I’ve just completed a major reworking of my list of Overlooked neo-noir, and added twelve movies.
The best of these is probably Memories of Murder, a true crime story from Joon-ho Bong, Oscar-winning director of Parasite and Broker. It just might be the best serial killer movie ever, and the haunting ending is unforgettable. A bonus: there was a breakthrough in the real-life case 16 years after the movie, but don’t read about it until you’ve screened the film.
Another Oscar-winning director (and a great raconteur), William Friedkin, had huge hits with The French Connection and The Exorcist, but his To Live and Die in L.A. bombed. Today, it’s become a neo-noir cult favorite. It stars William Petersen without any of the gruff lovability he became known for years later in CSI. And it was the first showcase for the creepy charisma of Willem Dafoe.
Some of these unexpectedly stretch our notion of neo-noir: All Night Long is a Shakespearean play set in the London jazz world of the early 60’s, A Colt Is My Passport is a Japanese yakuza movie that is essentially a spaghetti western and A Dark, Dark Man is a 2019 film from Kazakhstan.
Here are the new additions:
- All Night Long: Othello in the jazz world
- Carlito’s Way: Pacino illuminates another gangster epic
- Charley Varrick: his wits vs. the mob
- A Colt Is My Passport: a yakuza spaghetti western
- A Dark, Dark Man: rounding up the usual suspects in Kazakhstan
- Dose of Reality: an ending that no one will see coming
- Elena: a vividly dark peek into contemporary Russia
- Killer Joe: you sure ain’t gonna be bored
- The Last Lullaby: backing out on a hit
- Memories of Murder: one of the great serial killer movies
- Saint Jack: Gazzara, Bogdanovich and Corman take on the Vietnam War
- To Live and Die in L.A.: obsession without an iota of redemption
