Film noirs had their primary heyday from the 1940s to 1960. After that, the noir didn’t so much vanish as it took on a new form. The neo-noir began to emerge in the 1960s as a way to homage the classic noirs that a new crop of filmmakers had grown up influenced by. It took the significant trappings of this genre (the moody lighting, the moral ambiguity of the characters, a bleak atmosphere, etc.) and began to translate them through new filters. As explained by Angelica Jade Bastien of Vulture, “Free of the original studio system, neo-noir…has more brutal violence and sexually explicit scenes, turning what was once subtext into text…In recent years, [neo-noirs] still care about style, but it’s grounded in the personal hells these characters navigate in their urban and rural landscapes.”
Through these qualities of the neo-noirs, filmmakers from all over the world have found ways to not only rejuvenate the film noir but also to comment on sociopolitical matters of the time. These qualities have made the neo-noir a constant presence in filmmaking in the last 50 years, with beloved movies like Blade Runner and Chinatown emerging from this movement. This piece, which intends to run down the 10 best neo-noir movies, isn’t about them.
No offense meant to Ridley Scott’s 1982 masterwork, but people are keenly aware of Blade Runner. This list aims to highlight entries in the neo-noir genre that people aren’t as aware of, ones that show how the neo-noir has taken the bones of the film noir and transported it to different perspectives, aesthetics, and even countries. It’s an expansive genre, one that, as these ten films keenly demonstrate, is capable of truly remarkable filmmaking.
A Colt Is My Passport
The film noir is widely associated with American cinema, but that doesn’t mean other countries haven’t excelled at tackling the genre. Case in point: Takashi Nomura’s 1967 Japanese drama A Colt Is My Passport. A story concerning a pair of contract killers, Shuji Kamimura (Joe Shishido) and Shun Shiozaki (Jerry Fujio), who take out an intended target only to find themselves trapped in a country overrun by vengeful henchmen. Nomura’s creative direction takes the visual staples of this genre, as well as the hallmarks of the Western, and filters them through unique flourishes, such as ingenious uses of shadow. This simultaneously reverent yet innovative neo-noir is a propulsive thriller even before its unforgettable finale arrives.
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Sorcerer
There are no heroes in William Friedkin’s Sorcerer. There is no redemption. This remake of the classic film Wages of Fear takes the bleak mortality of the film noir to its zenith. While a grim perspective on the world had permeated much of 1970s cinema, none of them had as drab of an outlook as Sorcerer. The saga of four men hired to carry explosives across precarious terrain, Sorcerer contains several set pieces with truly unbearable suspense, particularly an iconic sequence depicting a truck navigating a bridge during an intense thunderstorm. These scenes are made all the more engrossing thanks to how Sorcerer isn’t afraid to kill characters at a moment's notice.
Though Sorcerer is frequently edge-of-your-seat experience, unlike many films that leave you breathlessly uncertain, there is no eventual relief to be found in Sorcerer. The only surviving member of the quartet reaching their destination is captured in a scene that evokes a haunting atmosphere rather than anything resembling triumph. The suspense scenes will grip you while you’re watching it but it’s Sorcerer’s commitment to a haunting dark tone that will truly stick with you after the credits have finished rolling.
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Blood Simple
With their inaugural directorial effort, The Coen Brothers already showed an impressive command of tone and visual language. Such qualities allowed Blood Simple to not only be a fascinating directorial debut but just a great film in its own right. The inexperienced nature of the central characters lends a sense of truly unpredictable mayhem to the screenplay. Whereas inexperienced crooks resulted in an unforgettable farce in the Coen Brothers movie Burn After Reading, here in Blood Simple, it’s used for grimmer but no less exquisite means. Meanwhile, the contrast between nighttime darkness and unexpected sources of light (such as a bug zapper) creates the sort of memorable grim visuals that film noirs were built upon. Simply put, Blood Simple is the first of many Coen Brothers gems.
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Widows
Women in film noirs do not get a good reputation. They’re either sexy objects to be claimed by the protagonist as a reward or sexy femme fatales who can’t be trusted. Widows didn’t just subvert these norms, it annihilated them. In the story of four women (Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, and Cynthia Erivo) who plan a heist after three of their husbands are killed during a robbery gone awry, Widows shifts the focus of the camera onto the stories so often ignored by this genre.
The same can be said for how Widows approaches race. Save for the occasional exception like Samuel Fuller’s The Crimson Kimono, people of color were often reduced to offensive caricatures in classic film noirs, if they even appeared at all. But those often-erased perspectives are front-and-center in Widows and even captured in the 21st-century, a rarity for a major modern American movie (a domain that typically sets films dealing with race in the past). All these qualities make Widows a heady film, but it’s also a thrilling one to watch, with an opening chase scene alone that’s guaranteed to make your heart racing. Merging the intellectual with the thrilling makes Widows an expansive achievement with the scope of a Robert Altman movie, the thrills of a Michael Mann feature, and Steve McQueen’s reliably assured direction. Oh, and it’s also got an outstanding turn from Daniel Kaluuya as an intimidating henchman, just one of many dynamite performances in the cast.
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Destroyer
With Destroyer, Karyn Kusama’s ingenious subversions of audience expectations begin with plopping Nicole Kidman into the film's lead role. Much like how Kusama demonstrated the acting chops of Megan Fox by casting her in the complex lead role Jennifer’s Body, Kidman, after a career of playing largely ethereal roles, shows off unseen levels of depth as a grimy investigator. It’s a brilliant lead performance, the kind of gripping turn soaked in hardened experiences that would have made Humphrey Bogart proud. Kidman is complimented by Kusama’s bravura tone that isn’t afraid to get exceedingly grim while the screenplay’s creative use of a non-linear narrative always impresses. With Destroyer, Karyn Kusama takes the familiar bones of the noir and creates a whole new creature out of them.
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American Psycho
Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale), the protagonist of American Psycho, inhabits a world as grimy as any seen in a classic Raymond Chandler novel. An investment banker living a luxurious life in New York City in 1987, Bateman plays with big finances during the day and then proceeds to viciously kill people at night. He’s possessive, self-absorbed…and by the end of the film, revealed to be so indistinctive from everyone else that nobody cares about his crimes. Director Mary Hanlon uses this dark comedy to create a stinging critique of American masculinity, where debauchery isn’t just celebrated, it’s practically part-and-parcel of being a “successful” man. The grimy world Bateman inhabits is just an extension of the warped souls who inhabit it.
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Brick
In all of director Rian Johnson’s films, familiar genres can twist around into something that’s simultaneously new while reminding you why you loved that familiar genre in the first place. This trait was evident from the get-go in his directorial debut Brick, which sets a neo-noir in a modern high school. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brick is a twisty-turny tale that isn’t just a hollow homage to classic noirs. It’s also an engrossing mystery in its own right complete with memorable cinematography and an assortment of fascinating performances from a group of young actors. These performers have no trouble tackling such unusual dialogue which does initially sound strange coming out of the mouths of teenagers. Before long, though, viewers get all wrapped up in the unique performances and storytelling of Brick. As to be expected from a Rian Johnson movie, Brick breaths new live into the noir while making you remember the genre's virtues.
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Zodiac
Set in the 1970s, Zodiac, as the title would imply, is about the Zodiac killer and a group of newspaper writers for the San Francisco Chronicle trying to figure out who the identity of this serial killer is. Zodiac has as grisly of a killer as any seen in a classic film noir, but it isn’t long before it’s revealed that the primary antagonist in the film isn’t even the Zodiac killer. It’s obsession itself. As seen through the life of Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), Zodiac ponders what are our lives become when we get so embroiled in matters that cut us off from the rest of our existence? Like so many of David Fincher’s incredible works, it’s a question that Zodiac has no easy answers for. It’s a question that, like the most lasting themes in the best noir films, resonates as eternally relevant while the quality of the filmmaking in Zodiac is similarly enduring.
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Nightcrawler
Some neo-noirs set in the modern world try and minimize the elements that explicitly call attention to the present. In the case of Nightcrawler, though, we have a movie that embodies key traits of the noir while being firmly planted in the world of 2014. Writer/director Dan Gilroy wants the viewer to recognize that not only is this the present but that the world Nightcrawler occupies is our own. The story of an obsessive man named Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) who will capture any kind of grisly footage to make the local news, Nightcrawler inhabits a world gone to pot that runs on loose morality. “If it bleeds, it leads” is a mantra to live by.
Not only is this type of a world something Bloom can live in, but it’s also a place he can thrive. Nightcrawler’s depiction of human suffering as a get-rich-quick-scheme has only gotten more relevant in the last seven years as news outlets normalize racist politicians at the expense of marginalized communities. Just like in Nightcrawler, the anguish of others is meaningless so long as there’s a quick buck to be made. It’s all a haunting reflection of the real world made eerier by an ending that emphasizes how Jake Gyllenhaal’s grippingly unsettling protagonist is no anomaly.
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City of God
While certain seminal film noirs were defined by a slow-burn atmosphere that gave divine rewards for patience, City of God goes in the opposite direction. This expansive motion picture is a propulsive ride that hits 100 mph from its first frame and never lets up. Its speedy storytelling is matched by camerawork that throws viewers directly into the world of characters like Rocket (Alexandre Rodrigues). These qualities help make City of God immediately stand out as a work of film, let alone as an entry in the neo-noir genre.
Under the deft direction of filmmakers Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund, all of this constant movement never comes at the expense of the countless richly-drawn characters inhabiting this sprawling saga. Such characters tend to be united through the concept of vengeance, a concept that so many characters here pursue only to find themselves in a deeper emotional pit. There is no easy answer to the pain informing City of God, but it is easy to say that this one of cinema’s most creative reimagining of the neo-noir.
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