Best American Noir
The Philip Marlowe series is a sequence of detective novels by American writer Raymond Chandler, centered on a private investigator working in Los Angeles. Marlowe is known for his independence, moral skepticism, and distinctive first-person narration, while the stories combine investigations with d...
Sam Spade is a fictional private investigator created by American writer Dashiell Hammett. He is the central character of The Maltese Falcon, which was first published in 1930, and is portrayed as a tough, independent detective operating in San Francisco. Spade belongs to the hard-boiled tradition,...
The Easy Rawlins series is a group of crime novels by American writer Walter Mosley featuring Ezekiel Porterhouse Easy Rawlins, a Black private investigator in Los Angeles. The stories are primarily set in the period after the Second World War and connect individual investigations with segregation,...
The Matthew Scudder series is a collection of crime novels by American author Lawrence Block, beginning with The Sins of the Fathers in 1976. Matthew Scudder is a former NYPD detective who works in New York as an unlicensed private investigator and debt collector. The series uses a hard-boiled crime...
Frank Miller is a prominent American illustrator known primarily for his distinctive visual storytelling in comic books. His work frequently incorporates elements of noir aesthetics and dramatic character design. He gained significant recognition with *The Dark Knight Returns*, influencing subsequen...
Nicholas Ray is a significant figure in American cinema recognized as a key auteur of classic film. His work frequently explored themes of alienation, dysfunctional families, and societal anxieties within genres like drama and noir. Ray’s intensely personal directorial style, characterized by innova...
Mike Mignola is a prominent American illustrator recognized primarily for his distinctive style within comic-books. His work, particularly the creation and ongoing development of *Hellboy*, showcases a masterful command of ink and shadow to evoke a strong noir aesthetic. He creates compelling dark f...
Anthony Mann was a significant American film director primarily recognized for crafting intensely dramatic narratives within the Western and noir genres. His work, often characterized by psychological depth and morally ambiguous characters, established him as an auteur figure. He frequently collabor...
Raoul Walsh was an influential American film director known for his dynamic action sequences and contributions to classic Hollywood cinema. His work significantly shaped genres like gangster films and Westerns. Walsh’s stylistic choices—including innovative camera techniques and intense performances...
Budd Boetticher was an American film director renowned for a series of low-budget Westerns from the late 1950s known as the Ranown cycle. Starring Randolph Scott and often written by Burt Kennedy, films like 'Seven Men from Now' and 'The Tall T' focused on the psychological tension between outlaws a...
Don Siegel was an American film director and producer known for his efficient pacing and hardboiled action films. He directed the 1956 science fiction classic 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' and the 1971 crime thriller 'Dirty Harry,' starring Clint Eastwood. Siegel's work often featured tough, mora...
Raymond Chandler was an American-British novelist and screenwriter whose work helped define hardboiled detective fiction. His first novel, The Big Sleep, appeared in 1939 and introduced Los Angeles private investigator Philip Marlowe, later featured in works including Farewell, My Lovely and The Lon...
Dashiell Hammett was an American author widely recognized for refining and popularizing the hardboiled detective fiction genre. Drawing from his own experiences working as an operative for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, he grounded his stories in realistic dialogue and procedural accuracy. He creat...
Manhattan Beach is a 2017 historical novel by American writer Jennifer Egan. Set mainly in Brooklyn during World War II, it follows Anna Kerrigan as she works at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and trains as a diver, a role associated with wartime ship repair. The novel is intended for readers of historical...
Edward Dmytryk was a Canadian-born American film director whose career included film noir, wartime drama, and large studio productions. His credits include Murder, My Sweet, Crossfire, and The Caine Mutiny. Dmytryk was one of the Hollywood Ten imprisoned after refusing to cooperate with the House Un...
James Ellroy is an American crime novelist whose fiction frequently examines policing, corruption, celebrity, and organized crime in twentieth-century Los Angeles. His best-known works include The Black Dahlia, L.A. Confidential, The Big Nowhere, and White Jazz, the four novels collectively called t...
Chester Himes was an American novelist and short-story writer whose work examined racism, violence, labor, and urban life. He is particularly known for the Harlem Detective series, featuring Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, which combines crime plotting, dark humor, and an often surreal por...
Ross Macdonald was the principal pen name of Kenneth Millar, an American-Canadian writer of crime fiction. He is best known for the Lew Archer novels, hard-boiled detective stories generally set in Southern California and concerned with crime, family secrets, memory, and damaged personal relationshi...
Walter Mosley is an American novelist whose work spans crime fiction, literary fiction, science fiction, and nonfiction. He introduced detective Easy Rawlins in Devil in a Blue Dress, beginning a series of historical mysteries set in postwar Los Angeles and centered on a Black private investigator n...
Red Scorpion is a 1988 action film featuring Dolph Lundgren as a Spetsnaz operative who defects to an African rebel group after being tasked with assassination. Filmed in South West Africa with government support, the movie marks the beginning of the Red Scorpion franchise. Its release occurred on A...
