# best neo-noir movies? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 8, 2020, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229 "2020-06-08T03:40:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2020, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/21 "2020-06-08T20:09:06Z")
[The Man Who Wasn’t There](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243133/), a Coen Brothers shot at noir, starring Billy Bob Thornton. ---
**Author:** ![journeyman\_southpaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5e9695/32.png) [@journeyman\_southpaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/journeyman_southpaw)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2020, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/22 "2020-06-08T20:23:40Z")
A couple that I enjoyed but haven’t seen mentioned on this thread (or in the lists linked in post #2) are The Late Show (1977) and Trouble in Mind (1985). ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2020, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/23 "2020-06-08T20:35:00Z")
Edward Norton was in a movie last year called Motherless Brooklyn, from a 1999 novel of the same name. It was pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2020, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/24 "2020-06-08T21:04:44Z")
All the movies I’ve seen herein listed are great. Zift - A weird eastern european movie that I would call scatological noir. ---
**Author:** ![LLCoolL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/llcooll/32/3596_2.png) [@LLCoolL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LLCoolL)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/25 "2020-06-09T10:07:00Z")
**The Last Seduction** (1994), directed by John Dahl. Linda Fiorentino’s performance as Bridget Gregory - the _femme fatale_ to end all _femme fatales_ - briefly made her the Next Big Thing in Hollywood. (Alas, she subsequently starred in two turkeys in a row - \*\*Jade \*\*and **Unforgettable** - which killed her career momentum.) See this movie, it’s amazing! > **[The Last Seduction](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_last_seduction)** > > Looking to escape her unhappy marriage, villainous femme fatale Bridget Gregory (Linda Fiorentino) convinces her husband, Clay (Bill Pullman), to sell cocaine, then steals the profits and runs out on him. She stops in a small town en route to... ---
**Author:** ![LLCoolL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/llcooll/32/3596_2.png) [@LLCoolL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LLCoolL)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/26 "2020-06-09T10:13:23Z")
> [@Mike\_Mabes](#): > > B/W film noir is my favorite genre and I think I have seen all the great ones. > > Neo-noir, well there is Body Heat, a favorite. Watching it now for about the 10th time. I’ve seen the one by Dennis Hopper, can’t remember the title now, and one with Madeline Stowe and Ed Harris, China Moon, pretty good. The Dennis Hopper film you’re thinking of may be **Red Rock West**. That’s another excellent John Dahl film. Might also be **The Hot Spot** - directed by Hopper. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/27 "2020-06-09T11:01:08Z")
It’s not easy to figure out what happened to Linda Fiorentino’s career. I’ve just done some online searching on her name and found a lot of inconsistent statements about her. It appears to me that she appeared in a mixture of good and bad films from 1985 to 2002. After that, she was in one film in 2009. There’s nothing I could find online about what she’s done since then. ---
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/28 "2020-06-09T11:02:48Z")
Some great choices here… Surprised no one has mentioned[_**Memento (2000)**_](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/) ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/29 "2020-06-09T11:03:02Z")
I think **Memento** is the most memorable noir thriller of the recent past, if I may be forgiven the joke. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/30 "2020-06-09T11:50:17Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > It’s not easy to figure out what happened to Linda Fiorentino’s career. I’ve just done some online searching on her name and found a lot of inconsistent statements about her. It appears to me that she appeared in a mixture of good and bad films from 1985 to 2002. After that, she was in one film in 2009. There’s nothing I could find online about what she’s done since then. Possibly a Wienstein encounter meant she was for everafter “difficult” to work with? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/31 "2020-06-09T13:30:09Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > I think **Memento** is the most memorable noir thriller of the recent past, if I may be forgiven the joke. I’m gonna forget you posted that. But yes, great film. ---
**Author:** ![Tinker\_Grey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tinker_grey/32/8136_2.png) [@Tinker\_Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tinker_Grey)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2020, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/32 "2020-06-09T21:41:28Z")
Dark City ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/33 "2020-06-10T13:52:25Z")
> [@Tinker\_Grey](#): > > Dark City Yes! See post 12. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/34 "2020-06-10T15:02:10Z")
A couple I liked: The Nice Guys (Ryan Gosling and Russel Crowe directed by Shane Black) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Robert Downey Jr and Val Kilmer, also directed by Shane Black) Sin City Road to Perdition Drive Basic Instinct ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ecks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bcef8e/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ecks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ecks)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/35 "2020-06-10T15:16:09Z")
What about the Wachowskis Bound? Is that noir, or just noir adjacent? ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/36 "2020-06-10T17:55:01Z")
> [@Johnny\_Ecks](#): > > What about the Wachowskis Bound? Is that noir, or just noir adjacent? Ethically questionable protagonists versus violent mafiosi. That’s as _noir_ as it gets. ---
**Author:** ![fedman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/278dde/32.png) [@fedman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/37 "2020-06-10T19:49:07Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Ethically questionable protagonists versus violent mafiosi. That’s as _noir_ as it gets. sorry, I couldn’t get past the lame dialogue (how many times saying "I knew you were going to say that’?) ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/38 "2020-06-10T20:11:10Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > Possibly a Wienstein encounter meant she was for everafter “difficult” to work with? “Difficult to work with” was how she(Linda Fiorentino) was described when she worked on _Men on Black_ in 1997. As well as _Dogma_. I am not sure if it is true though. Or as you implied something else. ---
**Author:** ![Tinker\_Grey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tinker_grey/32/8136_2.png) [@Tinker\_Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tinker_Grey)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2020, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/39 "2020-06-10T22:58:14Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Yes! See post 12. Ah. I missed it. Nice to be in agreement. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2020, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229/40 "2020-06-11T01:18:32Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Ethically questionable protagonists versus violent mafiosi. That’s as _noir_ as it gets. I dunno, pretty happy ending for a true noir, IMHO. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/best-neo-noir-movies/855229.md?page=3)