Blue Velvet and 3 Other Best Neo-Noir Movies for Fans of Drive
These movies focus on paranoia, spiritual emptiness, and the dominance of the bad guys.
Since the 1970s, Hollywood has been destroying the traditions of established genres, including noir.
Femme fatales, police intrigues and criminal adventures have become even more gruesome and complicated, the atmosphere is thick and the plot is sometimes completely elusive.
1. Chinatown, 1974
Roman Polanski's famous thriller set the tone for neo-noir for the next forty years. The movie begins like a traditional 1940s pulp novel: a private detective investigates a case brought by a woman trying to catch her husband cheating.
The plot soon enters a complex funnel: the Los Angeles Water Department and its secrets, the abuse of power and exploitation of workers, the impunity of the elite, and the moral ambiguity of the world.
Robert Towne's screenplay took noir into a new league – now it is a multi-layered, intricate story. J. Gittes, played by Jack Nicholson, immediately entered the gallery of iconic characters of the New Hollywood.
2. The Usual Suspects, 1995
A failed deal and five tough guys who meet as suspects in a jail cell – this is how Bryan Singer's postmodern thriller begins.
The Usual Suspects may deconstruct the classic noir form, but it treats its precepts with obvious respect: the story features a mysterious crime boss, controversial characters, federal agents, and all of them are presented in a suspenseful conspiracy.
The Usual Suspects is Singer's second directorial project, and in it he has already constructed an ending with an unpredictable twist – one that is still remembered as one of the most intricate and striking in the history of cinema.
3. Blue Velvet, 1986
Before creating his surreal universe, David Lynch reworked the noir genre. Blue Velvet tells a story of voyeurism and passion: the main character, played by Kyle MacLachlan, hides in a closet and watches as the madman Frank Booth abuses a woman.
Lynch managed to destroy the genre norm of the time – his movie blew up the conventions of noir and invented a new, completely otherworldly view of the genre. Now this setting is not run by guys in hats with revolvers in their hands – it is run by crazy psychos with inhalers.
4. Memento, 2000
Christopher Nolan's indie hit paved the way for neo-noir in the new millennium. The unreliable protagonist, suffering from anterograde amnesia, searches for his wife's killer and follows an ambiguous path – either to the truth or to cruel self-deception.
Memento recreates the noir world of mistrust and lies by using reverse composition: the film's timeline reflects the structure of the man's destroyed memory.
If a classic detective always unravels the web and gives way to facts, Nolan's investigation moves in the opposite direction, showing that the whole world is based on a lie.