TOP 10 FILM NOIR Movies of All Time - Noirvember 2020

hello everyone welcome to another video on boutique blu-rays my name is elliot and today i'm going to be focusing on film noir the reason for this is that it's the month of november and us film lovers have hijacked the entire month and we have dubbed it november and this is where we get to celebrate the brilliant movies that were released under this umbrella of the film noir movement genre or style whatever you want to call it so in this video i'm going to run through 10 of my absolute favorites and hopefully you can get some recommendations from this list i'll just give a very brief introduction to film noir before we get onto the list this was a type of filmmaking very popular during the 1940s and 1950s in american cinema these were stories that were about crime they were about detectives and femme fatales there was lots of corruption and seediness these were very gritty stories for the time that were dealing with all sorts of you know mata that wasn't being tackled in other movies at the time they were based a lot on hard-boiled crime fiction by big names like raymond chandler and he also contributed to a lot of these movies some of the very common tropes of the style or genre were things like the cinematography being very contrasty there was a lot of contrast between light and darkness so there were these incredible shadow compositions in all of these movies that just really evoked a atmosphere of tension and just you know it's not going to go well in the end and that's one of the important kind of messages about these films they always had a fatalist approach to life i won't beat around the bush because time's ticking and we want to use this time to watch some awesome noir movies so let's just get into the list first up on the list is detour now for many people this is like the perfect encapsulation of film noir it has all of the typical fatalism cynicism pessimism all of the isms basically and it's beautifully shot but what's most interesting is this was a b movie from the time so this wasn't a big studio production necessarily and it's very succinct in its running time it's only 69 minutes long but it has some of the perfect film noir characters and anne savage in particular is absolutely wonderful in this movie it plays on one of the very common themes in film noir of someone who is fairly innocent in life being dumped with either a dead body or a big bag of money or running into a love interest who is actually very very shady indeed so it kind of has these kind of things going on in it and that's why i say that it is kind of an encapsulation of the film noir genre this is a brilliant edition from criterion by the way and i know that christopher nolan is a very big fan of this movie and i think he took rather big inspiration when he was making his first feature film following so that's very interesting as well and this is a great movie coming up next is out of the past this is from director jacques turner who was most commonly attributed to the horror genre making films like cat people and knight of the demon but he made this film noir movie which i think is one of the all-time classics starring robert mitchum and this is years before he would go on to do a brilliant menacing turn in night of the hunter as you can see from the poster robert mitchum is a detective who likes to smoke a lot so this must be a film noir the reason i like this one in particular is because it shows off one of the common attributes in film noir that i really love and that is a convoluted confusing story and why do i like this because in these film noirs with a story that isn't straightforward and goes off in lots of tangents and has you questioning lots of things these are the ones with the most re-watchability and first time i watched out of the past i couldn't make any sense of it really but it's just rewarding on a re-watch and i'm going to talk about another one later on in this list that is also similarly quite confusing but also brilliant i'd also like to recommend the lady from shanghai this is directed by awesome wells starring orson welles and rita hayworth and there's one reason that i'm recommending this one there's a particular sequence towards the end which is perfect expressionism in terms of lighting and framing of the image and it uses a lot of mirrors and i'm sure if you've seen this film you know what i'm talking about it's a sequence that was replicated in one of the james bond movies that is very famous and awesome wells did it first he did it here so that's something that i love about film noir is the use of light and shadow which was adopted from german expressionism and kind of carried over to us filmmaking it's also another sad story in orson welles career of him losing full creative control over the movie so it's one of those like the magnificent ambersons that isn't as good as it probably could have been but i still enjoy it so much next up i've got sweet smell of success this is directed by alexander mckendrick now you may not think of this as typical film noir because usually film noir deals with criminal activity in terms of violent crime gangsters murderers feasts on the run etc but this is different this is looking at corruption within journalism and business and all about the morality and lack of ethical dealings in that business when you talk about film noir being great you think of that dialogue that is so snappy so sharp and stinging and this film has that in spades and the characters are so brilliantly played by bert lancaster and tony curtis and another thing again with the cinematography and the contrast between light and shadow this is shot by james one cal who was a master of cinematography in his time so for that this is one of my favorite film noirs i'd like to also talk about leave her to heaven this is such a peculiar entry in this list in that some of the typical features of film noir this doesn't tick the boxes primarily this is a color movie this is shot in technicolor by leon shamroy so it doesn't fit that usual black and white contrasty look but it does have the brilliant gene tierney in this femme fatale iconic role that you see her character go from normality to pure viciousness and it's just so pessimistic in its outlook on life this for me is one of the great film noirs that maybe you wouldn't think of as a film noir but this is a great addition from criterion as well i'm so glad this got restored and released on blu-ray by them if you're enjoying this video on my top 10 film noir movies please do subscribe to the channel for more videos on blu-ray collecting etc and you would hear about these videos as soon as they get uploaded anyway back to the film noir list let's tackle one of the stone cold classics now this is double indemnity from billy wilder and this is the masters of cinema blu-ray from the uk this was one of the first film noir movies that i encountered because this was top of the list of most of the lists i looked at in terms of film noir that you should watch first and i was already kind of familiar with billy wilder having watched sunset boulevard this is a story taken from a james m kane novella which was adapted by billy wilder and raymond chandler who was a very famous crime novelist at the time and he does feature on this list a bit later and this is an incredible story with brilliant performances from barbara stanwick and fred mcmurray this is one of those stories about corruption and two people getting in on this plan and they think their plan is foolproof but of course we know that there's gonna be cracks showing and eventually it's just not gonna go well for them double indemnity is quintessential film noir because there is that fatalism that aspect of knowing that there's no hope for these characters and that their plan is going to fall to pieces there's no happy ending in this one folks so this is why it's one of my favorite film noirs another film noir that i absolutely love is the big heat directed by fritz lang now you may know fritz lang from his early silent works like metropolis that he was making in germany but he did come over to the us and started making these hollywood movies but it's here that it really shows his german expressionism style is full front and center in this movie and the characters are so violent in their personalities there's a scene that absolutely shocked me the first time i saw this and i won't spoil it but it's got hot coffee in the scene and you probably know it if you've seen it because it's etched into my mind i love this movie so much and the indicator blu-ray from the uk is brilliant as well so the big heat is one to put on your list up next i've got gun crazy and i love the poster for gun crazy and what a great title for a movie this is about a couple who they meet and they are obsessed with guns and committing crimes they get a real bug for it it's very much that bonnie and clyde story that became very popular after this one there's many films like they live by night badlands bonnie and clyde etc that story became an archetype of the kind of criminals on the run story but this is perhaps my favorite of those kinds of story there is some really daring direction and cinematography in this and the nature of guns is used very much as innuendo for sex that they couldn't show on screen at the time so this is a wonderful gem that often goes under people's radar so gone crazy getting towards the end of this list now i have kiss me deadly this is from robert aldrich and this is one of those ones that personifies the the scathing nature the pessimism of film noir this is set amongst the backdrop of fears of atomic warfare nuclear warfare etc and that is full front and center in this movie there's a lot of mystery in the narrative the characters are absolutely brilliant and there's a very famous scene with a box that was copied and replicated in many films afterwards and you'll know the scene when you watch it but this movie goes to places that no other film noir goes trust me and just look at this cover that cover is so provocative on the criterium release and a great release as well lots of great special features there's uh alex cox is on one of the special features talking about how this inspired repo man so yeah all around brilliant film brilliant release and lastly on this list is the movie that you've probably all been expecting to be included on this list so i'm just going to give it to you it is the big sleep this is from howard hawks starring humphrey bogart and lauren bacall this is maybe the classic the classic of film noir it has pretty much all of the genre tropes that i've talked about with all of the other movies in this list it follows this private eye as he goes on this really strange journey through the criminal underworld of la it has one of those stories kind of like out of the past that is very confusing and doesn't go in a straight linear fashion it has the brilliant romance the romantic tension between lauren bacall and humphrey bogart which is part of hollywood history and howard hawks's direction is brilliant it's taken from the very famous novel from raymond chandler which is a great novel by the way if you love film noir but you've not read any kind of hard-boiled crime fiction then the big sleep is a great one as well this is one of the premium collection titles here in the uk but it is available in the us from warner archive and there's two different versions of the movie on here one that is kind of cut to be more linear and cuts out some more of the what they term incendiary material so an absolute classic and this might be one that i put on first out of all of these because i've not watched any of these yet during november so i think this is going to be my first so there you go that's my top 10 noir movies that i own on blu-ray i hope you've enjoyed this list but do let me know of any emissions or things that should have been on this list or what would be on your list let me know in the comments below because i would love to hear that as always i can't go without thanking my patreon supporters thank you so much for helping keeping this channel going it really means so much to me and to my patreon producer paul balzer thank you for all the help paul and it really is helping run this channel so thank you and if you want to check out my patreon go to patreon.com forward slash boutique blu-rays if you want to stick around on the channel just click one of the videos on screen right now because i'm sure it'll be amazing and you can get tons of recommendations from me but a past version of me so yeah do that i'll be back very soon with more videos so until then stay well and keep watching great films

Channel: Boutique Blu-rays with Elliot Coen

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Keywords: film noir, film noir movies, best film noir, noirvember tcm, noirvember 2020, noirvember challenge, film noir explained, film noir analysis, film noir recommendations, film noir what to watch, noir criterion collection, film noir blu ray, film noir dvd, top 10 film noir, top 5 film noir, essential film noir, amazing film noir, film noir stories, film noir cinematography, film noir directors, film noir collection, film noir indicator, film noir uk, film noir us, criterion

Id: mdRHNshLOvQ

Length: 15min 42sec (942 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 13 2020