The Best Neo-Noir Movies
This is a list of all the best neo-noir films of all time, many of which are streaming on Netflix and Amazon Prime.
The neo-noir genre is a modern version of film noir, which was a genre of crime movies in the 1940s and 50s and employed the use of light and shadows, unbalanced framing, and tilted camera angles, with a common motif of paranoia, revenge, and alienation. All of the movies on this list fit within the modern noir films genre and are voted on by people who really care about neo-noir films.
Are you one of those people that doesn't like Breathless or Dark City? Then vote those things down to have your voice heard, and give them a thumbs up if you do. Other movies on this list include The Gingerbread Man and Fargo, but if we missed any neo-noir movies movies on this list, please add them yourself, as this is an open list, which means you can add any movies whenever you like (choices are subject to moderation). The films on this list cover the top neo-noir films of all time and is currently ordered from best to worst, according to your votes.
So whether you're at home and want to watch these neo-noir movies on DVD or streaming… or if you're seeing them in theatres for the first time, this list of the best neo-noir movies will help you decide what to watch. So from the latest, to the greatest of the neo-noir cinema, here is the full list of neo noir films, ordered from best to worst.
- When Los Angeles private eye J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired by Evelyn Mulwray to investigate her husband's activities, he believes it's a routine infidelity case. Jake's investigation ...more
- Deckard (Harrison Ford) is forced by the police Boss (M. Emmet Walsh) to continue his old job as Replicant Hunter. His assignment: eliminate four escaped Replicants from the colonies who have ...more
- "Fargo" is a reality-based crime drama set in Minnesota in 1987. Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) is a car salesman in Minneapolis who has gotten himself into debt and is so desperate for money ...more
- "Blood Simple" was the first feature film from Joel and Ethan Coen. This is the newly restored and re-edited director's cut of the film, introduced by Mortimer Young. The stylish crime thriller ...more
- Leonard (Guy Pearce) is tracking down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The difficulty, however, of locating his wife's killer is compounded by the fact that he suffers from a rare, ...more
- "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist," says con man Kint (Kevin Spacey), drawing a comparison to the most enigmatic criminal of all time, Keyser Soze. ...more
- Driver is a skilled Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver for criminals. Though he projects an icy exterior, lately he's been warming up to a pretty neighbor named Irene and her young ...more
- A dark-haired woman (Laura Elena Harring) is left amnesiac after a car crash. She wanders the streets of Los Angeles in a daze before taking refuge in an apartment. There she is discovered by Betty ...more
- John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakens alone in a strange hotel to find that he is wanted for a series of brutal murders. The problem is that he can't remember whether he committed the murders or not. ...more
- 10In this quartet of neo-noir tales, a mysterious salesman (Josh Hartnett) narrates a tragic story of co-dependency, while a musclebound vigilante (Mickey Rourke) tears his way through the criminal ...more
- 11After receiving a frantic phone call from his ex-girlfriend, teenage loner Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) learns that her dead body has been found. Vowing to solve her murder himself, he must ...more
- Hard-as-nails Lily Dillon (Anjelica Huston) works as a swindler for dangerous bookie Bobo (Pat Hingle), probably the only man she fears. Arriving in Los Angeles on "business," Lily looks up her son, ...more
- Two-bit crook Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) stumbles into an audition for a mystery film while on the run from the cops. Winning the part, he lands in Hollywood, where he's flung into a tangled, ...more
- When unemployed ex-marine Michael Williams (Nicolas Cage) stumbles into a bar in Red Rock, Wyo., the owner, Wayne (J.T. Walsh), mistakes him for a hired killer and offers him $10,000 to kill his ...more
- From this inventory of imagery, Lynch fashions two separate but intersecting stories, one about a jazz musician (Bill Pullman), tortured by the notion that his wife is having an affair, who suddenly ...more
- A stranger (Philip Baker Hall) mentors a young Reno gambler (John C. Reilly) who weds a hooker (Gwyneth Paltrow) and befriends a vulgar casino regular.
- Private investigator and war veteran Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired by real estate developer Jake Berman (Harvey Keitel) for some run-of-the-mill matrimonial work. After Berman shoots his ...more
- 18A highly skilled jewel thief, Frank (James Caan) longs to leave his dangerous trade and settle down with his girlfriend, Jessie (Tuesday Weld). Eager to make one last big score in order to begin ...more
- In the desert near Los Angeles, a beautiful woman named Allison Pond (Jennifer Connelly) is found murdered. A special investigative unit led by hard-edged detective Max Hoover (Nick Nolte) is brought ...more
- 20U Turn is a 1997 American neo-noir crime thriller film directed by Oliver Stone and starring Sean Penn, Billy Bob Thornton, Jennifer Lopez, Jon Voight, Powers Boothe, Joaquin Phoenix, Claire Danes, ...more
- Harry Madox (Don Johnson) is a drifter who settles into a small Texas town, taking a job at a used car dealership. He proceeds to have affairs with the sultry Dolly Harshaw (Virginia Madsen), the ...more
- In late 1940s Los Angeles, Easy Rawlins (Denzel Washington) is an unemployed black World War II veteran with few job prospects. At a bar, Easy meets DeWitt Albright (Tom Sizemore), a mysterious white ...more
- 23A professor (Dennis Quaid) and a coed (Meg Ryan) spend his final hours trying to find out who has slipped him luminous poison.
- The story of a middleweight boxer as he rises through ranks to earn his first shot at the middleweight crown. He falls in love with a gorgeous girl from the Bronx. The inability to express his ...more
- After his time in prison, Jimmy Kilmartin (David Caruso) keeps his head down and provides for his wife and kids, until his cousin Ronnie (Michael Rapaport) ropes him into a large-scale car heist that ...more
