A gutsy 30s gangster noir with two 'hood boys whose paths into adulthood are a complete contrast; Cagney becoming a violent gangster and O'Brien a priest. O'Brien has to fight the local kids' hero-worship of Cagney, and this leads to an emotional and ambiguous climax. Tense, dramatic, well-acted with sharp dialogue. Astounding. find out more...

Brilliant noirish adaptation of Graham Greene's gritty novel with Attenborough superb as the psychopathic Pinky, a small time gangster and violent hood, who marries a witness to one of his crimes to keep her quiet. Disturbingly good. find out more...

Bogart plays a man, convicted of murdering his wife, who escapes from prison in order to prove his innocence and, in trying to hide from the law, has undergone back-street cosmetic surgery. Even though he does not appear from behind his bandages until half way through the film that famous voice gives him away! Watch out for the superb use of first person camera work. A classic in every sense of the word. find out more...

Phyllis Dietrichson is trapped in a loveless marriage to a man who inspires in her nothing but contempt, but rather than leave him Phyllis decides to kill him and collect on the insurance policy she's had set up with the help of her lover, and naive partner in crime, insurance salesman Walter Neff. The only flaws in their plan are the company's reluctance to pay out so much, the diligence of Neff's increasingly suspicious colleague, (and his 'little man'), and the exemplary ruthlessness of Ph find out more...

The moody 28-year-old Mifune is the violent gangster whom boozy doctor Shimura diagnoses as suffering from TB ('a hole in the heart,' says the sour 'angel', ruefully). The movie breathes the polluted air of post-war pessimism, dissipation and poetic fatalism, symbolised in the shots of the oily, malaria-ridden swamp of a Tokyo dockside, but it is dramatically qualified by Mifune's suggested redeemability and Shimura's stoical humanism. Fascinating, highly enjoyable and filled with great scenes - find out more...

A seminal 1940s film noir about two brothers trapped in a world of mob corruption and realising too late their unavoidable doom. Force of Evil is a strikingly original example of the genre, dripping in atmosphere and conveying in every word and image a sense of dread. Both the director and the star were blacklisted by the McCarthyite witch-hunts, a situation that obviously influenced their work during the film. Superb. find out more...

High Sierra follows a failed robber broken out of prison by an old associate, who takes part in a failed robbery in which a man is killed, and makes a getaway into the Sierra mountains for a final doomed stand. find out more...

Two classic Bogart films for the price of one! High Sierra follows a failed robber broken out of prison by an old associate, who takes part in a failed robbery in which a man is killed, and makes a getaway into the Sierra mountains for a final doomed stand. Treasure of the Sierra Madre; 'Gold does funny things to a man's soul'. That's the issue tackled by this seminal movie about the pursuit of money and its effect on the brotherhood of man. Bogart plays the down-and-out Dobbs who hooks up with find out more...

Stanley Kubrick won much acclaim for his second film, a noir about a struggling New York boxer (Jamie Smith) whose life is imperilled when he protects a nightclub dancer (Irene Kane) from her gangster boss (Frank Silvera). Killer's Kiss not only lends considerable insight into future Kubrick classics - such as 'The Killing' and 'Full Metal Jacket'- but is also a remarkable film in its own right: the boxing match may be the most vicious this side of 'Raging Bull and the famed final battle remains find out more...

After the subsequent murder of a scared running girl he picked up on the highway Mickey Spillane's anti-hero, dodgy private eye Mike Hammer, smells money and follows the threads on a seedy trip through the LA underworld. find out more...