Godard's hugely influential debut went on to inspire a new wave of French cinema and this is the film which epitomised the iconoclasm of the early Nouvelle Vague. Belmondo is the hip gangster, modelled on Bogart, whose escapades, including shooting a cop, leave him and his girlfriend on the run from both the cops and his enemies. The insolent casual style and cool moods make this the ultimate film noir.

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Godard's bleak sci-fi noir, with the stony-faced gumshoe Lemmy Caution turning inter-galactic agent to re-enact the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice in conquering Alpha 60, the strange automated city where such emotions as love and tenderness are banished. A brilliantly realised and stylish satire on the dehumanising nature of technology. find out more...

Franz and Arthur team up with an innocent young girl, Odile, and decide to plan a heist, but as the trio cruise the bars and cafes of Paris hatching the perfect crime it becomes apparent, in their less than professional approach, that everything may not go as smoothly as at first hoped. The Outsiders is a tongue-in-cheek homage to early American pulp crime flicks, fast paced and free spirited, Godard's film retains much of its freshness and excitement. 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...

Nothing more can be said about this classic melodrama from the peak of the Hollywood studio-film era. Hardened cynic Bogart softens when he meets old flame Bergman who is now a refugee in neutral wartime Casablanca. Together they outwit the Germans... and of course there's that famous song. Watch this classic or some day you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow... find out more...

Perhaps THE classic film noir, made in a studio in 6 days on a minimal budget. Fatalistic narrator Neal is hitching west to catch up with his girlfriend when his lift drops dead on him. Savage is superb as the femme fatale who blackmails him into a scam. A must for any student or lover of film noir. 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...

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...

Adapted from Zola's novel, this powerful tale concerns a triangle of love and murder in which a train driver becomes passionately involved with a femme fatale. With its images of trains and railways as symbols of human destiny this is a visually arresting film; Gallic and tragic. find out more...

A dark, intriguing thriller. The enigmatic Laura becomes an object of obsession to a hard-bitten journalist and is found dead shortly before her wedding. As the mystery deepens with every twist and turn, the detective on the case also falls under the spell of the tragic beauty. Classic film noir. find out more...