30 QUINTESSENTIAL FILMS NOIR FOR NOIRVEMBER

For the past five years, Noirvember has been an annual month-long celebration of film noir in the month of November. Here are 30 films that distill the essence of the noir era (roughly 1941 to 1958). The images encapsulate the tone of the era. Each includes one quote from the film depicted. For more noir titles,They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? has a great list, with over 1000 films! If you participate, don’t forget to use #Noirvember on your posts on any social media channel. Happy (or maybe, unhappy) watching!

1. Ace in the Hole (1951)
- Billy Wilder

“I don’t go to church. Kneeling bags my nylons.”
Lorraine Minosa (Jan Sterling)

2. The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
- John Huston

“Why don’t you quit cryin’ and get me some bourbon?”
- Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden)

3. The Big Combo (1955)  

-  H. Lewis

“I’d rather be insane and alive, than sane…and dead.”
- Alicia Brown (Helen Walker)

4. The Big Heat (1953)
- Fritz Lang

“We’re sisters under the mink”
- Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame)

5. The Big Sleep (1946)
- Howard Hawks

“Those are harsh words to throw at a man, especially
when he’s walking out of your bedroom.”
- Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart)

6. Crime Wave (1954)
- André de Toth

un-gif-dans-ta-gueule / Via un-gif-dans-ta-gueule.tumblr.com

“You know, it isn’t what a man wants to do, Lacey, but what he has
to do. Now take me - I love to smoke cigarettes, but the doctors say I can’t have them. So what do I do? I chew toothpicks, tons of them.”
- Det. Lt. Sims (Sterling Hayden)

7. D.O.A. (1950)
- Rudolph Maté

“I can breathe and I can move, but I’m not alive
because I took that poison, and nothing can save me.”
- Frank Bigelow (Edmond O’Brien)

8. Detour (1945)
- Edgar G. Ulmer

nitratediva / Via nitratediva.tumblr.com

“What’d you do, kiss him with a wrench?”
- Vera (Ann Savage)

9. Double Indemnity (1944)
- Billy Wilder

“How could I have known that murder could
sometimes smell like honeysuckle?”
- Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray)

10. Gilda (1946)
- Charles Vidor

missavagardner / Via missavagardner.tumblr.com

“I hate you so much I think I’m going to die from it.”
- Gilda (Rita Hayworth)

11. Gun Crazy (1950)
- Joseph H. Lewis

“Bart, I’ve been kicked around all my life, and from
now on, I’m gonna start kicking back.”
- Annie Laurie Starr (Peggy Cummins)

12. The Hitch-Hiker (1953)
- Ida Lupino

“You guys are gonna die, that’s all. It’s just a
question of when.”
Emmett Myers (William Talman)

13. In a Lonely Place (1950)
- Nicholas Ray

“I was born when she kissed me. I died when she
left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.”
- Dixon Steele (Humphrey Bogart)

14. The Killing (1956)
- Stanley Kubrick

“You like money. You’ve got a great big dollar sign
there where most women have a heart.”
- Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden)

15. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
- Robert Aldrich

show-me-moonlight-on-the-sunrise / Via show-me-moonlight-on-the-sunrise.tumblr.com

“Look Mike, I like you. I like the way you handle yourself.
You seem like a reasonable man. Why don’t we make a
deal. What’s it worth to you to drag your considerable
talents back to the gutter you crawled out of.”
- Carl Evello (Paul Stewart)

16. The Lady from Shanghai (1947)
- Orson Welles

“Maybe I’ll live so long that I’ll forget her. Maybe
I’ll die trying.”
- Michael O’Hara (Orson Welles)

17. Laura (1944)
- Otto Preminger

“I don’t use a pen. I write with a goose quill dipped
in venom.”
- Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb)

18. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
- John Huston

“When you’re slapped, you’ll take it and like it.”
- Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart)

19. Mildred Pierce (1945)
- Michael Curtiz

“Personally, Veda’s convinced me that alligators have the
right idea. They eat their young.”
- Ida (Eve Arden)

20. Night and the City (1950)
- Jules Dassin

“How much are you sellin’ me for?”
- Harry Fabian (Richard Widmark)

21. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
- Charles Laughton

julia-loves-bette-davis / Via julia-loves-bette-davis.tumblr.com

“There’s too many of them. I can’t kill the world.”
- Rev. Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum)

22. Out of the Past (1947)
- Jacques Tourneur

“Nothing in the world is any good unless you can
share it.”
- Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum)

23. The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)
- Tay Garnett

“Stealing a man’s wife, that’s nothing, but stealing
a man’s car, that’s larceny.”
- Frank Chambers (John Garfield)

24. Raw Deal (1948)
- Anthony Mann

“I never asked for anything safe. All I want is just a
little decency, that’s all!”
- Ann Martin (Marsha Hunt)

25. The Set-Up (1949)
- Robert Wise

“Don’t you see, Bill, you’ll always be just one
punch away.”
- Julie (Audrey Totter)

26. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
- Billy Wilder

“The stars are ageless, aren’t they?”
-Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson)

27. Sweet Smell of Success (1957)
- Alexander Mackendrick

littleplasticthings / Via littleplasticthings.tumblr.com

“I’d hate to take a bite outta you. You’re a cookie
full of arsenic.”
- J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster)

28. The Third Man (1949)
- Carol Reed

“Oh, Holly, you and I aren’t heroes. The world doesn’t
make any heroes outside of your stories.”
- Harry Lime (Orson Welles)

29. This Gun For Hire (1942)
- Frank Tuttle

“You are trying to make me go soft. Well, you can
save it. I don’t go soft for anybody.”
- Philip Raven (Alan Ladd)

30. Touch of Evil (1958)
- Orson Welles

“What does it matter what you say about people?”
- Tanya (Marlene Dietrich)