Examples of classic Film Noir movies...

Bellow is a list of some of the most well known and influential films in the Film Noir genre along with a brief synopsis of each film:

• The Maltese Falcon (1941) - Perhaps more of a thriller than a true noir, this film still has many of the noir elements, notably the gritty PI and a proto-femme fatale. Remade several times and under several different titles, the 1941 version, starring Humphrey Bogart and directed by John Huston, has become the standard. Based on a book by Dashiel Hammet, the plot tells of double-dealing seeking for the incredibly valuable eponymous statue.
• Double Indemnity (1944) - Directed by Hungarian/Polish immigrant Billy Wilder, this is, arguably, where noir began on the cinema screens. Told in flashback, with voice-over narration and a downbeat ending, insurance investigator Walter Neff is lured into using his insider knowledge to murder the husband of beautiful Phyllis Deitrichson for the life insurance. Though it suffers now from later films re-using almost all its themes, it remains a classic. The 'stunning' femme fatale, Barbara Stanwyck, is not totally believable as an irresistible siren though. 
• The Big Sleep (1946) - Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall star in one of the most complex plots ever filmed. Legend has it that director Howard Hawks phoned writer Raymond Chandler to ask who committed one of the murders - and Chandler didn't know! Nevertheless, the script sizzles with wit as private eye Phillip Marlowe searches for a millionaire's daughter. 
• The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) - A femme fatale (Lana Turner), a murder and a huge pile of cash, based on James M Cain's novel. Plot is an archetypal lovers-murder-woman's-husband, the twist being that their first attempt fails but makes the police suspicious, so the couple then have to hope the husband (who owns a successful service station) lives. Their second attempt leads to their trial and conviction, at which point we learn that the film is being narrated as a confession. 
• The Killers (1946) - Based on a story by Ernest Hemmingway. Two hard-men track their quarry, 'The Swede' down to a small-town service station, and he does not resist when they shoot him dead. A cop has to investigate, and uncovers a tale of payroll robberies, double-dealing and a femme fatale.
• Out of the Past (1947) - The film that made Robert Mitchum a star. Also starring Kirk Douglas and Jane Greer. A PI is hired to trace a gangster's girlfriend who has stolen $40,000 and fled to Mexico. He finds her, but they fall in love and become embroiled in murder as they try to keep their affair secret (which involves him getting a job in a service station). Doubts begin to arise over her honesty. James M Cain wrote part of the script, uncredited. 
• Force of Evil (1948) - Gangster-lawyer's one redeeming feature, his compassion for his small-time bookie brother, leads to downfall of all concerned. Underlying anti-capitalist sentiment got its director, Abraham Polonsky, blacklisted for decades by McCarthyists. A comparatively little-known expressionist masterpiece. 
• The Third Man (1949) - Directed by Carol Reed and starring Joseph Cotton, but Orson Welles steals the show in this cold-war underworld intrigue. Zither soundtrack adds a comic element to a plot that drips with human suffering. Nice plot twist mid-way and classic scenes on fairground wheel and in the sewers. Often cited as one of the best ever made – so influential that Third Man tours were run of the Viennese sewers where the film's climax is set.