Finding The Worst Character In Neo-Noir: Establishing The Films

WARNING: Spoilers ahead!!

On March 16, 2021, Noir Alley—TCM’s weekend film noir screening hosted by Film Noir Foundation Founder and President Eddie Muller—launched its “March Badness” competition. Mimicking NCAA Men’s and Women’s College Basketball March Madness, pairs of villains from 16 classic-era films noir were pitted against each other in a series of 15 votes on Twitter. Phyllis Dietrichson, chillingly portrayed by Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, emerged as the top villain of classic film noir.

But who is the top “villain” of neo-noir, which arguably began with Point Blank in 1967?

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A few weeks ago, needing a break from querying literary agents about my book Interrogating Memory: Film Noir Spurs a Deep Dive Into My Family History…and My Own, I began to watch movies late at night. By which I mean, early in the morning. Wanting a change from older black-and-white films, I sought out far more recent titles I had been meaning to watch, like the 2014 thriller Nightcrawler, starring a skeletally-creepy Jake Gyllenhall.

It was this film, an astonishing two-part review of Taxi Driver, and a second viewing—maybe two months ago—of the criminally-underrated Wild Things, that got me thinking about the worst of the worst among neo-noir characters.

Just as an aside, while it is not remotely neo-noir, I was absolutely, profoundly and completely blown away by the 2014 film Predestination. As a rule, I never want to watch a movie soon after seeing it for the first time, but I watched it again within a week with my wife Nell. She had the same reaction. It is that good. Bonkers, and utterly nonsensical, yes, but…also beautifully filmed, incredibly tight in its storytelling, pitch perfect dialogue and featuring some of the best acting—Sarah Snook holding her own, if not more, with the always-reliable Ethan Hawke—I have seen in years. 

Of course, asserting Predestination “is not remotely neo-noir” implies the existence of a universally-accepted definition of neo-noir. It does not exist. Instead, there are writers and other “experts” who declare certain films noir, and we accept those declarations. To put it another way, this is how I conclude Chapter 6 (So…What Is Film Noir, Again?) of Interrogating Memory:

For the final time…what is film noir?

Glibly reprising Peter Wollen, a film noir is any film listed in my research database, especially the 514 categorized as Universal [Ed. Note: It has at least 12.0 POINTS, out of a maximum 67.5]. That is, a film is labeled “noir” only because at least one reputable expert has so labeled it; my research simply takes this “definition” to the logical extreme by combining a wide range of lists into a “weighted” list. Glibness aside, however, Wollen’s “definition” highlights a basic tautology: in saying a film noir is any film listed in the Panorama, he was saying it was any film Bourde and Chaumeton found on someone else’s list with a few selections of their own. Later analysts repeat this process: begin with oft-listed titles then add a few “new” titles of their own. Indeed, 12 LISTS include at least 20 titles which appear only on that LIST.

[…]

Nonetheless, a consensus definition could be constructed given sufficient agreement upon the set of films to assess for commonalities of plot, characterization, setting, style and cinematography. Attempting this in my film noir class, I landed on three key ideas—the fateful decision, criminality as critique of capitalism, and existential nihilism—along with the adjectives alienated, brutal, cynical and obsessive. I could easily have added “chiaroscuro cinematography” because film, as already noted, is a visual medium.

From the latter list, “alienated” jumps out at me. If anything ties together both film noir—with its morally-ambiguous anti-heroes, doubling/mirroring, critique of the prevailing economic and social order, and gender and sexual anxieties—and the stories I tell in this book, it is “alienation.”

Despite not appearing in my database, Nightcrawler absolutely qualifies as neo-noir, or just plain film noir. Bloom is every bit as alienated from society as Robert DeNiro’s Travis Bickle, and he turns to “nightcrawling,” freelance videography of crime scenes sold to local stations for their morning news broadcasts, because he cannot find gainful employment. There is just something…off…about him. The world he inhabits is unspeakably brutal, cynicism pervades the entire broadcast news infrastructure, and his obsession with internet-driven “self-help” strategies replaces whatever conscience he once had; morally-ambiguous is an understatement. And while Bloom is the film’s protagonist, he is not a hero as Joseph Campbell would define it. Well, OK, he does kind of follow the “hero’s journey”—but we barely ever sympathize with him. This journey is a damning critique of our economic and social order, and while there may not be direct mirroring/doubling, Rene Russo’s TV producer clearly suffers because of her gender—a woman who needs to be ruthless to survive in a “man’s world.” Finally, Robert Elswit’s cinematography sublimely captures a nighttime Los Angeles awash in harsh neon and emergency vehicle lights—or inside a darkened TV video room. His photography allows Bloom—using the harsh light of a videocamera instead of flash powder—to become a 21^st-century Weegee.

In short, Nightcrawler is a neo-noir, not only for this exercise, but by any reasonable definition.

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Following the example of Noir Alley and spurred on by my thoughts about Louis Bloom, I decided to design a “Neo-Noir Villain” competition. Realizing simply brainstorming characters from memory was insufficient, I turned to my database for help. My Excel film noir database contains 4,825 titles—produced, at least in part, in 66 nations and released between 1912 and 2015—which at least one reputable writer has labeled (explicitly or implicitly) “noir.” There are 2,171 films released in 1967 or later; the median year of release of these latter films is 1993, with an average release year of 1991.3 (compared to 1961.0 and 1968.6 overall).

I devised two measures of how often each film is cited as noir by reputable writers. LISTS is simply a count of appearances on 32 publicly-available lists of at least 120 titles. POINTS adds to LISTS some form of additional recognition on the original 32 LISTS and appearance on one of 13 publicly-available lists of fewer than 120 titles. The categories Universal, Debatable and Idiosyncratic are based upon cut points of 12.0 and 5.0.

Table 1: Films Released 1967-2015 with 8.0 POINTS or more

Title	Director	Release Year	LISTS	POINTS
Chinatown	Roman Polanski	1974	20	32.0
Point Blank	John Boorman	1967	20	25.0
Taxi Driver	Martin Scorsese	1976	16	22.0
Body Heat	Lawrence Kasdan	1981	16	22.0
LA Confidential	Curtis Hanson	1997	14	21.0
The Long Goodbye	Robert Altman	1973	14	19.0
Farewell, My Lovely	Dick Richards	1975	16	18.0
Night Moves	Arthur Penn	1975	15	18.0
Blood Simple	Joel Coen	1984	14	18.0
Se7en	David Fincher	1995	12	18.0
The Last Seduction	John Dahl	1994	13	17.0
Blade Runner	Ridley Scott	1982	11	17.0
Klute	Alan J Pakula	1971	11	16.0
Reservoir Dogs	Quentin Tarantino	1992	15	15.0
Dirty Harry	Don Siegel	1971	14	15.0
The Grifters	Stephen Frears	1990	13	15.0
Pulp Fiction	Quentin Tarantino	1994	11	15.0
Memento	Christopher Nolan	2000	11	15.0
Basic Instinct	Paul Verhoeven	1992	11	14.0
Devil In a Blue Dress	Carl Franklin	1995	10	14.0
Le Samourai	Jean-Pierre Melville	1967	10	14.0
Red Rock West	John Dahl	1993	13	13.0
The Conversation	Francis Ford Coppola	1974	12	13.0
The Usual Suspects	Bryan Singer	1995	11	13.0
Sin City	Frank Miller	2005	9	13.0
Hustle	Don Siegel	1975	12	12.0
The French Connection	William Friedkin	1971	12	12.0
Madigan	Robert Aldrich	1968	12	12.0
Blue Velvet	David Lynch	1986	11	12.0
Heat	Michael Mann	1995	10	12.0
After Dark, My Sweet	James Foley	1990	11	11.0
Black Widow	Bob Rafelson	1987	10	11.0
House of Games	David Mamet	1987	10	11.0
Against All Odds	Taylor Hackford	1984	10	11.0
The Driver	Walter Hill	1978	10	11.0
Mulholland Drive	David Lynch	2001	9	11.0
Collateral	Michael Mann	2004	8	11.0
The Postman Always Rings Twice	Bob Rafelson	1981	10	10.5
Angel Heart	Alan Parker	1987	10	10.0
Death Wish	Michael Winner	1974	10	10.0
Kill Me Again	John Dahl	1989	10	10.0
Thief	Michael Mann	1981	10	10.0
Marlowe	Paul Bogart	1969	8	10.0
Get Carter	Mike Hodges	1971	7	10.0
The Big Sleep	Michael Winner	1978	9	9.5
One False Move	Carl Franklin	1992	9	9.0
The Hot Spot	Dennis Hopper	1990	9	9.0
Manhunter	Michael Mann	1986	9	9.0
Hickey & Boggs	Robert Culp	1972	9	9.0
The Friends of Eddie Coyle	Peter Yates	1973	9	9.0
Hammett	Wim Wenders	1982	9	9.0
The Outfit	John Flynn	1976	9	9.0
Fargo	Joel Coen	1996	8	9.0
To Live and Die in LA	William Friedkin	1985	8	9.0
Cape Fear	Martin Scorsese	1991	8	8.0
The Silence of the Lambs	Jonathan Demme	1991	8	8.0
The Two Jakes	Jack Nicholson	1990	8	8.0
D.O.A.	Annabel Jankel	1988	8	8.0
Fatal Attraction	Adrian Lyne	1987	8	8.0
No Way Out	Roger Donaldson	1987	8	8.0
The Departed	Martin Scorsese	2006	8	8.0
The Detective	Gordon Douglas	1968	8	8.0
A History of Violence	David Cronenberg	2005	7	8.0
Jackie Brown	Quentin Tarantino	1997	7	8.0
Bound	Larry Wachowski	1996	7	8.0
True Confessions	Ulu Grosbard	1981	7	8.0

Of the 66 films listed in Table 1, five were released in the 1960’s, 17 in the 1970’s, 18 in the 1980’s, 20 in the 1990’s and six in the 2000’s; as of this writing I have seen 50 of them. The exceptional Chinatown is the only one of these films in the overall top 100 by POINTS, with Point Blank, Taxi Driver, Body Heat (a reimagining of the James M. Cain deadly love triangles in Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice) and L.A. Confidential also in the top 250. Overall, 30 of these films are Universal. Five of these films—Farewell, My Lovely; The Big Sleep; The Postman Always Rings Twice; Cape Fear and D.O.A. are remakes of classic films noir—while Against All Odds is a reworking of Out of the Past and No Way Out is a clever modernization of The Big Clock. The Two Jakes is a sequel to Chinatown, while Manhunter and The Silence of the Lambs both feature genius cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter. Michael Mann has four films on this list, while three directors appear three times: John Dahl, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino; seven directors appear twice. In general, these films employ the same characters and plots as classic film noir—corrupt power and crooked cops, private detectives and government agents of questionable ethics, professional thieves and criminal organizations, men and women manipulating other people (or, in Memento and Mulholland Drive, themselves) for their own gain, psychotic loners and hired assassins, and complex mysteries that—most famously in Night Moves—often chase their own causal tail without satisfactory resolution. In fact, what truly distinguishes these films from their “classic” ancestors is the creative use of color film stock, bigger budgets and higher-quality productions, and the abolition of Hays Code restrictions on what can be shown on screen. The sex and violence are on vivid display, right down to the buckets of blood in Reservoir Dogs and the murder scenes in films like Bound (featuring an explicit lesbian romance), A History of Violence and True Confessions. The utter depravity of films of Se7en, Sin City and, to a lesser extent, Pulp Fiction would have defied the creative genius of even the best classic film noir directors; the unique visual style of Sin City would have been a challenge as well. But perhaps the single biggest difference is the number of putative villains who get away with their crimes in these films, not least in Chinatown, Taxi Driver and Body Heat. This was the one Hays Code stricture classic film noir did not violate: their wrongdoers were invariably punished, either by imprisonment or death.

Across all 4,825 films, meanwhile, average LISTS and POINTS are 4.0 and 4.5, respectively, while films released in 1967 or later average 2.0 on both; median values are 2 and 2.0 for all films and 1 and 1.0 for all films released in 1967 or later. Curiously, the median release year for the 66 films in Table 1 is 1987 (five of these films were released that year), while the average is 1985.0, much lower than values for all 2,171 post-1966 database films.

This is not surprising, actually, given that there are fewer “opportunities” for these films to accumulate LISTS and, by extension, POINTS: of the 32 LISTS, 27 contain films released after 1966, 16 contain films released after 1999, and only seven contain films released after 2009. Thus, while I officially classify The Killer Inside Me and Shutter Island (2010; 3 LISTS, 3.0 POINTS), Black Swan (2010; 3, 4.0) and Drive (2011; 4, 5.0) as Idiosyncratic, their appearance on about half of possible LISTS sources elevates their neo-noir status closer to Universal.

Thus, a better way to identify the most-often-cited neo-noir films is to examine what percentage of possible POINTS a film has; this has little effect on earlier films since only a few of the 45 sources for LISTS and POINTS could potentially exclude them. Table 2 shows maximum POINTS by release year, based upon the most recent release year for films included in a source.

Table 2: Maximum POINTS by Release Year, 1967-2015

Release Year	Maximum POINTS
1967	53.5
1968	51.5
1969-74	50.5
1975	46.5
1976-79	45.5
1980-83	43.5
1984-92	41.5
1993-95	38.5
1996	37.5
1997	35.5
1998-99	33.5
2000	31.5
2001	25.5
2002	23.5
2003-04	21.5
2005	20.5
2006	19.5
2007-09	10.5
2010-11	9.5
2012	8.5
2013	5.5
2014	2.0
2015	1.0
2016-???	0.0

Maximum possible POINTS declines relatively steadily over time, with two notable exceptions: a drop of 6.0 from 2000 to 2001 and a drop of 9.0 from 2006 to 2007. Returning to the four films from 2010 and 2011 cited above, the percentage of possible POINTS for The Killer Inside Me and Shutter Island is 31.6%, for Black Swan is 42.1% and for Drive (itself a reimagining of 1978’s The Driver) is 52.6%, roughly on par with films ranked in the mid-50’s overall.

Applying this methodology to all 2,171 films yields Opportunity-Adjusted POINT (“OAP”). Dividing 12.0, the Universal cut point, by 67.5 suggests 17.8% as the cut point for “Universal Neo Noir.” If I exclude 16 films with POINTS<3.0, there are 95 such films. The 13 films with OAP≥42.7%—the equivalent of 29.5 POINTS, or Top 100 overall—are in boldface, while films appearing in Table 3 are asterisked.

Table 3: Films Designated “Universal Neo Noir”

Title	Director	Release Year	POINTS	OAP
No Country for Old Men	Joel Coen	2007	7	66.7%
Chinatown*	Roman Polanski	1974	32	63.4%
Sin City*	Frank Miller	2005	13	63.4%
L.A. Confidential*	Curtis Hanson	1997	21	59.2%
Drive	Nicolas Winding Refn	2011	5	52.6%
Collateral*	Michael Mann	2004	11	51.2%
Body Heat*	Lawrence Kasdan	1981	22	50.6%
Taxi Driver*	Martin Scorsese	1976	22	48.4%
Memento*	Christopher Nolan	2000	15	47.6%
The Dark Knight	Christopher Nolan	2008	5	47.6%
Se7en*	David Fincher	1995	18	46.8%
Point Blank*	John Boorman	1967	25	46.7%
The Last Seduction*	John Dahl	1994	17	44.2%
Blood Simple*	Joel Coen	1984	18	43.4%
Mulholland Drive *	David Lynch	2001	11	43.1%
Black Swan	Darren Aronofksy	2010	4	42.1%
The Departed*	Martin Scorsese	2006	8	41.0%
Blade Runner*	Ridley Scott	1982	17	39.1%
Pulp Fiction*	Quentin Tarantino	1994	15	39.0%
A History of Violence*	David Cronenberg	2005	8	39.0%
Farewell, My Lovely*	Dick Richards	1975	18	38.7%
Night Moves*	Arthur Penn	1975	18	38.7%
The Long Goodbye*	Robert Altman	1973	19	37.6%
Devil in a Blue Dress*	Carl Franklin	1995	14	36.4%
The Grifters*	Stephen Frears	1990	15	36.1%
Reservoir Dogs*	Quentin Tarantino	1992	15	36.1%
The Black Dahlia	Brian De Palma	2006	7	35.9%
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang	Shane Black	2005	7	34.1%
Red Rock West*	John Dahl	1993	13	33.8%
The Usual Suspects*	Bryan Singer	1995	13	33.8%
Basic Instinct*	Paul Verhoeven	1992	14	33.7%
Klute*	Alan J Pakula	1971	16	31.7%
The Killer Inside Me	Michael Winterbottom	2010	3	31.6%
Shutter Island	Martin Scorsese	2010	3	31.6%
Heat*	Michael Mann	1995	12	31.2%
Hollywoodland	Allen Coulter	2006	6	30.8%
Dirty Harry*	Don Siegel	1971	15	29.7%
El Aura (The Aura)	Fabian Bielinsky	2005	6	29.3%
Brick	Rian Johnson	2005	6	29.3%
Blue Velvet*	David Lynch	1986	12	28.9%
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead	Sidney Lumet	2007	3	28.6%
San Taam (Mad Detective)	Johnnie To	2007	3	28.6%
Zodiac	David Fincher	2007	3	28.6%
The Bank Job	Roger Donaldson	2008	3	28.6%
The Deep End	Scott McGehee	2001	7	27.5%
Against All Odds*	Taylor Hackford	1984	11	26.5%
Black Widow*	Bob Rafelson	1987	11	26.5%
House of Games*	David Mamet	1987	11	26.5%
After Dark, My Sweet*	James Foley	1990	11	26.5%
Le Samourai*	Jean-Pierre Melville	1967	14	26.2%
Hustle*	Robert Aldrich	1975	12	25.8%
The Conversation*	Francis Ford Coppola	1974	13	25.7%
Femme Fatale	Brian De Palma	2002	6	25.5%
Batman Begins	Christopher Nolan	2005	5	24.4%
The Driver*	Walter Hill	1978	11	24.2%
The Postman Always Rings Twice*	Bob Rafelson	1981	10.5	24.1%
Angel Heart*	Alan Parker	1987	10	24.1%
Kill Me Again*	John Dahl	1989	10	24.1%
Fargo*	Joel Coen	1996	9	24.0%
The French Connection*	William Friedkin	1971	12	23.8%
The Man Who Wasn’t There	Joel Coen	2001	6	23.5%
Madigan*	Don Siegel	1968	12	23.3%
Out of Time	Carl Franklin	2003	5	23.3%
Thief*	Michael Mann	1981	10	23.0%
Jackie Brown*	Quentin Tarantino	1997	8	22.5%
To Live and Die in L.A.*	William Friedkin	1985	9	21.7%
Manhunter*	Michael Mann	1986	9	21.7%
The Hot Spot*	Dennis Hopper	1990	9	21.7%
One False Move*	Carl Franklin	1992	9	21.7%
Bound*	Larry Wachowski	1996	8	21.3%
Insomnia	Christopher Nolan	2002	5	21.3%
The Big Sleep*	Michael Winner	1978	9.5	20.9%
Croupier	Mike Hodges	1998	7	20.9%
Dark City	Alex Proyas	1998	7	20.9%
Hammett*	Wim Wenders	1982	9	20.7%
Marlowe*	Paul Bogart	1969	10	19.8%
Get Carter*	Mike Hodges	1971	10	19.8%
Death Wish*	Michael Winner	1974	10	19.8%
Lost Highway	David Lynch	1997	7	19.7%
De Battre mon Coeur s’est Arrete (The Beat That My Heart Skipped)	Jacques Audiard	2005	4	19.5%
Fatal Attraction*	Adrian Lyne	1987	8	19.3%
No Way Out*	Roger Donaldson	1987	8	19.3%
D.O.A.*	Annabel Jankel	1988	8	19.3%
The Two Jakes*	Jack Nicholson	1990	8	19.3%
Cape Fear*	Martin Scorsese	1991	8	19.3%
The Silence of the Lambs*	Jonathan Demme	1991	8	19.3%
The Cooler	Wayne Kramer	2003	4	18.6%
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead	Mike Hodges	2003	4	18.6%
In the Cut	Jane Campion	2003	4	18.6%
True Confessions*	Ulu Grosbard	1981	8	18.4%
China Moon	John Bailey	1994	7	18.2%
The Underneath	Steven Soderbergh	1995	7	18.2%
Hickey & Boggs*	Robert Culp	1972	9	17.8%
The Friends of Eddie Coyle*	Peter Yates	1973	9	17.8%
The Outfit*	John Flynn	1973	9	17.8%

This list better represents all 2,171 post-1966 database titles: average and median release year are 1991.1 and 1992, respectively. Fully 32 of these 95 titles (33.7%) were released after 1999, with the most recent being Drive; seven were released in 2005 alone, topped by Sin City, which jumps from #25 to #3 after adjustment. An additional 25 (26.3%) were released in the 1990s. Mann is now joined by Joel Coen (working with brother Ethan), Christopher Nolan and Scorsese with four titles each. In fact, the Coen Brothers are responsible for the new #1: No Country for Old Men—winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director—which just edges out Chinatown and Sin City; with adjustment, the film jumps all the way from a nine-way tie for #84. Nolan, meanwhile, has two of the top 10: Memento and The Dark Knight; the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple just misses being a “Top 100 equivalent,” as does David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Lynch, Carl Franklin and Mike Hodges join Dahl and Tarantino in the three-title club; seven directors have a pair of titles in Table 3. And the list is now a bit more international: five British films (the classic Get Carter plus The Bank Job, Croupier, The Big Sleep, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead), three French films (the classic Le Samourai plus Femme Fatale, De Battre mon Coeur s’est Arrete), Hong Kong’s San Taam and Argentina’s El Aura. Nolan’s Insomnia is an American remake of a 1997 Norwegian film of the same name, while The Killer Inside Me was first filmed in 1976. The Deep End, China Moon and The Underneath reimagine The Reckless Moment, The Man Who Cheated Himself and Criss Cross, respectively.

For all that, though, POINTS and OAP are broadly similar, with a correlation of +0.78. The only film in Table 1 not to appear in Table 3 is The Detective, which dropped to #116 after adjustment. Seventeen films appear in the Top 25 on both lists, suggesting these titles comprise the very core of neo-noir, according to reputable writers on the subject:

Blade Runner

Blood Simple

Body Heat

Chinatown

Devil in a Blue Dress

Farewell, My Lovely

The Grifters

L.A. Confidential

The Last Seduction

The Long Goodbye

Memento

Night Moves

Point Blank

Pulp Fiction

Se7en

Sin City

Taxi Driver

It is with these films we being our search for the worst character in neo-noir.

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