Best Social Noir
Samuel Fuller’s *The Naked Kiss* (1964) is a crime film set in a seemingly idyllic 1960s town. Constance Towers portrays a woman with a troubled past – formerly a prostitute – who returns and exposes the concealed secrets of its residents. The film explores themes of social injustice and moral corru...
Riot in Cell Block 11 is a 1954 prison film noir directed by Don Siegel and produced by Walter Wanger. The narrative follows a group of inmates who violently take control of their cell block to protest brutal living conditions, holding guards hostage to demand reforms. Notable for its documentary-li...
Odds Against Tomorrow is a 1959 film noir directed by Robert Wise and starring Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, and Ed Begley. The film follows an ex-convict and a racist ex-cop who are forced to work together on a bank heist in a small town. Notable for its examination of racial tensions and its jazz...
The Sound of Fury is a 1950 American film noir directed by Cy Endfield, based on the novel "The Condemned" by Jo Pagano. The film is also known by its alternative title, "Try and Get Me!" It stars Frank Lovejoy as a desperate, unemployed family man who becomes involved with a career criminal, played...
The Well is a 1951 American drama directed by Leo C. Popkin and Russell Rouse. Its story begins with the disappearance of a Black child, which inflames racial suspicion in a small community, before shifting toward a collective rescue effort when the girl is found trapped in an abandoned well. The fi...
The Lawless is a 1950 American social-problem crime film directed by Joseph Losey from a screenplay by Geoffrey Homes. Set in a California agricultural community, it follows a newspaper editor whose coverage of a Mexican American fruit picker accused of violence exposes racial prejudice, mob behavio...
The Glass Wall is a 1953 American film noir directed by Maxwell Shane and released by Columbia Pictures. Vittorio Gassman plays Peter Kuban, a displaced European who enters the United States illegally and searches New York City for a former soldier whose testimony could establish his right to remain...
Edge of Doom is a 1950 American crime drama commonly classified as film noir, directed by Mark Robson and produced by Samuel Goldwyn Productions. Farley Granger plays Martin Lynn, a financially distressed young man who kills a priest after being refused help with his mother's funeral, while Dana And...
