The best noir movies to stream this #Noirvember

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On Nov. 2, daylight saving time ends in America, and the clocks roll again an hour — however extra importantly, on Nov. 1, horror streaming binge season formally ends, and noir streaming binge season begins. It’s time for the annual social-media occasion generally known as #Noirvember, when cinephiles take a break from demon possessions, endlessly reincarnating slashers, and basic monsters, in favor of moody lighting, hapless patsies, double-dealing dames, and soiled deeds executed in darkness.

Distributors and native theaters are as soon as once more getting in on the motion, from Criterion Channel’s November noir programming to Noirvember slates in repertory theaters across the nation. However most of us are prone to have fun Noirvember at residence. Try our 2023 and 2024 guides to one of the best basic noir, neo-noir, and lesser-known noir gems to stream this November, and if you happen to’ve already watched all of these, right here’s a brand new batch of Noirvember streaming suggestions.

The classics Let’s begin with a couple of seminal noirs, the fundamentals you’ll wish to hit to grasp the style and its conventions.

Shadow of a Doubt

<img width="825" height="461" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="A grim-looking man grabs the arms of a worried young woman in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/shadow.jpeg?q=70&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/shadow.jpeg?q=70&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: Common Footage Director: Alfred Hitchcock

The place to look at: Accessible to lease or purchase on Amazon, Apple, and different digital platforms

A contemporary model of this film would possibly pack the plot with “However wait, is he a assassin… or isn’t he?” twists and crimson herrings. However Hitch performs his noir basic straight: When charismatic Uncle Charlie (Citizen Kane’s Joseph Cotten) comes to go to his namesake Charlotte (Teresa Wright) and her household in California, proof quickly piles up suggesting that he’s a serial killer. The query is what younger Charlie can do about it with out ending up on his hit listing — and with out overplaying her suspicions earlier than she’s completely optimistic. As typical, Hitchcock lets the viewers know greater than the characters, to boost the stress and make it clear how a lot hazard his weak protagonist is in. And sharp performances from Wright and Cotten maintain this cat-and-mouse recreation taut and creepy. —Tasha Robinson

Contact of Evil Director: Orson Welles

The place to look at: Accessible to lease or purchase on Amazon, Apple, and different digital platforms

Greater than a decade after making Citizen Kane, Orson Welles additional secured his standing as one of many best filmmakers ever by placing his stamp on the noir style with Contact of Evil. Its plot and deal with racism and police corruption really feel simply as resonant as we speak as they had been in 1958, although the choice to solid Charlton Heston as Mexican particular prosecutor Miguel Vargas hasn’t aged as effectively. Vargas is investigating an explosion on the U.S.-Mexico border, which places him at odds with bigoted police captain Hank Quinlan (Welles), who has a historical past of planting proof to get the outcomes he needs. It’s a wrestle of fine versus evil the place nobody comes out unscathed.

The performances are wonderful, with Heston providing his basic leading-man attraction, Welles laying it on thick, and Janet Leigh taking part in Vargas’ tormented fiancée Susan — exhibiting off the scream that grew to become iconic when she starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho two years later. The camerawork is phenomenal, from the prolonged opening shot following Vargas and Susan crossing the border to the progressive manner Wells filmed Heston driving. Contact of Evil’s mixture of craft and sleaze embodies every little thing that makes movie noir such a wealthy style. —Samantha Nelson

The Killing

<img width="1650" height="990" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="A man in a clown mask brandishes a gun while another man behind him sinks into the shadows in Stanley Kubrick's The Killing" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/killing.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/killing.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: United Artists Director: Stanley Kubrick

The place to look at: Streaming on Tubi and Prime Video, or out there to lease or purchase on Amazon, Apple, and different digital platforms

Earlier than his Nineteen Sixties work made him a much bigger identify, Stanley Kubrick made a punchy, wildly entertaining heist-driven noir about 5 guys conspiring to knock over a horse-racing monitor. Sterling Hayden performs ringleader Johnny Clay, who recruits a few racetrack workers (Elisha Prepare dinner, Jr. and Joe Sawyer), a crooked cop (Ted DeCorsia), and a cash man (Jay C. Flippen) to steal $2 million, in a scheme that includes quite a lot of uncommon transferring elements, together with the assassination of a horse and the usage of a pugnacious wrestler to start out a brawling diversion.

Adapting Lionel White’s novel Clear Break, Kubrick collaborated with crime author Jim Thompson, who dealt with the hard-boiled dialogue. Although the heist goes improper, as they have an inclination to do, the screenplay is especially attuned to the human frailties that weaken a intelligent plan. The filmmakers discover little notes of pulpy poignancy all through, like one prison’s unhappy husk of a wedding, or the sharpshooter who resorts to faking racism as a way to brush off a pleasant parking attendant. Kubrick went on to greater and extra bold initiatives — he by no means made a film this quick once more. However minute for minute, The Killing stays certainly one of his greatest movies. It’s a thrill to see him apply his formal management to pulpy, unfussy materials. —Jesse Hassenger

Subsequent steps The place to go after the fundamentals? That is the place noir followers’ mileage goes to fluctuate most, primarily based on which elements of noir they like most. The mysteries? The fraught relationships? The twisty tales and sudden reveals? Simply the general temper? Listed below are a couple of we’d suggest no matter which subgenre you’re most into.

Phantom Woman

<img width="1650" height="1072" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="A man and a woman stand nearly silhouetted in a sunbeam in a dark black and white space in Phantom Lady" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/phantom.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/phantom.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: Common Footage Director: Robert Siodmak

The place to look at: Accessible to lease or purchase on Amazon, Apple, and different digital platforms

Director Robert Siodmak was an unsung grasp of noir variations, and he’s working at his peak energy with Phantom Woman, the uncommon Forties noir with a feminine protagonist. It begins with a killer hook: Scott (Alan Curtis) has a struggle along with his spouse, then spends the night out with a mysterious lady, solely to return residence and discover his spouse murdered. Accused of the crime, he makes an attempt to trace down the thriller lady as his alibi for the time of dying, solely to seek out no hint of her. Worse, nobody else they encountered later within the night has any recollection of her present, both.

Scott’s intrepid (and, sure, lovesick) secretary Carol, nicknamed Kansas (Ella Raines), turns into decided to research additional and clear his identify. Siodmak directs these sequences, like one the place Kansas follows (and menaces) a possible witness via the streets and right into a subway station, with such shadowy, expressive moodiness that the fogginess of the eventual answer doesn’t a lot matter; that’s nearly a part of the dreamlike environment. Elisha Prepare dinner Jr., who additionally performs the henpecked conspirator in The Killing, has a very feverish scene as a jazz drummer whipped right into a frenzy of lust. The entire film makes New York really feel like a metropolis thrumming with unspeakable wishes, as Raines performs a cross between plucky woman detective and obsessed stalker. —JH

Candy Scent of Success Director: Alexander Mackendrick

The place to look at: Streaming on Tubi and out there to lease or purchase on Amazon, Apple, and related platforms

The glamorous, backstabbing world of the New York gossip columnist is the setting for this implausible bitter little capsule of a film from 1957. Burt Lancaster performs towards kind because the imperiously merciless columnist J.J. Hunsecker, a massively highly effective media determine making an attempt to interrupt up his little sister’s relationship with a jazz guitarist. Tony Curtis (not taking part in towards kind) is the oily press agent performing as Hunsecker’s factotum and fixer within the hope of getting a leg up on this ruthless world of fame and blackmail.

Candy Scent of Success’ plot wriggles like a snake as these two odious males make their maneuvers, however the film retains an icy composure all through. Mackendrick made a number of the greatest British comedies ever throughout a future at Ealing Studios, together with The Ladykillers; for this, his American debut, he dipped his trademark wit and precision in poison, with impressively darkish and cynical outcomes. The dim and glittering diners and jazz golf equipment of the milieu are rendered in beautiful, deep-focus, high-contrast cinematography by James Wong Howe, and the script by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets is equally razor-sharp. A quietly savage basic. —Oli Welsh

Stray Canine

<img width="1650" height="928" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="Two Japanese men in suits and hats, one brandishing a gun, walk next to a brick wall, bathed in stripes of light and shadow that fall over them like bars, in Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/stray-dog.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/stray-dog.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: Toho Director: Akira Kurosawa

The place to look at: Streaming on Plex and the Criterion Channel

Simply earlier than Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune started their ascent to samurai-cinema godhood with Rashomon in 1950, they made a couple of crime dramas collectively, together with 1949’s Stray Canine, a sweat-drenched cop thriller set within the febrile environment of post-war Tokyo throughout one sizzling summer season. Mifune, simply 29 on the time, already shows all his pure command and rangy fury as Murakami, a rookie detective who has his gun stolen. Humiliated and desperately fearful concerning the hurt it would trigger, he begins a frenzied try and retrieve the weapon, following it into an underworld of poverty, desperation, and crime.

Kurosawa poured his love of American films into all his work, and Stray Canine positively has one eye on the good Hollywood noir and gangster movies. It’s additionally an early instance of the chalk-and-cheese buddy-cop film, pairing the fiery, principled Mifune with one other Kurosawa stalwart, Takashi Shimura, as an older, extra pragmatic, laid-back detective. However with out relinquishing the stress for a second, Kurosawa retains his humanistic gaze locked firmly on Japanese tradition and society. Like plenty of post-war crime fiction from Japan, Stray Canine is a captivating window right into a nation wrestling with its id because it tries to rebuild. —OW

Deep cuts Listed below are a couple of we suggest for noir followers who’ve seen every little thing else.

Crossfire

<img width="825" height="506" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="A man stands on the landing of a set of stairs, in shadow, with vertical bars of darkness across his body, in 1947's Crossfire" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/crossfire.jpg?q=70&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/crossfire.jpg?q=70&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: RKO Radio Footage Director: Edward Dmytryk

The place to look at: Streaming on the Criterion Channel, or out there to lease or purchase on Amazon, Apple, and different digital platforms.

The Criterion Channel included Crossfire in its November assortment of “Blackout Noir,” that includes characters affected by some type of reminiscence blackout. On this case, the blackout applies to a gaggle of servicemen whose night time at a resort bar ends with certainly one of them useless. Sgt. Peter Keeley (Robert Mitchum) takes it upon himself to research, as a result of he fears Corporal Mitchell (George Cooper), the drunkest of the lot, might be thought of a chief suspect. Regardless of the groggy intrigue of its premise, Crossfire doesn’t have the identical stage of ethical or literal shadows as a few of its seedier cousins within the style. Actually, by the top it’s downright upstanding, together with a speech denouncing racial and non secular prejudice in all its kinds.

A case might be made that Crossfire is a social message drama with thriller components; the film even obtained main Oscar nominations for writing, directing, performing, and Finest Image, making it extra of a status image than different crime films of the day. What lends the film its noirish tones is the sense of ennui and confusion emanating from this group of troopers, particularly poor Mitchell, and the presence of hard-luck dame Ginny Tremaine (Gloria Grahame, Oscar-nominated for the position). By following servicemen adjusting to life Stateside within the years following World Battle II — even when just for a couple of evenings — Crossfire has thematic hyperlinks to films like The Finest Years of Our Lives and The Grasp, solely with a murder-mystery hook. (And a sensationalized finale, the place shoddy policework is widely known as clear justice.) Because of this, it stands out from different Oscar films and different noirs alike. —JH

Bedelia Director: Lance Consolation

The place to look at: Streaming on YouTube as a public-domain film and on the Web Archive

Quaint on the floor, however with a depraved edge, 1946’s Bedelia is a sort of submerged noir — a brisk, mannerly British melodrama-mystery that’s slowly revealed to be a classically twisted story a couple of femme fatale. Bedelia Carrington (Margaret Lockwood) is a newlywed, honeymooning in Monte Carlo together with her husband Charlie, a rich businessman. She’s surprisingly shy about being photographed or painted, claiming she’s unphotogenic — which appears suspicious, since Lockwood is certainly one of British movie’s most luminous Forties stars. The couple befriend a painter referred to as Ben on the journey, however one thing’s up with the younger man too; he’s secretly a detective with an intense curiosity in Bedelia’s previous and her relationship with cash.

Again on the Carringtons’ English mansion, Charlie falls suspiciously in poor health, and the film turns into a sinuous energy wrestle between Bedelia, Ben, and Charlie’s enterprise companion, Ellen. There’s no nice thriller to what’s occurring, however there’s one thing scrumptious and the way slowly and implacably Bedelia tightens the screws on its anti-heroine with out ruffling its well mannered floor, and Lockwood’s sympathetic efficiency retains it from turning right into a rote condemnation. —OW

Blast of Silence

<img width="1650" height="926" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="A man in a fedora and overcoat holds up a pistol equipped with a silencer in Blast of Silence" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/blast.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/blast.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: Magla Productions Director: Allen Baron

The place to look at: Accessible to lease or purchase on Amazon, Apple, and different digital platforms

Loads of basic noirs had been shot totally on soundstages, with location work changing into typically extra viable within the years after the style light from prominence. By the early Nineteen Sixties, sub-80-minute crime photos weren’t as widespread, however writer-director-star Allen Baron took his shot with Blast of Silence, which incorporates plenty of actual New York Metropolis areas — apparently captured with out a allow, per the movie’s Noir Alley introduction on Turner Basic Motion pictures, and within the spirit of the film’s outsider prison.

That method alone makes Blast of Silence worthwhile, because it supplies an unintentional time capsule of mid-century, holiday-season New York the place you may virtually really feel the sharp chill within the air. However Blast of Silence can be an evocative, sharp-edged character examine within the vein of David Fincher’s The Killer, intently following hitman Frankie Bono (Baron) returning to his New York hometown for a job throughout Christmas week. He buys a gun, stalks his prey, revisits some outdated acquaintances, and supplies a gentle stream of disillusioned, depressive narration. Even if you happen to don’t carry out contract killings for a residing, you could discover the post-holiday ennui (and bittersweet reminiscences) surprisingly relatable. This isn’t the one holiday-set noir — there are a stunning variety of them even earlier than the Shane Black years — nevertheless it’s simply among the best. —JH

Neo-noir Loads of films replace the basic noir period, with an eye fixed towards all of the core conventions and the flavour that made it such a memorable style within the first place. Listed below are a number of the greatest and most high-fidelity neos.

Sure

<img width="1650" height="1062" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="Jennifer Tilly, wearing a little black dress, sits cross-legged in a room strung with money hung from lines like laundry in Bound" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/msdboun_ec051.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/msdboun_ec051.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture: Gramercy Footage/Everett Assortment Administrators: Lana and Lilly Wachowski

The place to look at: Streaming on Kanopy, or out there to lease or purchase on Amazon, Apple, and different digital platforms

The Wachowskis’ feature-film debut — the fashionable thriller that led on to them getting the backing for The Matrix — hits all of the basic noir notes: a prison underworld, a giant rating, a femme fatale with a supposedly sure-fire scheme, the patsy she lures into her internet. The twist on this case, although — or not less than, the primary of many — is that the patsy is one other lady: Corky (Gina Gershon, in all probability by no means higher), who’s helpless putty within the palms of seductive Violet (Jennifer Tilly, positively by no means higher.)

The Wachowskis’ script lands one sharp twist after one other, as Violet seduces Corky and solicits her assist in ripping off Violet’s harmful prison boyfriend. The fixed risk of violence and the plain risk of a double-cross dangle closely over this brazenly erotic (and surprisingly graphic) queer tackle a basic style. However the true appeals transform the sensible, attractive dialogue and the fashionable course, with the added bonus of by no means being fairly positive the place it’s all going till the credit roll. —TR

The Actor Director: Duke Johnson

The place to look at: Streaming on Hulu, or out there to lease or purchase on Amazon, Apple, and different digital platforms

Proof that neo-noirs are nonetheless being made as much as the current second, The Actor slipped out and in of theaters in March 2025, although it’s primarily based on a posthumously revealed novel that The Grifters’ Donald E. Westlake initially wrote in 1963. Paul (André Holland) feels trapped. He’s an out-of-work actor stranded someplace within the American heartland with no cash to his identify and a nasty case of amnesia. Everybody on this city appears… off, apart from one lady (Gemma Chan). They start a relationship, however Paul nonetheless wonders about his outdated life, ready for him someplace in New York.

The primary solo mission from Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa directing companion Duke Johnson, The Actor has all of the makings of a basic noir: a thriller, a jealous husband, a possible femme fatale. Johnson even shot the movie in black and white to finish the homage. These influences typically overwhelm what's admittedly a paper-thin plot, however for followers of the style, The Actor is a contemporary basic. —Jake Kleinman

L.A. Confidential

<img width="1650" height="1090" loading="lazy" decoding="async" alt="Guy Pearce, sweaty and bloodied, points a pistol off-screen in L.A. Confidential" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/msdlaco_ec003.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/msdlaco_ec003.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" class="img-brightness-opt-out"/> Picture; Warner Bros./Everett Assortment Director: Curtis Hanson

The place to look at: Accessible to lease or purchase on Amazon, Apple, and different digital platforms.

The Oscar-winning adaptation of James Ellroy’s novel L.A. Confidential in all probability would have gained much more acclaim (and much more awards) if it hadn’t come out the identical 12 months as James Cameron’s Titanic. Set in 1953 Los Angeles, the film embraces basic noir’s deal with corrupt cops. James Cromwell reveals off his spectacular vary as Captain Dudley Smith, who’s trying to enhance the LAPD’s picture with high-profile busts led by sleazy Detective Sergeant Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) with the assistance of ideas from tabloid reporter Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito).

The 1997 movie offered breakout roles for Russell Crowe, as thuggish officer Bud White, and Man Pierce, as bold Detective Lieutenant Edmund Exley. They’re the basic noir protagonists, digging into the reality behind a bloodbath, despite the fact that their bosses would really like them to let it go. The plot is satisfyingly twisty, centered on flawed characters searching for an opportunity to be higher. It’s an ideal sunshine noir, depicting the seductive promise of Hollywood and the rot that lies slightly below the floor. —SN