick features innocent everymen, or women, or both, put through hell. In the end, they usually come through it scathed, but okay. Not so here (except in England, where the sensors required a redemptive ending). Anyone who’s seen Brian DePalma’s Obsession or Body Double, or Mel Brooks’ High Anxiety knows the impact this film has had.

My what a small head you have.

Alaine Delon shows up again in Jean-Pierre Melville’s perfectly cast film noir, Le Samurai. Delon plays a fastidious hitman with a rigid moral code taken from the fictional (though largely based on Mushashi’s The Book of Five Rings) volume, The Book of Bushido. Sound at all familiar? This film has influenced the likes of Jim Jarmusch (Ghost Dog) and John Woo (The Killers), and through them, a great many more. In fact, this may well be the origin of the “lone hitman” motif. Would one of you lone hitmen out there please take this genre out already? Tie. Erd. But it wasn’t so sleepy in 1967, when Le Samurai was made. All’s well for Delon’s Jef until he meets a girl. She plays piano at a club that’s the scene of one of his crimes. She witnesses him in action and doesn’t turn him in. I guess there’s no getting between a woman and love-at-first-sight. But because Jef was seen (a big screw-up for the perfectionist killer), he’s now wanted by the cops and his own people. The only question is, who will get to him first?

Coup de Torchon, based on Pop. 1280.

Coup de Torchon is one of my personal favorites. In adapting Jim Thompson’s great pulp novel, Pop. 1280, French filmmaker Betrand Tavernier was pretty faithful to Thompson’s vision in all but one crucial way. He changed the setting. Thompson’s novel takes place in West Texas, near where Thompson grew up with his Sheriff pop. Tavernier’s film takes place in French West Africa. The shift pushes the novel’s casual racism to the foreground and gives the movie the kind of historic and thematic resonance that was missing in the book. Philippe Noiret plays the ineffectual constable of the local community, a laughing stock, and a man who takes much abuse (from the locals and from his wife, who could try a little harder to hide her affair). But his amenable visage is really just a mask. And, as it did in Thompson’s The Killer Inside Me, it hides a psychopath. The great Isabelle Huppert plays his wife, and Tavernier’s camera, which seems locked down but is in fact full of subtle movement, is a perfect embodiment of the constable’s psyche.

Niagara, 1953.

It seems that the filmmakers, or at least the marketers, behind Niagara knew exactly what they had on their hands. One poster claims, “Marilyn Monroe and Niagara: a raging torrent of emotion that even nature can’t control!” The pleasures of this film are exactly as promised:  Marilyn first, followed by the falls, and both captured in gorgeously eye-popping Technicolor. I’ve never thought of Marilyn as a great actor; has anyone? But she had something that so many actresses who have followed in her footsteps lack: real screen presence. When Monroe fills the screen she really fills the screen, and director Henry Hathaway didn’t miss a chance to linger on her perfect (in 1953, anyway) form. Her hips! Her bottom! Her lips! Her walk… ahhhh, Marilyn. Here she plays a femme fatale who hopes to kill her half-crazy husband (Joseph Cotton), with the help of her lover, while on holiday in Canada. But before they can pull it off, Cotton’s character uncovers the plan and goes on the offense, big time.

After Dark, My Sweet, 1990.

For some reason the 1990 film noir After Dark, My Sweet has never got the appreciation it deserves. It’s a stripped-down tale of love, lust, and murder featuring a truly fantastic performance by Jason Patrick, who transformed his whole physique in order to embody ex-pugilist “Kid” Collins. Yet another Jim Thompson adaptation, James Foley sandwiched this between At Close Range and Glengarry Glen Ross, still the best adaptation of anything written by David Mamet. There was also a little thing called Who’s That Girl, but I’ll forgive him that (he’d directed some of Madge’s music videos, so they were probably pals, and she probably talked him into it; I imagine she’s a hard one to refuse). Foley is a pretty great filmmaker who has, like this movie, also never gotten the respect he deserves. The film also features Rachel Ward, a smart and grotesquely sexy multi-talented actress, and Bruce Dern, who has worked with everybody. This isn’t neo-noir, it’s noir-noir, “black film” at its blackest.