The Man Who Wasn't There is a 2001 neo-noir crime film written, directed, produced and co-edited by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand, Michael Badalucco, Richard Jenkins, Scarlett Johansson, Jon Polito, Tony Shalhoub, and James Gandolfini. The film is set in 1949 and tells the story of Ed Crane, a withdrawn barber who leads an ordinary life in a small California town with his wife, who he suspects is having an affair with her boss. Crane's situation changes when a stranger comes to the barbershop and offers him the opportunity to join him as a partner in a promising new business, in exchange for an investment of ten thousand dollars. Drawn to the idea, Crane plans to blackmail his wife's lover for the money.
Blood Simple is a 1984 American independent neo-noir crime film written, edited, produced, and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, and starring John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, and M. Emmet Walsh. Its plot follows a Texas bartender who is having a love affair with his boss’s wife. When his boss discovers the affair, he hires a private investigator to kill the couple. It was the directorial debut of the Coens and the first major film of cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who later became a director, as well as the feature-film debut of McDormand.
Alison Elizabeth Larter is an American actress and former model. She portrayed fictional model Allegra Coleman in a 1996 Esquire magazine hoax and took on guest roles on several television shows in the 1990s. She made her film debut in Varsity Blues (1999), which was followed by the horror film House on Haunted Hill (1999). Her role as Clear Rivers in the first two films of the Final Destination horror franchise earned her a reputation as a scream queen.
Ronald N. Perlman is an American actor. His credits include the roles of Amoukar in Quest for Fire (1981), Salvatore in The Name of the Rose (1986), Vincent in the television series Beauty and the Beast (1987–1990), for which he won a Golden Globe Award, One in The City of Lost Children (1995), Johner in Alien Resurrection (1997), Koulikov in Enemy at the Gates (2001), Hellboy in both Hellboy (2004) and its sequel Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), Clay Morrow in the television series Sons of Anarchy (2008–2013), Nino in Drive (2011) and Benedict Drask in Don't Look Up (2021). As a frequent collaborator of Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro, he has had roles in the del Toro films Cronos (1993), Blade II (2002), Pacific Rim (2013), Nightmare Alley (2021), and Pinocchio (2022). He also starred in Star Trek: Nemesis (2002) and two Stephen King adaptations, Sleepwalkers (1992) and Desperation (2006).
Neo-noir is a revival of film noir, a genre that had originally flourished during and after World War II in the United States—roughly from 1940 to 1960. During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the term "neo-noir" surged in popularity, fueled by movies such as Sydney Pollack's Absence of Malice, Brian De Palma's Blow Out, and Martin Scorsese's After Hours. The French term film noir translates literally to English as "black film", indicating sinister stories often presented in a shadowy cinematographic style. Neo-noir has a similar style but with updated themes, content, style, and visual elements.
Pruitt Taylor Vince is an American character actor. He had roles in the films Mississippi Burning (1988), Jacob's Ladder (1990), JFK (1991), Identity (2003), and Constantine (2005). He played J.J. Laroche in The Mentalist (2008–2015).
Last Man Standing is a 1996 American Neo-Western action film written and directed by Walter Hill, and starring Bruce Willis, Christopher Walken and Bruce Dern. It is a credited remake of Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo.
Desperate Hours is a 1990 American neo-noir action thriller film directed by Michael Cimino. It is a remake of the 1955 film of the same name and an adaptation the 1954 novel by Joseph Hayes, who also co-wrote the script with Cimino based on a treatment by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal. Cimino was not credited as writer on the finished product. The film stars Mickey Rourke, Anthony Hopkins, Mimi Rogers, Kelly Lynch, Lindsay Crouse, Elias Koteas and David Morse. It marks Cimino's third collaboration with Rourke, having previously worked with him on the films Heaven's Gate and Year of the Dragon.
No Country for Old Men is a 2007 American neo-Western crime thriller film written, directed, produced and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin, the film is set in the desert landscape of 1980 West Texas. The film revisits the themes of fate, conscience, and circumstance that the Coen brothers had explored in the films Blood Simple (1984), Raising Arizona (1987), and Fargo (1996). The film follows three main characters: Llewelyn Moss (Brolin), a Vietnam War veteran and welder who stumbles upon a large sum of money in the desert; Anton Chigurh (Bardem), a hitman who is sent to recover the money; and Ed Tom Bell (Jones), a sheriff investigating the crime. The film also stars Kelly Macdonald as Moss's wife, Carla Jean, and Woody Harrelson as Carson Wells, a bounty hunter seeking Moss and the return of the money, $2 million.
Clear Marie Rivers is a fictional character from the Final Destination film series. Created by Jeffrey Reddick and portrayed by Ali Larter, the character first appeared in Final Destination (2000) as a high school senior who, after surviving a plane explosion foreseen by Alex Browning, assists him on "cheating Death" by rescuing the other survivors from their impending doom. Clear returns in the sequel Final Destination 2 (2003), where she aids Kimberly Corman in saving the new set of victims from the Route 23 pile-up. The character also appears in the novelizations of the two motion pictures.
Burn After Reading is a 2008 black comedy film written, produced, edited and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It follows a recently jobless CIA analyst, Osborne Cox, whose misplaced memoirs are found by a pair of dimwitted gym employees. When they mistake the memoirs for classified government documents, they undergo a series of misadventures in an attempt to profit from their find. The film also stars George Clooney as a womanizing U.S. Marshal; Tilda Swinton as Katie Cox, the wife of Osborne Cox; Richard Jenkins as the gym manager; and J. K. Simmons as a CIA supervisor.
Dark Country is a 2009 American mystery thriller film directed by and starring Thomas Jane in his directorial debut. It also stars Lauren German and Ron Perlman.
Terribly Happy is a 2008 Danish crime film directed by Henrik Ruben Genz, based on Erling Jepsen's 2004 eponymous novel.
The Little Things is a 2021 American neo-noir psychological crime thriller film directed, written, and co-produced by John Lee Hancock and co-produced by Mark Johnson. Set in early 1990s Los Angeles, the film follows two detectives who investigate a string of murders, which lead them to a strange loner who may be the culprit.
Aaron Harvey is an American film director and writer. He wrote and directed the feature films Catch .44, The Neighbor, Into the Ashes and the upcoming Come With Me.
Decal Releasing, LLC, doing business as Decal, is an American independent film distribution company owned by Neon and Bleecker Street. It was launched in February 2021.
Carma - The Movie is a 2022 Pakistani crime-thriller film directed by Kashan Admani and written by Fawad Hai. Carma is co-produced by Kashan Admani and Fawad Hai. The movie stars Adnan Siddiqui, Zhalay Sarhadi, Naveen Waqar, and Osama Tahir in lead roles. The film is inspired by the works of Quentin Tarantino. The movie was released on 2 September 2022, after being premiered for the media and film fraternity on 1 September 2022.
Horror noir is a film subgenre that blends elements of horror and noir genres. It is presented in a dark, brooding tone, style, or mood for the majority of the film while also providing terrifying sequences and prospects. Films described as part of this genre are primarily intended to play the audience through their darker and more fatalistic elements, to the point where the plotline is effectively turned negative due to its suspenseful and cynical atmosphere. Films with noir aspects may be considered akin to some that characterize gothic fiction in that their primary purpose is to create a sense of suspense and gloom.
