The 15 Best Film Noir Movies of All Time, Ranked by Whatnerd

"Film noir is more than just a genre—it's an aesthetic. That's what makes it so hard to pin down. It's a style that has some fluidity to it, but it isn't ambiguous. You know it when you see it. Classic film noir is stereotypically comprised of brooding detectives, seductive femme fatales, & high-contrast shadow-heavy lighting (aka chiaroscuro lighting). Between the 1920s & 1950s, global events like the Great Depression & the Second World War made everyone a bit cynical—& that attitude spilled over into the Technicolor world of Hollywood. Movies started turning their gaze toward urban underbellies, & French critics in particular noticed that American crime films were noticeably darker during this period, dubbing it film noir (literally 'black cinema'). The heyday of film noir ended in the 1950s, but it has since evolved into several subcategories, including neo-noir (e.g. Chinatown) and tech-noir (Blade Runner). Here are our picks for the best film noir movies ever made." - whatnerd.com