The Third Man (1949), Night and the City (1950), The Lady Vanishes (1938), Odd Man Out (1947), The Hidden Room (1949), Across the Bridge (1957), It Always Rains on Sunday (1947), I Became a Criminal (1947) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best British Noir movies.
Storyline: An out of work pulp fiction novelist, Holly Martins, arrives in a post war Vienna divided into sectors by the victorious allies, and where a shortage of supplies has led to a flourishing black market. He arrives at the invitation of an ex-school friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him a job, only to discover that Lime has recently died in a peculiar traffic accident. From talking to Lime's friends and associates Martins soon notices that some of the stories are inconsistent, and determines to discover what really happened to Harry Lime.
Plot Keywords: funeral, betrayal, cat, author, cemetery, friendship, mistaken identity ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Harry Fabian is a London hustler with ambitious plans that never work out. One day, when he encounters the most famous Greco-Roman wrestler in the world, Gregorius, at a London wrestling arena run by his son Kristo, he dreams up a scheme that he thinks will finally be his ticket to financial independence. As Fabian attempts to con everyone around him to get his scheme to work, he of course only ends up conning himself. This is an interesting tale of blind ambition, self-deception, broken dreams, and how a man who always thinks he's ahead of the game ends up tripping himself very badly.
Plot Keywords: british noir, london england, manhunt, hustler, nightclub, wrestling, husband wife relationship ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Passengers on a scheduled train out of the mountainous European country of Mandrika are delayed by a day due to an avalanche, and thus get up close and personal with each other out of necessity in the only and what becomes an overcrowded inn in the area. Once the train departs, the one person who it is uncertain is on the train is a middle aged English governess named Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty). Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood), who was vacationing in Mandrika with girlfriends before heading back to England to get married, is certain that Miss Froy was on the train as they were in the same compartment and they had tea together in the dining car, but all those people who can corroborate her story don't seem to want to do so. Iris' thoughts are easily dismissed as a possible concussion as Iris was hit over the head just before boarding the train. Iris will take anyone's help in finding Miss Froy, even that of an Englishman named Gilbert (Sir Michael Redgrave), a musicologist with ...
Plot Keywords: train movie, spy, manipulative behavior, psychological manipulation, disappearance, train, receptionist ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The leader of an Irish separatist group's, been hiding in the house of Kathleen and her mother, planning a robbery which would give his group the money needed to continue its activities. But the robbery fails, and Johnny's wounded. Immediately a man hunt's launched, and both the police - and Kathleen go in search of Johnny, but for different reasons.—Eduardo Casais <eduardo.casais@research.nokia.com>
Plot Keywords: murder, first aid, fight, father daughter relationship, falling down stairs, escape, dying ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: London psychiatrist Clive Riordan, royally fed up with the repeated affairs of his wife Storm, plots a seemingly 'perfect' revenge against her latest lover, American Bill Kronin. Catching them in the act, he marches Bill off at gunpoint; and from the viewpoint of Storm and the rest of the world, Bill simply vanishes. But there's far more to the meticulously worked out plot than Clive's victims suspect, with the end slowly preparing in his private laboratory. Enter a mild-mannered Scotland Yard man, who seemingly has no clue beyond a missing dog...—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: dog, infidelity, investigation, unfaithfulness, husband wife relationship, acid, bathtub ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: On the run from the US police after being charged with embezzlement, a billionaire attempts to flee to Mexico by stealing the identity of a stranger. However, his life is made much more difficult when he finds out that that man is a wanted Mexican criminal.—themadmovieman
Plot Keywords: motor vehicle, investigation, mother son relationship, father son relationship, hit by a car, jumping off a bridge, border patrol ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Slice of life drama following the lives of various people in London's East End on a wet Sunday. (Is this film why people think it always rains in England ?) Rose was engaged to local wild boy Tommy Swann but he got imprisoned on Dartmoor. After he was locked up she got married to sedate but dull George. Tommy's now broken out of jail and comes to see Rose to get help to flee the country.—Steve Crook <steve@brainstorm.co.uk>
Plot Keywords: london england, train, train station, suicide attempt, jewish family, working class, stepmother ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In this gritty film noir, cynical ex-RAF flyer Morgan, bored with civilian life, joins a break-in gang led by Narcy. On his first job, the getaway car crashes after killing a policeman. Morgan is framed as the driver and sent to jail. Seeking revenge, he escapes and heads for London. Along the way he's helped by a woman (Mrs. Fenshaw), who wants him to murder her husband. In London, Morgan is sheltered by Sally, who falls in love with him. He confronts Narcy and the gang in an abandoned warehouse. Brazilian Director Cavalcanti's crime drama should not be confused with the totally unrelated "They Made Me a Criminal" (1939).—Mike Rogers <MICHAELPEM@aol.com>
Plot Keywords: british noir, drug dealing, drunkenness, dying, eating, face slap, face wound ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Jonathan Cooper is wanted by the police who suspect him of killing his lover's husband. His besotted friend Eve Gill offers to hide him and Jonathan explains to her that his real lover, actress Charlotte Inwood is the real murderer. Eve decides to investigate for herself, but when she meets the detective in charge of the case, she truly falls in love.
Plot Keywords: producer, funfair, garden party, gloves, horse and wagon, husband wife relationship, insanity ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Committed but seen-it-all police inspector Martineau rightly guesses that after a violent jailbreak a local criminal will head home to Manchester to pick up the spoils from his last job. Martineau is soon investigating a murder during a street robbery which seems to lead back to the same villain. Concentrating on the case and using his local contacts to try and track the gang down, he is aware he is not keeping his own personal life together as well as he might.—Jeremy Perkins {J-26}
Plot Keywords: independent film, husband wife relationship, grandfather granddaughter relationship, shot in the back, punched in the face, double decker bus, slut ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In post-World War II Berlin, Englishwoman Susanne Mallison travels from London to Berlin in order to visit her older brother Martin Mallison, a military man who married a German woman named Bettina. The naive Susanne snoops on Bettina and suspects she is hiding something from her brother. When Susanne is introduced by Bettina to her mysterious friend Ivo Kern, he offers to show her Berlin and they have a date. But Ivo meets the strange Halendar from East Germany and Susanne takes a cab and returns home alone. Then she dates Ivo again while he meets Olaf Kastner, who is a friend of Martin and Bettina's. Soon Susanne, who has fallen in love with Ivo, learns that he was a former lawyer married to Bettina but with a criminal past during the war. Now he is blackmailed by Halendar to kidnap Kastner and bring him back on the other side of the border. The plan fails and Halender asks his men to abduct Bettina to get Kastner. Susanne, however, is kidnapped by mistake and imprisoned in the basement of a house in East Berlin. Now Ivo plots to rescue Susanne from Halender and help her to cross the border. Will they succeed in their intent?—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Plot Keywords: british noir, based on novel, post war, on the run, berlin germany, manhunt, cold war ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: A man shows up at Kimberley Prescott's villa claiming to be her brother. But Ward Prescott died in a car accident a year ago, so how can this man be him? Despite Kim's protests that the stranger isn't her brother, everyone else accepts him, including their uncle. Kim begins to fear for her sanity and her life.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: brother sister relationship, impostor, inheritance, murder, conspiracy, police detective, car ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: An English scientist runs away from a research center with an atomic bomb. In a letter sent to the British Prime Minister he threatens to blow up the center of London if the Government don't announce the end of any research in this field within a week. Special agents from Scotland Yard try to stop him, with help from the scientist's assistant future son-in-law to find and stop the mad man.—Jean-Marie Berthiaume <jiembe@videotron.ca>
Plot Keywords: psychotronic film, barber shop, bed and breakfast, bomb threat, evacuation, false name, footsteps ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Alice White is the daughter of a shopkeeper in 1920s London. Her boyfriend, Frank Webber is a Scotland Yard detective who seems more interested in police work than in her. Frank takes Alice out one night, but she has secretly arranged to meet another man. Later that night, Alice agrees to go back to his flat to see his studio. The man has other ideas, and as he tries to rape Alice, she defends herself and kills him with a bread knife. When the body is discovered, Frank is assigned to the case, he quickly determines that Alice is the killer, but so has someone else, and blackmail is threatened.—Col Needham <col@imdb.com>
Plot Keywords: detective, attempted rape, london england, painting, cigar smoking, glove, blackmailer ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: To his Victorian London friends, Stephen Lowry is a heartbroken widower. Only his housemaid Lily knows that far from dying of gastroenteritis his wife was slowly poisoned by her husband - information she is happy to use to improve her position in the household and to make sure she stays close to Stephen. As his own prospects improve with a business partnership and a romance more of his own class, Stephen decides that Lily must go. Unfortunately for him, his first attempt gives her even more of a hold over him.—J-26
Plot Keywords: british noir, husband wife relationship, london england, victorian era, beaten to death, framed for murder, accidental suicide ...
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