# Film noir > The dark American crime films of the 1940s and 1950s, with compromised heroes, femmes fatales, betrayals and shadowy, high-contrast photography. Double Indemnity and The Maltese Falcon are classics; Chinatown is neo-noir. Also known as noir, noir film ## In practice Film noir is the dark, shadowy crime cinema that Hollywood made in the 1940s and 1950s: detectives and insurance men in rain-slick cities, femmes fatales, double-crosses, voice-over confessions and lighting that leaves half of every face in darkness. French critics named it after the war, when a backlog of American films reached Paris at once and they saw a new mood running through them. Noir means "black." For screenwriters, noir is less a set of hats and shadows than a way of telling a story. Its heroes are compromised, its plots are traps and its endings are rarely happy. The protagonist usually wants something he should not want (money, a woman, a way out) and makes one bad choice that the rest of the film punishes. That shape is why noir keeps coming back, in neo-noirs such as Chinatown and Memento and in crime television ever since. The common mistakes are copying the look without the substance, so a story gets fedoras and venetian-blind shadows but no moral trap, and making the femme fatale a cliché instead of a character with her own goals. The best noir writing is lean and cynical, with dialogue that sounds tough because the characters have no illusions left. ## Noir voice-over and a bad bargain **An insurance man meets a client** ``` INT. HOTEL BAR - NIGHT Rain on the window. A piano nobody listens to. FRANK DOYLE (40s), insurance investigator, rumpled, drinks alone. VERA LANE (30s) slides onto the next stool, gloves still on. FRANK (V.O.) I'd seen her file that afternoon. Husband insured for a hundred thousand. Husband with a bad heart. VERA You're the man who asks the questions. FRANK Only the easy ones. VERA Then I'll buy you a drink, and you can forget the hard ones. She lays a bill on the bar. Frank looks at it a long time. Then he lets the bartender take it. ``` Everything that makes noir is in miniature here. The voice-over looks back on events from after they went wrong, so the audience knows from the first line that this meeting is a mistake. The dialogue is clipped and double-edged. And the hero's fall begins with a small, physical choice, letting someone else pay, that the rest of the story will make him regret. ## What film noir is Film noir is a style of American crime film, mostly from the 1940s and 1950s, known for its cynical characters, morally ambiguous stories, urban settings and dark, high-contrast photography. The French critic Nino Frank used the term in 1946, after seeing films such as The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity and Laura in Paris after the war. Critics still argue about whether noir is a genre, like the western, or a style and mood that can color many genres. Paul Schrader's 1972 essay "Notes on Film Noir" argued for a style and period. Most writers today treat it as a loose category: crime stories with a certain look, a certain kind of hero and a fatalistic view of the world. The classic period is usually dated from The Maltese Falcon (1941) to Touch of Evil (1958). Films made later in the same spirit are called neo-noir. The word noir has also spread to books and other forms, as in Nordic noir, the bleak Scandinavian crime fiction and television of recent decades. ## The elements of film noir Noir's look comes from low-key lighting: deep shadows, single hard light sources, faces half in darkness, the barred shadows of venetian blinds. Cinematographers such as John Alton shot city streets at night, wet with rain, through odd angles and reflections. The style owed much to German Expressionism and to European directors who had fled to Hollywood, including Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang and Robert Siodmak. Its stories come largely from hard-boiled fiction: Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain, whose novels supplied The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep and Double Indemnity. The protagonist is often a private detective, a criminal or an ordinary man tempted into crime. Voice-over narration and flashbacks are common, so the hero often tells the story after it is too late to change it. The femme fatale is noir's most famous figure: a seductive, dangerous woman who draws the hero into crime for her own ends, like Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity or Kathie Moffat in Out of the Past. Around her and the hero are corrupt police, gangsters, doomed partners and a city that seems to want them to fail. ## Film noir examples Double Indemnity (1944), written by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler from James M. Cain's novel, is the model noir: an insurance salesman, a wife who wants her husband dead, a murder plan that unravels and a confession spoken into a dictaphone. The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Big Sleep (1946) and Out of the Past (1947) are among the other classics. Sunset Boulevard (1950) turns noir on Hollywood itself and is narrated by a man floating dead in a swimming pool. The Third Man (1949), set in postwar Vienna, and Touch of Evil (1958), with its famous opening long take, push the visual style to its limits. Neo-noir carried the form into color and new settings. Chinatown (1974) is often called the greatest neo-noir screenplay. Body Heat (1981) remade the Double Indemnity plot in a Florida heat wave, Blade Runner (1982) set noir in the future, and L.A. Confidential (1997), Memento (2000) and Brick (2005) show how many shapes the form can take. ## Film noir vs. neo-noir and crime drama Neo-noir is noir made after the classic period, usually by filmmakers who know the old films and use their conventions on purpose. It can be in color, set anywhere and more explicit than the 1940s censors allowed. Chinatown keeps the detective and the corrupt city but ends darker than any classic noir would have dared. Not every crime film is noir. A police procedural that celebrates good detectives catching bad guys has a different worldview. Noir's heroes are compromised, its institutions are rotten and its outcomes are often bleak. If the audience is sure that justice will win, the story is probably not noir. Noir also overlaps with the thriller and the gangster film. The difference is mood: a thriller runs on suspense and often ends in triumph, a gangster film follows a rise and fall, and noir runs on fatalism, the sense that the hero was trapped from the first scene. ## How to write a noir story Start with temptation. Give the protagonist a desire that leads them to cross a line, and make the crossing a choice, not an accident. The rest of the story is the price of that choice, and the audience should feel the trap closing long before the hero does. Write lean, hard dialogue. Noir characters talk in short lines, sharp comebacks and double meanings, because they do not trust anyone. Avoid parody: the tough talk should sound like people protecting themselves, not like a list of 1940s slang. Give everyone a reason. The femme fatale, the crooked cop and the client who lies all need goals of their own. Noir is at its best when every character is working an angle, and the hero discovers too late that he was the one being played. ## Official sources & context Sources reviewed Oct 30, 2026 - [Merriam-Webster — Film noir](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/film%20noir) ## Common questions ### What is film noir? Film noir is a style of American crime film, mostly from the 1940s and 1950s, known for its cynical heroes, femmes fatales, morally ambiguous plots and dark, high-contrast photography. The term is French for "black film." ### What does film noir mean? Film noir means "black film" or "dark film" in French. French critics began using the term in 1946 for the dark American crime films that reached Paris after the Second World War. ### What are the characteristics of film noir? Common characteristics are low-key, shadowy lighting; urban, often nighttime settings; a morally compromised protagonist; a femme fatale; voice-over narration and flashbacks; crime plots built on betrayal; and a fatalistic, often bleak ending. ### What is a femme fatale in film noir? A femme fatale is a seductive, dangerous woman who leads the hero into crime or ruin for her own purposes. Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity and Kathie Moffat in Out of the Past are classic examples. ### What was the first film noir? There is no agreed first film noir. The Maltese Falcon (1941) is the usual starting point for the classic period, though some critics point to earlier films such as Stranger on the Third Floor (1940). ### What is neo-noir? Neo-noir is film noir made after the classic period of the 1940s and 1950s, usually in color, by filmmakers who use noir's conventions on purpose. Chinatown, Body Heat, Blade Runner and L.A. Confidential are well-known neo-noirs. ### Is film noir a genre? Critics disagree. Some treat film noir as a genre of crime film; others, following Paul Schrader, call it a style, mood or period that can appear in many genres. In practice, the term names crime stories with a dark look and a fatalistic view. ## Related terms - [Genre](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/genre): The contract of expectations around a story's pleasures and rules — thriller, rom-com, horror, procedural — shaping tone, pacing, and what "fair" surprise means to the audience. - [Voice-over (V.O.)](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/voice-over): Dialogue heard but not spoken aloud in the scene's space at that moment — narration, a remembered voice, a character's thoughts, the far end of a phone call. Marked as (V.O.) on the character cue. - [Flashback](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/flashback): A scene or sequence set in earlier story time. Scripts mark the shift with FLASHBACK (or similar) and return with BACK TO SCENE or a clear present-day slugline. - [Mood](https://www.inkwell.software/glossary/mood): The feeling a story creates in its audience: dread, longing, calm, unease, delight. Writers build mood from setting, sound, light, pacing and word choice rather than by naming it. --- Canonical page: