Polanski has a go at the film noir detective thriller, very bleak, very twisted and very menacing it is to. Nicholson plays a private-eye in pre-war LA who is hired to pursue an adultery case, but finds himself embroiled in a complicated murder investigation. find out more...

Skint black ex-GI Easy Rawlins is asked to track down a mysterious missing woman with an illicit taste for black men. But two murders later he realises he's way out of his depth and, even worse, he himself has become the hunted. Sultry, smokey thriller set in an authentically recreated 1940's LA. Everything - the performances, Tak Fujimoto's elegant camerawork, the jazz and blues soundtrack, the snappy script - slots neatly into Franklin's overall design. A superbly stylish movie. 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 film that catapulted Mitchum to stardom; after Kathie shoots her admirer and runs off with his 40 grand he, naturally, hires a private dick to find her. Although the dick finds Katie in Mexico, they decide to tell Sterling that he couldn't find her. find out more...

The original and best version of the detective thriller classic. Philip Marlowe is hired to investigate the gambling debts of a rich man's daughter, but is plunged into a twilight world of intrigue, blackmail and violence. Stylish and gripping. find out more...

This is, along with Hawks' The Big Sleep, easily the most intelligent of all screen adaptations of Chandler's work. Altman in fact stays pretty close to the novel's basic narrative (though there are a couple of crucial changes), but where he comes up with something totally original is in his ironic updating of the story and characters: Gould's Marlowe is a laid-back, shambling slob who, despite his incessant claim that everything is 'OK with me,' actually harbours the same honourable ideals as C find out more...

Treachery and deception in this classic film noir as various groups of low life characters try to lay their mits on the ancient treasure. Sam Spade is the honest fall guy. One of the best Hollywood films ever and certainly one of the best of its type. Initiated the move away from gangster movies. find out more...