Best Neo Noir Movies: 10 Films Where Nobody Gets Clean
Classic noir had a detective who at least understood what happened. Neo noir dropped that. The hero investigates, learns the truth, and finds it changes nothing, because the corruption is structural rather than criminal. Chinatown is the film where that turn happens, and everything after is a variation. Start there, then Blade Runner for the version that moves it into science fiction, Blood Simple for the version stripped to three people and a mistake, and Nightcrawler for the one where the hero is the rot.
Chinatown (1974)
Jack Nicholson's private eye follows a water rights scam into the worst thing he could have found. Robert Towne's script is the one screenwriters still take apart line by line.
The last scene rewrites everything before it, and the final line is the whole genre in five words.
Blade Runner (1982)
Ridley Scott moves the form into science fiction without changing a single one of its rules. A tired investigator, a case that implicates him, rain that never stops. Watch the Final Cut.
Blood Simple (1984)
The Coens strip noir to four people, one misunderstanding and a Texas bar. Everybody acts reasonably on wrong information, which is a more frightening engine than malice.
Nightcrawler (2014)
Jake Gyllenhaal as a freelance crime videographer who is very good at a job that should not exist. The neo noir where the protagonist is not corrupted by the city, he was always this and the city rewards it.
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Three cops, three kinds of corruption, and the best studio noir of the nineties. It moves like a thriller and lands like a tragedy.
Body Heat (1981)
Lawrence Kasdan's debut, humid and deliberate, with Kathleen Turner running rings around William Hurt. The most straightforwardly enjoyable film on this list.
Night Moves (1975)
Arthur Penn and Gene Hackman, and the deep cut people should name more often. A detective who solves a case he never understood, in a film about a country that has stopped explaining itself.
The Long Goodbye (1973)
Altman drops Philip Marlowe into a seventies Los Angeles that has no use for his code. Elliott Gould mumbles through it and the ending is a genuine shock.
Memento (2000)
Nolan runs the investigation backwards so you share the hero's condition. It is a formal trick in service of the oldest noir idea there is, which is that the detective is the last person to know.
Drive (2011)
Refn's synth soaked version, more Melville than Chandler, and the one that brought the whole style back into fashion. The lift scene is a perfect noir moment.
- Chinatown is where noir stops believing the detective can fix anything. Start there.
- For the same rules in a different genre, watch Blade Runner. For the leanest version, Blood Simple.
- For deep cuts, watch Night Moves and The Long Goodbye.
- Nightcrawler is the modern endpoint, where the hero is the corruption rather than its victim.
The whole idea
Watch one movie this week. Talk about it Friday.
We pick one film. You watch it alone, on your own time. Friday at 7:30pm PT you get ten minutes on Zoom with one other person who watched it too. No club, no homework, no small talk.
See this week's pick $5Common questions
- What is the best neo noir film?
- Chinatown (1974) by consensus and on the merits. Blade Runner (1982) is the most influential, and L.A. Confidential (1997) is the best entry point for someone new to the style.
- What is the difference between noir and neo noir?
- Classic noir ran roughly from 1940 to 1958, in black and white, under a production code. Neo noir starts in the sixties, works in colour, can show what the code forbade, and generally accepts that the corruption cannot be fixed.
- What should I watch after Chinatown?
- Night Moves (1975) and The Long Goodbye (1973) for the same decade and mood, then L.A. Confidential or Nightcrawler for the modern versions.