"Clips from noir classics and little-known gems, plus interviews with modern noir aficionados like directors Christopher Nolan and Frank Miller, writers James Ellroy and Brian Helgeland and others shape this multifaceted exploration of the movie style that grew out of the hard realities of post-World War II life"--Container.

Adventurer Mike O'Hara rescues beautiful Elsa Bannister from attackers in Central Park. Elsa induces Mike to sign up as a sailor on the yacht belonging to her husband, crippled millionaire criminal lawyer Arthur Bannister. In the West Indies, the cruise party is joined by Bannister's law partner, George Grisby. Disguised as a steward is private detective Sidney Broome, who has been hired by Bannister to spy on Elsa. During the voyage, a love affair...

A ruthless, domineering woman is married to an alcoholic D.A., her childhood companion who is the only living witness to her murder of her rich aunt seventeen years earlier.

Chris Cross, 25 years a cashier, has a gold watch and little else. That rainy night, he rescues delectable Kitty from her abusive boyfriend Johnny. Smitten, amateur painter Chris lets Kitty think he's a wealthy artist. At Johnny's urging, she lets Chris establish her in an apartment (with his shrewish wife's money). There, Chris paints masterpieces; but Johnny sells them under Kitty's name, with disastrous and ironic results.

After borrowing $20 from his employer's cash register, an auto mechanic is plunged into a series of increasingly disastrous circumstances which rapidly spiral out of his control.

According to a ancient Chinese legend, if three strangers come together before the Chinese idol Kwan Yin at midnight of the Chinese New Year, she will grant their wish. Crystal Shackleford brings Johnny West and Jerome Arbutny to her apartment to fulfill the legend of the three strangers. They buy shares in a winning lottery ticket which changes their lives, but not in the ways they expected.

In 1820s New England beautiful but poor and manipulative Jenny Hager marries rich old man Isaiah Poster but also seduces his son and his company foreman.

A journalist fakes mental illness to have himself committed to an asylum where he believes a crooked judge is hiding.

"Stanley Kubrick's account of an ambitious racetrack robbery is one of Hollywood's tautest, twistiest noirs. Aided by a radically time-shuffling narrative, razor-sharp dialogue from pulp novelist Jim Thompson, and a phenomenal cast of character actors, including Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Timothy Carey, and Elisha Cook Jr., The Killing is both a jaunty thriller and a cold-blooded punch to the gut. With its precise tracking shots and gratifying...

In this Neo-Noir Thriller, a chance encounter with a mysterious young woman leads to a world in which the line between fantasy and reality is blurred as we wonder whether the man is the victim or the suspect in the strange affair.