After four Noirvembers, four Noir City DC, and three Noir City San Francisco festivals, and countless movies and books about them, I still am fascinated with everything related to film noir. I’m counting down the days until Noir City 17 in San Francisco, so this is a great time to look back at the best film noir titles I saw for the first time this year. Many of these I saw at Noir City 16 or at Noir City DC. Some came from my Noirvember posts from last month, some from my venture into British noir, and some I just stumbled across along the way. All of these titles are from the classic film noir era, roughly 1940 to 1958. (I saw a lot more film noir titles than this, but many of those were rewatches or just weren’t that good.) If you don’t see many familiar, high-profile titles, know that I’ve probably already seen them. So here are the best ones I saw in 2018:
I Walk Alone (1948)
Quiet Please, Murder (1942) Noir City 16
Address Unknown (1944) Noir City 16
Flesh and Fantasy (1943) Noir City 16
Brighton Rock (1947)
They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)
Dancing with Crime (1947)
They Won’t Believe Me (1947)
Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958)
Riff-Raff (1947)
The Naked Angel (1946)
Walk a Crooked Mile (1948)
Fourteen Hours (1951)
The Macomber Affair (1947)
Inferno (1953)
The Threat (1949)
Le Corbeau (1943)
City for Conquest (1940)
Between Midnight and Dawn (1950)
Killer’s Kiss (1955)
The Letter (1940)
The Glass Key (1942)
The Murderers are Among Us (1946)
High Tide (1947) Noir City DC
Man in the Dark (1953) Noir City DC
The People Against O’Hara (1951)
Mine Own Executioner (1947)
The Gangster (1947)
Stray Dog (1949)
The Captive City (1952)
The Brothers Rico (1957)
Death of a Cyclist (1955)
Little Red Monkey (1955)
Bang! You’re Dead (1954)
I look forward to hearing what movies from the classic noir era (or otherwise) you enjoyed in 2018.