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Blast of Silence

Allen Baron
1961 • 77 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #428 Edition: DVD

Swift, brutal, and black-hearted, Allen Baron’s New York City noir Blast of Silence is a sensational surprise, a low-budget, carefully crafted portrait of a hit man on assignment in Manhattan during Christmastime.

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Le trou

Jacques Becker
1960 • 131 minutes • 1.66:1 • France
Spine: #129 Edition: DVD

In a Paris prison cell, five inmates use every ounce of their tenacity and ingenuity in an elaborate attempt to tunnel to freedom. Based on the novel by José Giovanni, Jacques Becker’s Le trou (The Hole) balances lyrical humanism with a tense, unshakable air of imminent danger.

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Touchez pas au grisbi

Jacques Becker
1954 • 96 minutes • 1.33:1 • France
Spine: #271 Editions: DVD, Collector’s Sets

Having pulled off the heist of a lifetime, Max looks forward to spending his remaining days relaxing with his beautiful young girlfriend. But when Max’s hapless partner lets word of the loot slip to loose-lipped, two-timing Josy (Jeanne Moreau), Max is reluctantly drawn back into the underworld.

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The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

John Cassavetes
1976 • 135 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #254 Editions: DVD, Collector’s Sets, iTunes

John Cassavetes engages with film noir in his own inimitable style with The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Ben Gazzara brilliantly portrays a gentleman’s club owner, Cosmo Vitelli, desperately committed to maintaining a facade of suave gentility despite the seediness of his environment.

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Diabolique

Henri-Georges Clouzot
1955 • 117 minutes • 1.33:1 • France
Spine: #35 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray

Before Psycho, Peeping Tom, and Repulsion, there was Diabolique, a heart-grabbing benchmark in horror filmmaking, featuring outstanding performances by Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, and Paul Meurisse.

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Rififi

Jules Dassin
1955 • 118 minutes • 1.33:1 • France
Spine: #115 Editions: Dual Format Blu-ray/DVD, Collector’s Sets

After making such American noir classics as Brute Force and The Naked City, the blacklisted director Jules Dassin went to Paris and embarked on his masterpiece: a twisting, turning tale of four ex-cons who hatch one last glorious robbery in the City of Light.

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The Naked City

Jules Dassin
1948 • 96 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #380 Editions: DVD, iTunes

Master noir craftsman Jules Dassin’s dazzling police procedural The Naked City was shot entirely on location in New York. As influenced by Italian neorealism as American crime fiction, this double Academy Award winner remains a benchmark for naturalism in noir.

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Brute Force

Jules Dassin
1947 • 98 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #383 Editions: DVD, iTunes

As hard-hitting as its title, Brute Force was the first of Jules Dassin’s forays into the crime genre, a prison melodrama that takes a critical look at American society as well, starring Burt Lancaster.

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Night and the City

Jules Dassin
1950 • 95 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #274 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray

Two-bit hustler Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark) longs for “a life of ease and plenty.” Trailed by an inglorious history of go-nowhere schemes, he tries to hatch a lucrative plan with a famous wrestler.

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Thieves’ Highway

Jules Dassin
1949 • 94 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #273 Edition: DVD

Thieves’ Highway vividly depicts the perilous world of “long-haul boys,” who drive by night to bring their goods to the markets of America’s cities. Richard Conte stars as ex-G.I. Nick Garcos, a tyro trucker bent on satisfaction from the man responsible for crippling his father.

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Sapphire

Basil Dearden
1959 • 92 minutes • 1.66:1 • United Kingdom
Editions: Collector’s Sets, iTunes

Basil Dearden’s bold, direct police procedural, starring Nigel Patrick as the detective in charge of the investigation, is a devastating look at the way bigotry crosses class divides, and a snapshot of the increasingly interracial culture of England in the late fifties.

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The League of Gentlemen

Basil Dearden
1960 • 116 minutes • 1.66:1 • United Kingdom
Editions: Collector’s Sets, iTunes

A delightful cast of British all-stars, including Richard Attenborough, Bryan Forbes, and Roger Livesey, brings to life this precisely calibrated caper, which was immensely popular and influenced countless Hollywood heist films.

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All Night Long

Basil Dearden
1962 • 91 minutes • 1.66:1 • United Kingdom
Editions: Collector’s Sets, iTunes

Othello is translated to the world of sixties London jazz clubs in Basil Dearden’s smoky and sensational All Night Long. This daring psychodrama also features on-screen appearances by jazz legends Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck, Tubby Hayes, and Johnny Dankworth.

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The Hit

Stephen Frears
1984 • 98 minutes • 1.77:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #469 Edition: DVD

Terence Stamp is Willie, a gangster’s henchman turned “supergrass” (informer) trying to live in peaceful hiding in a Spanish village. Sun-dappled bliss turns to nerve-racking suspense, however, when two hit men—played by John Hurt and Tim Roth—come a-calling to bring Willie back for execution.

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The Naked Kiss

Samuel Fuller
1964 • 90 minutes • 1.75:1 • United States
Spine: #18 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes

The setup is pure pulp: A former prostitute (a crackerjack Constance Towers) relocates to a buttoned-down suburb, determined to fit in with mainstream society.

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Pickup on South Street

Samuel Fuller
1953 • 80 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #224 Edition: DVD

In Sam Fuller’s hardboiled classic, a petty crook and an unsuspecting woman find themselves on the run from Communists in a precarious gambit.

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Cruel Gun Story

Takumi Furukawa
1964 • 91 minutes • 2.45:1 • Japan
Edition: Collector’s Sets

Fresh out of the slammer, Togawa (Branded to Kill’s Joe Shishido) has no chance to go straight because he is immediately coerced by a wealthy mob boss into organizing the heist of an armored car carrying racetrack receipts.

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Breathless

Jean-Luc Godard
1960 • 90 minutes • 1.33:1 • France
Spine: #408 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes

With its lack of polish, surplus of attitude, anything-goes crime narrative, and effervescent young stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg, Breathless helped launch the French New Wave and ensured that cinema would never be the same.

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Alphaville

Jean-Luc Godard
1965 • 99 minutes • 1.33:1 • France
Spine: #25 Edition: DVD

Eddie Constantine stars as intergalactic hero Lemmy Caution, on a mission to kill the inventor of fascist computer Alpha 60, in Jean-Luc Godard’s irreverent, cockeyed fusion of science fiction, pulp characters, and surrealist poetry.

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Vengeance Is Mine

Shohei Imamura
1979 • 140 minutes • 1.66:1 • Japan
Spine: #384 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes

Director Shohei Imamura turns this fact-based story—about the seventy-eight-day killing spree of a remorseless man from a devoutly Catholic family—into a cold, perverse, and at times diabolically funny examination of the primitive coexisting with the modern.

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Mona Lisa

Neil Jordan
1986 • 104 minutes • 1.77:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #107 Edition: DVD

Bob Hoskins (who snagged an Oscar nomination for his performance) plays George, a small-time loser employed as a chauffeur to an enigmatic, high-class call girl in writer-director Neil Jordan’s brilliant, noir-infused love story.

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I Am Waiting

Koreyoshi Kurahara
1957 • 91 minutes • 1.33:1 • Japan
Edition: Collector’s Sets

In Koreyoshi Kurahara’s directorial debut, rebel matinee idol Yujiro Ishihara stars as a restaurant manager and former boxer who saves a beautiful, suicidal club hostess (Mie Kitahara) trying to escape the clutches of her gangster employer.

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High and Low

Akira Kurosawa
1963 • 143 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
Spine: #24 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Collector’s Sets, iTunes

Adapting Ed McBain’s detective novel King’s Ransom, Kurosawa moves effortlessly from compelling race-against-time thriller to exacting social commentary, creating a diabolical treatise on contemporary Japanese society.

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The Bad Sleep Well

Akira Kurosawa
1960 • 150 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
Spine: #319 Editions: DVD, Collector’s Sets

A young executive hunts down his father’s killer in director Akira Kurosawa’s scathing The Bad Sleep Well. Continuing his legendary collaboration with actor Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa combines elements of Hamlet and American film noir to chilling effect.

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Stray Dog

Akira Kurosawa
1949 • 122 minutes • 1.33:1 • Japan
Spine: #233 Editions: DVD, Collector’s Sets

When a pickpocket steals a rookie detective’s gun on a hot, crowded bus, the cop goes undercover in a desperate attempt to right the wrong. Kurosawa’s thrilling noir probes the squalid world of postwar Japan and the nature of the criminal mind.

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Drunken Angel

Akira Kurosawa
1948 • 98 minutes • 1.33:1 • Japan
Spine: #413 Editions: DVD, Collector’s Sets

In this powerful early noir from the great Akira Kurosawa, Toshiro Mifune bursts onto the screen as a volatile, tubercular criminal who strikes up an unlikely relationship with Takashi Shimura’s jaded physician.

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The Long Good Friday

John Mackenzie
1979 • 114 minutes • 1.77:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #26 Edition: DVD

Bob Hoskins, in his breakthrough film role, stars as a London racketeer fast losing control of his gangland empire; Helen Mirren shines as his classy moll.

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Elevator to the Gallows

Louis Malle
1958 • 92 minutes • 1.66:1 • France
Spine: #335 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes

For his feature debut, twenty-four-year-old Louis Malle brought together a mesmerizing performance by Jeanne Moreau, evocative cinematography by Henri Decaë, and a now legendary jazz score by Miles Davis.

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Homicide

David Mamet
1991 • 101 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #486 Edition: DVD

In this nightmarish urban odyssey, inner-city police detective Bobby Gold (Joe Mantegna), is following the murder of an elderly Jewish candy-shop owner, which leads him down a path of obscure encounters and clues, as well as a profound reckoning with his own self and identity.

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Rusty Knife

Toshio Masuda
1958 • 90 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
Edition: Collector’s Sets

In Toshio Masuda’s smash Rusty Knife, Yujiro Ishihara and fellow top Nikkatsu star Akira Kobayashi play former hoodlums trying to leave behind a life of crime, but their past comes back to haunt them when the authorities seek them out as murder witnesses.

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Le cercle rouge

Jean-Pierre Melville
1970 • 140 minutes • 1.85:1 • France
Spine: #218 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray

Alain Delon plays a master thief, fresh out of prison, who crosses paths with a notorious escapee and an alcoholic ex-cop (Yves Montand). The unlikely trio plot a heist, against impossible odds, until a relentless inspector and their own pasts seal their fates.

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Army of Shadows

Jean-Pierre Melville
1969 • 145 minutes • 1.85:1 • France
Spine: #385 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Collector’s Sets

Atmospheric and gripping, Army of Shadows is Melville’s most personal film, featuring Lino Ventura, Paul Meurisse, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and the incomparable Simone Signoret as intrepid underground fighters who must grapple with their conception of honor in their battle against Hitler’s regime.

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Le samouraï

Jean-Pierre Melville
1967 • 105 minutes • 1.85:1 • France
Spine: #306 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes

This elegantly stylized masterpiece of cool is a razor-sharp cocktail of 1940s American gangster cinema and 1960s French pop culture—with a liberal dose of Japanese lone-warrior mythology.

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Le doulos

Jean-Pierre Melville
1962 • 109 minutes • 1.66:1 • France
Spine: #447 Edition: DVD

A stone-faced Jean-Paul Belmondo stars as enigmatic gangster Silien, who may or may not be responsible for squealing on Faugel, just released from the slammer and already involved in what should have been a simple heist. Le doulos is one of the filmmaker’s most gripping crime dramas.

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Le deuxième souffle

Jean-Pierre Melville
1966 • 144 minutes • 1.66:1 • France
Spine: #448 Editions: DVD, iTunes

With his customary restraint and ruthless attention to detail, director Jean-Pierre Melville follows the parallel tracks of French underworld criminal Gu (Lino Ventura), escaped from prison and roped into one last robbery, and the suave inspector, Blot (Paul Meurisse), relentlessly seeking him.

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A Colt Is My Passport

Takashi Nomura
1967 • 84 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
Edition: Collector’s Sets

One of Japanese cinema’s supreme emulations of American noir, Takashi Nomura’s A Colt Is My Passport is a down-and-dirty but gorgeously photographed yakuza film starring Joe Shishido as a hard-boiled hit man caught between rival gangs.

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The Third Man

Carol Reed
1949 • 104 minutes • 1.33:1 • United Kingdom
Spine: #64 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, Collector’s Sets

Pulp novelist Holly Martins travels to shadowy, postwar Vienna, only to find himself investigating the mysterious death of an old friend, black-market opportunist Harry Lime—and thus begins this legendary tale of love, deception, and murder.

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Classe tous risques

Claude Sautet
1960 • 108 minutes • 1.66:1 • France
Spine: #434 Edition: DVD

A character study of a career criminal at the end of his rope, this rugged noir from Claude Sautet is a thrilling highlight of sixties French cinema, starring Lino Ventura and Jean-Paul Belmondo.

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The Killers

Don Siegel
1964 • 94 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Edition: Collector’s Sets

Ernest Hemingway’s gripping short story “The Killers” has fascinated readers and filmmakers for generations. In 1964, Don Siegel took it on, creating the first-ever made-for-TV feature, which would prove too violent for American audiences in the wake of JFK’s assassination.

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The Killers

Robert Siodmak
1946 • 102 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Edition: Collector’s Sets

The first screen incarnation of Ernest Hemingway’s short story “The Killers” came in 1946, when director Robert Siodmak unleashed The Killers, helping to define the film noir style and launching the careers of Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner.

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Insomnia

Erik Skjoldbjærg
1997 • 97 minutes • 1.85:1 • Norway
Spine: #47 Editions: Dual Format Blu-ray/DVD, DVD, iTunes

The success of Erik Skjoldbjærg’s chilling procedural anticipated the international hunger for Scandinavian noirs and serial- killer fictions, and the film features one of Skarsgård’s greatest performances.

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Branded to Kill

Seijun Suzuki
1967 • 91 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
Spine: #38 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes

When Japanese New Wave bad boy Seijun Suzuki delivered this brutal, hilarious, and visually inspired masterpiece to the executives at his studio, he was promptly fired.

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Tokyo Drifter

Seijun Suzuki
1966 • 82 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
Spine: #39 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray, iTunes

In this jazzy gangster film, reformed killer Tetsu’s attempt to go straight is thwarted when his former cohorts call him back to Tokyo to help battle a rival gang.

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Youth of the Beast

Seijun Suzuki
1963 • 92 minutes • 2.35:1 • Japan
Spine: #268 Edition: DVD

When a mysterious stranger muscles into two rival yakuza gangs, Tokyo’s underworld explodes with violence. Youth of the Beast was a breakthrough for director Seijun Suzuki, introducing the flamboyant colors, hallucinatory images, and striking compositions that would become his trademark.

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Take Aim at the Police Van

Seijun Suzuki
1960 • 84 minutes • 2.45:1 • Japan
Edition: Collector’s Sets

At the beginning of Seijun Suzuki’s taut and twisty whodunit, a prison truck is attacked and a convict inside is murdered. The penitentiary warden on duty, Daijiro (Michitaro Mizushima), is accused of negligence and suspended, only to take it upon himself to track down the killers.

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Coup de torchon

Bertrand Tavernier
1981 • 128 minutes • 1.66:1 • France
Spine: #106 Edition: DVD

An inspired rendering of Jim Thompson’s pulp novel Pop. 1280, Bertrand Tavernier’s Coup de torchon (Clean Slate) deftly transplants the story of an inept police chief turned heartless killer and his scrappy mistress from the American South to French West Africa.

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Shoot the Piano Player

François Truffaut
1960 • 81 minutes • 2.35:1 • France
Spine: #315 Editions: DVD, iTunes

Part thriller, part comedy, part tragedy, Shoot the Piano Player relates the adventures of mild-mannered piano player Charlie (Charles Aznavour) as he stumbles into the criminal underworld and a whirlwind love affair.

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The Friends of Eddie Coyle

Peter Yates
1973 • 102 minutes • 1.85:1 • United States
Spine: #475 Editions: DVD, Blu-Ray

In one of the best performances of his legendary career, Robert Mitchum plays small-time gunrunner Eddie “Fingers” Coyle in an adaptation by Peter Yates of George V. Higgins’s acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle.

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Underworld

Josef von Sternberg
1927 • 81 minutes • 1.33:1 • United States
Spine: #529 Edition: Collector’s Sets

Josef von Sternberg’s riveting breakthrough is widely considered the film that launched the American gangster genre as we know it.

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The Element of Crime

Lars von Trier
1984 • 104 minutes • 1.85:1 • Denmark
Spine: #80 Edition: DVD

Lars von Trier’s stunning debut film, influenced equally by Hitchcock and science fiction, is the story of Fisher, an exiled ex-cop who returns to his old beat to catch a serial killer with a taste for young girls.

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