The best neo-noir movies

Perhaps it’s fitting that for this list of neo-noir movies we start with a French film. “Alphaville” is arguably the first neo-noir. The Jean-Luc Godard film is noir within the world of dystopian sci-fi. It looked like a traditional noir, but it’s about a resistance fighter trying to take down a dictator who is also a supercomputer. Of course, if we’re talking combining sci-fi and noir, we’ll also shout out “Blade Runner,” the quintessential example of that blending of genres.

The same year “Alphaville” hit France, America got itself a neo-noir as well. Arthur Penn helped change cinema with 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde,” but before that he and Warren Beatty joined forces on “Mickey One.” Fittingly, Penn was inspired by the French New Wave. Beatty plays a standup comic who runs afoul of the Mafia, and finds himself stuck between wanting success without finding too much fame, and he also tries to make amends with the mob but can’t figure out who is out to get him or why. It’s a little didactic, but “Mickey One” is one of the first movies to be called a “neo-noir.”

Here’s a noir that won Best Picture. It’s easy to see part of what made this a neo-noir, and it’s not just that it is set in a small town in Mississippi. A murder has been committed, and the local sheriff finds himself working alongside a successful homicide detective from Philadelphia played by Sidney Poitier. Poitier’s presence at the center of a film noir, and the racial tensions therein, definitely helped set it apart.

We mentioned “Bonnie & Clyde,” but that’s a revisionist crime movie, not a noir, neo or otherwise. “Point Blank” is a different story. Lee Marvin’s Walker is a proper antihero. He’s a violent criminal who wants his money from the people who betrayed him. That’s it. Nothing else matters. Nothing else interests him. It’s not revenge he’s after. Walker wants his money. He may have the look and demeanor of a traditional noir hero, but he’s not morally gray. He’s morally black.

Terrence Malick is best known for making ethereal, lyrical dramas. There’s some of that in “Badlands,” but it’s a dark movie. Movies based on real murder sprees don’t tend to cheer people up. Sissy Spacek plays a 15-year-old girl living an unsatisfying life in the middle-of-nowhere, South Dakota. Then, she meets Martin Sheen’s character. She’s smitten, and she leaves with him to escape her dead-end life. The only problem being, you know, he’s 25 and a homicidal maniac.

Truly, properly, this is a neo-noir. Robert Altman’s excellent film (the best neo-noir in our book) is a recontextualizing of film noir iconography. That includes Elliott Gould playing Philip Marlowe. The difference is that Marlowe isn’t in the 1940s, but the 1970s. Marlowe still has his ‘40s sensibilities, but he’s dropped into the middle of ‘70s Los Angeles. Altman called it “Rip Van Marlowe.” It really helps you see the differences between film noir and neo-noirs.

Many others will say “Chinatown” is the best neo-noir, though it is a period piece. Film noir movies weren’t shot in this style, though, and they (usually) weren’t this dark and defeatist. “Chinatown” is something of a dark rejoinder to noir movies, which often weren’t exactly cheerful and known for happy endings. Fittingly, one of the actors in the film is John Huston, who directed a few classic noirs.

Francis Ford Coppola had “The Conversation” and “The Godfather Part II” come out the same year. That’s absolutely remarkable. The latter won Best Picture, but the former is a neo-noir classic. Gene Hackman, in one of the late actor’s quintessential performances, plays a surveillance expert. Perhaps owing to his career, he’s intensely private and also tries to stay out of things and never intervene. Then, one day when spying on a conversation, he thinks he has uncovered a murder plot. As Hackman tries to unravel it, he in turn unravels as well.

“Blow Out” is a reimagining of 1966’s “Blowup.” Both are neo-noirs, but Brian De Palma’s film is decidedly better. John Travolta plays a sound technician who, while out getting sound for a cheap slasher flick, sees a car careen off the road into the water. He’s able to save the woman in the car, but he can’t save the other person. That person also happened to have been a presidential candidate, and Travolta begins to believe this was no mere accident. It’s pulpy, as it is Brian De Palma, but it works.

Michael Mann is one of the only directors with multiple movies on this list. He’s a real neo-noir kind of guy. “Thief” was his debut film, and it helped set the rubric for all things Mann going forward. The guy likes to make movies about criminals who are, above all else, professional. In “Thief,” James Caan plays a safecracker and jewel thief who is trying to get out of that world, but will that world let it happen?

Back-to-back first films! This time, we’re talking about the Coen Brothers. A few other Coen movies could be, if you squint, considered neo-noirs. After all, “The Big Lebowski” is loosely based on “The Big Sleep.” Ultimately, though, the one through-and-through neo-noir the brothers made is “Blood Simple.” It’s a small story about a crime of passion that unravels, and while it doesn’t feel like a classic Coen Brothers movie, it’s still very good. No wonder Joel and Ethan became so successful.

“To Live and Die in L.A.” is definitely a quintessential neo-noir, but it isn’t one of the best. Now, it’s still good, or it wouldn’t be here, but it’s not an all-time classic in our books. It has the grimy settings of 1980s Los Angeles. It has the Wang Chung soundtrack. Two Secret Service agents, trying to take down a highly-successful counterfeiter, traverse Los Angeles and use any and all tools at their disposal…legal or otherwise.

Hey, this is totally a neo-noir! Yes, it’s a partially-animated comedy, but that’s what makes it an innovative twist on the form. The film is built upon the trappings of classic noir. Think about it. The jaded private eye. The femme fatale. Political corruption. “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” is truly a noir film. It just features a goofy cartoon rabbit and a bunch of weasels.

Written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott, “True Romance” is very ‘90s. Of course, if a very ‘90s movie is a noir, that’s going to make it a neo-noir. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette play two jaded individuals who meet, fall in love, get married, steal drugs, and run from the mob to sunny California. Plus, Brad Pitt is there as a doofy stoner.

Steven Soderbergh loves to experiment with shooting styles, but also with genres. He’s done it all. That includes “Out of Sight,” his take on the neo-noir. Based on an Elmore Leonard novel – Leonard knows his way around neo-noir – George Clooney is a charismatic bank robber, while Jennifer Lopez is the U.S. Marshal he runs afoul of. The problem is that they also fall for one another, and they both have bigger fish to fry. “Out of Sight” helped really solidify both Clooney and Lopez as movie stars. Soderbergh knows what he’s doing.

Sherlock Holmes is not a noir character, but a twist on the Sherlock Holmes trope certainly can be a neo-noir. In this cult classic, Bill Pullman plays Daryl Zero in a loose adaptation of the Holmes story “A Scandal in Bohemia.” You know, the Irene Adler story. Zero is the best detective in the world, a private eye who can set whatever fee he wants. He’s also a trainwreck who completely falls apart when he’s not on a case. He’s a rude recluse who spends his time doing drugs and making a mess of his state-of-the-art apartment. That, plus a story that skews pulpy and noir-ish, making for a neo-noir riff on Sherlock.

Many noirs are set in sunny Los Angeles, but Los Angeles has nothing on the sunny nature of the small Alaskan town at the heart of “Insomnia.” After all, in the summer, Alaska becomes the Land of the Midnight Sun. Al Pacino plays an LAPD homicide detective called upon to help out on a murder investigation in rural Alaska. In addition to being plagued by the perpetual sunshine, the killer (played by Robin Williams) wrangles Pacino into a cat-and-mouse game as well.

Michael Mann is back! “Collateral” is quite different from “Thief.” It had been over 20 years, after all. Mann had a bigger budget, better technology, years of experience, and an impressive cast. Not only is Jamie Foxx in the movie, but Mann got Tom Cruise to play the antagonist. Yes, he is a professional criminal. Foxx plays a Los Angeles taxi driver who picks up Cruise’s Vincent. He doesn’t know, at first, that Vincent is a contract killer using Foxx to drive him from job to job. Then he finds out. Yeah, things don’t go better for him from there.

Rian Johnson has now directed a “Star Wars” movie and built his own murder mystery universe around Benoit Blanc. Before all that, he had his calling-card movie. “Brick” was Johnson’s directorial debut. The game is that Johnson has set a hardboiled crime story, the kind found in noir, at a high school. In lieu of a private eye, we have a high school student played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. If you feel skeptical, fret not. “Brick” doesn’t feel silly or gimmicky. It’s really good.

Serial killers are often found in slasher movies and thrillers, boilerplate and otherwise. “Zodiac” is not such a film. It’s a procedural neo-noir more interested in the damage that obsession can do. David Fincher doesn’t glamorize the Zodiac Killer, and his film is more about the quest of a few intrepid men to figure out his identity. It’s about the perils that going down such a bleak rabbit hole can have on one’s psyche.

Andrew Dominik took a ‘70s crime novel and changed its setting. Namely, he decided to set it during the 2008 financial crisis. Yeah, that’s some neo-noir stuff. A couple desperate idiots try to rob a poker game run by the Mafia, and after that devolves into a disaster, Brad Pitt plays a triggerman hired to clean up the mess. It was certainly a better idea than a by-the-numbers adaptation of a fine, unremarkable ‘70s crime novel.

Jake Gyllenhaal gives perhaps his best performance in “Nightcrawler.” He plays a stringer, a freelance photographer, who takes it upon himself to traverse Los Angeles in the middle of the night to find violent crimes he can photograph to sell to the news. At a certain point, well, simply hoping to stumble upon a good, gory photo op isn’t sufficient for him. It’s a chilling movie, but a compelling one.

“The Nice Guys” has the feel of a ‘70s neo-noir. It just happens to be a 2010s neo-noir set in the 1970s. Shane Black wrote and directed this darkly comedic movie about corporate greed (and being a good dad). Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling are, yes, two Los Angeles private eyes, but neither of them is living a good, glamorous life. They meet when Crowe’s character is hired to rough up Gosling’s. Then, they join forces for the greater good, and to try and get their lives on track.

After the success of “It Follows,” David Robert Mitchell seemed to make “Under the Silver Lake” with the intent to polarize the audience. He hasn’t had a movie come out since. It’s weird, somewhat absurdist, and fairly misanthropic. Andrew Garfield, definitely not playing a charmer like we all know he can, stars as a Los Angeles ne’er-do-well whose neighbor he barely knows disappears one day. With nothing else going on in his life, he decides to try to figure out what happened to her.

Kid detectives like Encyclopedia Brown or Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys are so cute and fun, right? Well, what might it be like to actually be a kid detective, and what do you do when you grow up? “The Kid Detective” is a dark comedy starring Adam Brody. Abe Applebaum was a kid detective in his small town solving kid detective type cases. Then, his friend and secretary Grace disappears. Abe never recovers. The town never recovers. We rejoin the action and Abe is still a private eye, so to speak, but he’s also a complete and utter mess looking for redemption.