Film Noir

Film noir was named by French critics after the war, not by the Hollywood studios that made it. The films themselves were crime pictures, thrillers and melodramas, mostly from the 1940s and 1950s, that shared hard shadows, doomed heroes and a bleak view of the city. This section looks at what holds them together.

Start with What is film noir? for the meaning, origins and signatures of the style, then move to the best film noir movies for a starter list. Film noir lighting covers the low-key cinematography that gave noir its look.

Noir began on the page as much as on the soundstage, and hardboiled novels traces the crime writers whose books became the classic films. The section stays with the films and their makers, not with labels for their own sake.