Best Neo-Noir Movies
AMC Movie List

Best Neo-Noir Movies

In the 1960s, the return of the noir style yielded movies marked not just with nostalgia, but with a desire to challenge the traditions set by their predecessors -- a genre that came to be known as neo-noir. Rank your favorites here.

rank title points votes your vote
1 Chinatown
"Forget it Jake. It's Chinatown." 197 381
2 L.A. Confidential
A star-studded cast (Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce and Kim Basinger) told the tale of a sordid Hollywood underworld filled with corrupt cops and prostitutes cut to look like stars. 189 369
3 Memento
Noir had always contained complex, labyrinthine plots; <i>Memento</i> takes it to the next level. 170 318
4 Blade Runner
Ridley Scott's visionary epic proved that noir is a style translatable across any genre. 169 341
5 Body Heat
The heat generated by William Hurt and Kathleen Turner matches that of the film's sultry Florida nights. 53 205
6 Blood Simple
No other directors are as synonymous with neo-noir than the Coen Brothers. 47 187
7 The Long Goodbye
In his adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel, Robert Altman casts Elliot Gould as a sarcastic, flummoxed, cat-attacked version of archetypal private eye Philip Marlowe. 7 163
8 Lone Star
John Sayles' panoramic survey of a Texas border town's turbulent racial politics is a noirish mystery, with Chris Cooper's sheriff investigating an old murder that might have involved his straight shooting dad. 7 157
9 Basic Instinct
Instantly notorious for its portrayal of kinky, violent sex and homosexual relationships, upping the ante by leaving none of the bedroom behavior of detective Michael Douglas and author/murder suspect Sharon Stone to the imagination. 6 206
10 Red Rock West
This under-the-radar sleeper hit evoked the cult following of old B noirs by going from direct-to-video purgatory to art house hit. 1 149