Yeah, for the same reasons that I think Dark City counts, ITMOM fits. It plays with enough of the tropes before going completely off into genre land.

47. Lone Star (1996) d. John Sayles

I wasn't sure if this movie fit the category, but I found an article on the AMC website that says it does so...there ya go. Sayles crafts a fine web of murder, racism, and border politics.

49. Blue Velvet

Lynch takes viewers on a discomforting tour of the dank underbelly of a general slice of suburbia. A seductive, crooning singer for a femme fatale, a madman with serious mommy issues, and a severed ear collide in a neo-noir that is a sock to the jaw.

50.

1995   dir. David Fincher

What's in the box?

If you took 40s noir & dropped it into the garbage disposal of modern horror, the pulp that remains would be the sharply written & unrelentingly bleak Se7en.

51. The Usual Suspects (1995)

Bryan Singer has been behind the camera of bigger, more financially successful movies, but this is still his best movie. Christopher McQuarrie's script is clock full of quotable badass lines, and the cast assembled is a fantastic collection of character actors. No matter how many crappy reality shows I see him on, I can always say that Stephen Baldwin was great in Suspects.

And not to offend any classic movie fans, but Keyser Soze would beat the shit out of Harry Lime.

Keyser Soze would never get into a fight, he'd act like a pussy that wasn't worth the effort to beat up and then the next day Harry lime would just turn up dead 

True. I was going by the version we are told about by Verbal, not the "real" version we discover at the end of the movie. Either way, Lime is screwed.

52. Terribly Happy 

This is the closest to the Coens you get. It's pitch black comedy mixed with some very well directed suspense. Please, try and see this movie if you have appreciation for Fargo or Blood Simple. You'll be happy.

53. Basic Instinct dir. Paul Verhoeven

Very few popular directors put themselves into their films the way Paul Verhoeven does. Even his most mainstream work has fetishistic undertones, and that's why he was the perfect choice to helm this erotic thriller. The film is best remembered, it seems, for the controversy it engendered and subsequent lampooning it received, but very few people recall that it's actually a seriously well-made thriller.

54) Gone, Baby, Gone

Though I like the book a lot more (The movie wasted Bubba and I liked Cheese as an obese but strong Polack who talks like Stringer Bell), it's still a great modern P.I. movie. Boston is at its grimiest, but still strangely beautiful. Casey Affleck is great as a world-weary (at 33!) P.I. who has seen too much and the movie ends on a great morally ambiguous question. Ben Affleck, his first time as director, hits a grand slam home run.

55) Oldboy

You could argue that this one doesn't belong here, but I think it does. An unusual hero in a very bad situation, a great revenge plot that has to do with past sins. Just a great, great off-beat noir thriller with a neat Asian flavor.

56) The Long Goodbye

Probably the definition of a neo-noir. It takes Phillip Marlow and drops him right into the heart of 70's Los Angeles. A couple loose plots converge to give this shaggy-dog masterpiece as dark and gut-punching of an ending as any classic noir. Plus, much as I love Bogie, I prefer his Sam Spade, so I'll take Eliot Gould as Marlow.

Shit, somehow I completely missed Long Goodbye/Klute. My bad.

Allow me then:

57)After Dark, My Sweet

I like The Grifters just fine, The Getaway has its charms, and I've heard that Killer Inside Me (both versions) are not without merit, but this is the best American adaptation of Jim Thompson (have heard great things about Coup de Tourchon, but haven't gotten around to it yet). Jason Patrick really should have been a bigger star. A really great example of daylight noir.

58) Memories of Murder

Excellent, excellent movie. One of the few detective films where the detectives are flawed in the worst way; their idiots. Completely engrossing and uniquely Korean. For the Asian contingent of Neo-noir, this is king.

Also makes a fantastic double feature with Zodiac.

59. Deep Cover (1992) dir. Bill Duke

Arriving the same year as red-hot writer Michael Tolkin's other LA-set masterpiece, The Player, this tale of a conflicted cop struggling to retain his soul in a criminal underworld is soaked in shadowy noir atmosphere. Fishburne and Goldblum are perfect and the whole thing ends with Dre and Snoop's instant classic title track. Deep cover on the incognito tip, indeed.

60. Phoenix (1998) dir. Danny Cannon

This haunting neo-noir is probably the only good Danny Cannon film I can think of. What should have been a derivative DTV piece is buoyed by a tight script, dark atmosphere and great performances by Ray Liotta, Anjelica Huston, Tom Noonan and others. If you haven't seen it yet, I suggest you do.

61) 44 Inch Chest

There are six men in the room. It’s one of those run-down, grimy hotel jobs where the walls haven’t seen a fresh coat of paint since the day it opened, and the furnishings suggests it’s mostly used for taking care of unsavory business best not exposed to the light. Now imagine for a moment, you are the sixth man in the room…who happens to be tied to a chair with a bag over your head, listening to the other five decide your fate.

Pretend that when you finally do have the lights turned on again, and are breathing the squalid hotel air, the first people you see are Ian McShane, Stephen Dillane, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson and Ray Winstone. In fact, you hear them before you see them, throwing out oceans of profanity in accents so thick and angry it sounds more like barking than speaking. Now finally, imagine that you know why you are here, what beef they have with you; you’ve been sleeping with Winstone’s wife—plan in fact to run away with her—and you know he knows. What do you think then are your chances of surviving the night?

62) Get Carter (1971) d. Mike Hodges

I'm swinging on whether this is just a crime film or a neo-noir. In terms of how the film is shot it's a garishly well lit movie, lots of daytime sequences and stuff in plain site. In terms of characterisation and tone it definitely feels like a throwback to Film Noir. Jack Carter's roaring rampage of revenge throughout Newcastle is marked more by it's unrelenting grimness than anything else, there's a grounded, gritty, dynamic to the movies third act which is bracingly dark and almost nihilistic. It's also one of the great Michael Caine roles. In fact despite Caine's general preference for lighter, funnier, roles I always view him as something of a hard man due to his uncompromising portrayal in this film.

I think Get Carter is kind of fascinating because it represents a pivot point for British crime cinema. This and the Long Good Friday (released a decade later) definitely feel like the template in terms of tone (and depiction of violence/crime) for British crime films which came before. The fact that both films have heavy noir influences means that British crime films had second generation crime influences.

Melville double feature!

63) Le Cercle Rouge

One of the best heist films ever made. Watch for the amazing final 30 minute heist scene, but stay for the careful character work and story.

64) Le Samourai

Probably the best hitman movie ever. Alan Delon has never been cooler and very few pull off a fedora like him. He reminds me a bit like Clooney  in this, but more dangerous. He plays Jef Costello, the best hitman in the business because he lives a very carefully gaurded, spartan life and follows the way of Bushido. Then one night he kills the owner of a night-club and despite how careful he is, there are witnesses. He's arrested, but the police can't pin it on him and he's released.

And then things get bad for Costello...

65.

1968                                                       dir. Norman Jewison

While not generally considered noir, I'd argue that the film's innovative visual style, forboding use of sweeping, romantic music, McQueen's role as both hero/villain, Dunaway's "femme fatale as good cop", & the voluminous undercurrent of sexual one-upmanship between them places The Thomas Crown Affair well in the neo-noir league.

66. House of Games

Just a straight-up noir about the psychology of con men. Dim-lit barrooms, back alleys and motels; men in dark suits and a great origin story of a femme fatale. Mantegna is the shit in this. Mamet's first film, and still amongst his best.

Oooh David Mamet, good pick. There are a few Mamet films that fit the bill.

Twilight, no not that one, the good one.

The one from 1998 with Paul Newman, Gene Hackman, James Garner, Liev Schreiber, Reese Witherspoon, and the still worth killing for Susan Sarrandon.

Perhaps to much of a straight noir for this list, but I love it.

68. Sin City

Screw off, it fits. Rodriguez makes Miller's rough, sketchy images utterly gorgeous onscreen, for one, and the extreme stylization is never played entirely straight, but it's not parody either. Add in a stellar cast from top to bottom (well, maybe not Alba or, surprisingly, Michael Madsen, who's kind of awful), some gloriously realized ultraviolence, and you have a great neo-noir.

Would you guys consider Lolita a neo-noir? It's certainly got a few of the indicators...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evi 

Would you guys consider Lolita a neo-noir? It's certainly got a few of the indicators...

Nah. To count as neo-noir, I think the style & archetypes inherent in that definition must be an intrinsic, fundamental foundation of the work. Lolita's a humanist tragicomedy that's non-specific to time, style, or execution & the characters are not rooted in any noir archetype, really.

Here's a question, could Night Of The Hunter be considered an early example of neo-noir, since the protagonists are kids? Or is that film even noir at all?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Spider 

68. Sin City

 

Screw off, it fits. Rodriguez makes Miller's rough, sketchy images utterly gorgeous onscreen, for one, and the extreme stylization is never played entirely straight, but it's not parody either. Add in a stellar cast from top to bottom (well, maybe not Alba or, surprisingly, Michael Madsen, who's kind of awful), some gloriously realized ultraviolence, and you have a great neo-noir.

This is supposed to be the BEST neo-noirs. I don't think it holds up at all.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Z.Vasquez 

Shit, somehow I completely missed Long Goodbye/Klute. My bad.

 

Allow me then:

 

57)After Dark, My Sweet

 

I like The Grifters just fine, The Getaway has its charms, and I've heard that Killer Inside Me (both versions) are not without merit, but this is the best American adaptation of Jim Thompson (have heard great things about Coup de Tourchon, but haven't gotten around to it yet). Jason Patrick really should have been a bigger star. A really great example of daylight noir.

I was just about to add this one. Love it to death. Patric's performance is brilliant.
 

Ha, exactly what I was going to say.

69.  'Body Double' aka 'Brian DePalma's version of Vertigo/Rear Window'

Sure...it's derivative as hell, but it works for most of its runtime as a stylish thriller.  Also, Melanie Griffith has never looked hotter.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Elvis 

 

This is supposed to be the BEST neo-noirs. I don't think it holds up at all.
 

 

I think it does, personally.

70) The Untouchables

Though it is not at all historically accurate (At least he got the names right!) De Palma's Prohibition gangster epic is a great noir thriller with the lantern-jawed Costner as Ness who becomes consumed with taking down Al Capone, and as the movie progresses he learns how to work the system and loses a bit of his soul in the process.  De Palma gorgeously re-constructs Prohibition era Chicago and there's not a weak link in the cast or story.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cameron Hughes 

70) Devil in a Blue Dress

#28, mate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Art Decade 

#28, mate.

Dammit!

71. House of Bamboo

One of Sam Fuller's best films (and often overlooked), House of Bamboo combines the lush color photography and grade A melodrama of Sirkian proportions with the brutal and dingy Japanese underworld. Features some of the most impressive widescreen photography ever captured on film.

72. Farewell, My Lovely (1975) d. Dick Richards

Robert Mitchum is a great hard-boiled Marlowe, in a movie that almost feels like a tongue in cheek response to/ rebuke of Altman's THE LONG GOODBYE. An underrated gem.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Art Decade 

Nah. To count as neo-noir, I think the style & archetypes inherent in that definition must be an intrinsic, fundamental foundation of the work. Lolita's a humanist tragicomedy that's non-specific to time, style, or execution & the characters are not rooted in any noir archetype, really.

 

Here's a question, could Night Of The Hunter be considered an early example of neo-noir, since the protagonists are kids? Or is that film even noir at all?

Nah, Night of The Hunter, although it's such a weird, unique blend of styles, definitley counts as noir, rather than neo-noir. I hate to knock it off any list of greatness, considering I think it's one of the best films ever made, but I don't think it qualifies for this list.

Know what does?

73. MULHOLLAND DRIVE

74. LOST HIGHWAY

Lynch takes two different noir tropes, does his spin on them, and leaves us with two terrifying fever dreams that we can debate the meanings of for years. Speaking of which, I believe there's an ambiguous ending thread I got to head over to...

75. Constantine

Stuck somewhere between noir and goth, this is one of my favourite graphic novel adaptations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evi 

75. Constantine

 

Stuck somewhere between noir and goth, this is one of my favourite graphic novel adaptations.

I like the movie, but I don't think it counts. It wants to be, but it doesn't stick to it well enough.

I'll take it over fucking Sin City though. Can we PLEASE strike that off the list?

76. The Limey (1999) d. Steven Soderbergh

"You tell him, you tell him I'm coming! TELL HIM I'M FUCKING COMINNNNNGGG"

77.

2004                           dir. Matthew Vaughn

You're born, you take shit. You get out in the world, you take more shit. You climb a little higher, you take less shit. Till one day you're up in the rarefied atmosphere and you've forgotten what shit even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake, son.

78. Miller's Crossing

Verna:  Shouldn't you be doing your job?

Tom:  Intimidating helpless women is my job.

Verna:  Then go fond one, and intimidate her.

The Coens are really really good at this.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Blank 

76. The Limey (1999) d. Steven Soderbergh

 

 

"You tell him, you tell him I'm coming! TELL HIM I'M FUCKING COMINNNNNGGG"

Beat me to it!

79) The Cooler (2003, Wayne Kramer)

William H. Macy plays a classic noir loser. Monica Bello is the tough dame with a heart of gold. Alec Baldwin is the mob guy desperately trying to hold onto Las Vegas's sordid past as the corporations take over. Smloky casinos, scuzzy motel rooms, sudden and brutal violence. Great, great movie. And this monologue from Baldwin is classic noir writing:

"What? You mean that Disneyland mookfest out there? Huh? Come on, you know what that is? Huh? That's a fucking violation is what that is. Something that used to be beautiful, used to have class, like a gorgeous high-priced hooker with an exclusive clientele. Then along comes that Steve Wynn cocksucker and knocks her up and puts her in a fucking family way. Now she's nothing but a cheap, fat whore hiding behind too much fucking make-up. I look at her and see all her fucking stretch marks, it makes me want to cry - because I remember the way she used to be. "

80) Running Scared (Wayne Kramer)

A little boy is on the run with a gun he took from a low-level Mafia guy that he used to shoot his Mafia father. Mafia guy, Paul Walker in his first good movie, is Mafia Guy and he needs that gun. Little boy has to deal with the predators of the city, like corrupt cops and violent pimps, also including a husband and wife that rape children, and then torture and kill them. Vera Farmiga is great in it. One of the most surprisingly good movies I've ever seen

81.

1986                            dir. Michael Mann

For my money, this film is the reigning definition of noir in the 80s.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cameron Hughes 

I like the movie, but I don't think it counts. It wants to be, but it doesn't stick to it well enough.

 

I'll take it over fucking Sin City though. Can we PLEASE strike that off the list?

Christ, you try to contribute...

I kid, but I'm seriously puzzled by the dislike for Sin City. I was under the impression it was fairly well-liked here.

Been meaning to watch Running Scared for years. Is it as bugfuck-in-a-good-way as I've been led to believe?

I'm with Cameron about Running Scared.  It's my favorite Paul Walker movie by far.