Greetings Film Noir!

You will get plenty of new titles for you to look at from the bunch here. Welcome.

I started off as a youngster through the teens and early adulthood liking sci-fi, fantasy, comedy, action and horror. I dabbled but did not actively pursue other genres(though I appreciated at the time of their release flicks like Amadeus and The Unforgiven). Also, my parents would drag me to foreign movies--mostly French--on a regular basis. I don't remember the titles of any of them, however.

Marriage and working in the military gave me forced exposure to other cinematic styles. Finally, I became a member of IMDB, where, if you want any legitimacy, you really have to crawl outside your comfort zone. That's where I found I have a strong taste for film-noir and neo-noir.

I'm just now getting a discovery of the real boundary between film-noir and neo-noir, and wish IMDB would include the latter as one of their genres.

Here are the film-noir that IMDB credits me with seeing.

Dial M for Murder (1954)
Double Indemnity (1944)
High Sierra (1941)
Kansas City Confidential (1952)
Key Largo (1948)
Killers, The (1946)
Killing, The (1956)
Kiss Me Deadly (1955)
Maltese Falcon, The (1941)
Man in the Attic (1953)
Night of the Hunter, The (1955)
Notorious (1946)
Rebecca (1940)
Red House, The (1947)
Roaring Twenties, The (1939)
Scarface (1932)
Second Woman, The (1950)
Storm Warning (1951)
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Stray Dog (1949)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Third Man, The (1949)
Touch of Evil (1958)
Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)
White Heat (1949)

Damion Crowley
Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you.--R.E.

Some others that I have seen, that I believe exude some style of noir within them. Please feel free to correct me if you do not think they should be on a film-noir or neo-noir list. I also may have excluded some that are neo-noir because I didn't want to paint with to broad a brush.

2 Days in the Valley (1996)
3000 Miles to Graceland (2001)
A History of Violence (2005)
A Perfect Murder (1998)
Blackmail (1929)
Blast of Silence (1961)
Blood Simple. (1984)
Brick (2005)
Chinatown (1974)
Collateral (2004)
Crash (2004)
Dark Blue (2002)
Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966)
Drive (2011)
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)
Gone Girl (2014)
Hollywoodland (2006)
Infernal Affairs (2002)
Inherent Vice (2014)
Irreversible (2002)
Killer Joe (2011)
Killing Them Softly (2012)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Last Man Standing (1996)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)
Léon: The Professional (1994)
M (1931)
Made (2001)
Memento (2000)
Mud (2012)
Night Moves (1975)
Nightcrawler (2014)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Primal Fear (1996)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Rabid Dogs (1974)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Se7en (1995)
Sin City (2005)
Snatch(2000)
Striptease (1996)
Sushi Girl (2012)
Takers (2010)
The Big Bounce (2004)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
The Black Dahlia (2006)
The Boondock Saints (1999)
The Departed (2006)
The Equalizer (2014)
The French Connection (1971)
The Hit (1984)
The Killer Inside Me (2010)
The Killers (1964)
The Long Goodbye (1973)
The Matador (2005)
The Naked Kiss (1964)
The Nice Guys (2016)
The Town (2010)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
The Way of the Gun (2000)
The Wages of Fear (1953)
Sorcerer (1977)

Damion Crowley
Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you.--R.E.

I'm not entirely sure what boundary makes a movie not be noir anymore, and I'd like to figure that out.

I think noir films have had more written about them and have been broken down and analyzed more than any other genre or style. Noir fans embrace the nuances of what makes a film a film noir and when you get out of the classic era the discussion takes on another layer.

Your list of classic noirs seems right on, the glaring omission being Out of The Past. I consider White Heat and Scarface to be gangster movies, some would dispute both Notorious (not me) and Rebecca and I'm not sure about Man in the Attic or The Roaring Twenties. However, Wages of Fear, The Naked Kiss and Blast of Silence are favorites of a lot of people on this board.

People seem to be more protective of the sanctity of the classic noir list but the neo list has expanded to include a lot of titles that really aren't noir, just approximations. For example, the internet is littered with 5,000 word essays explaining why the The Big Lebowski really is a neo-noir - which is the first indicator that it's not (you don't need to explain why Double Indemnity is a film noir). I would say Chinatown is the biggest omission from the neos in your list.

Ah, I did forget Chinatown. And I have seen it, and I do consider it neo-noir.
I am going to correct now. I'm also adding Snatch (2000) to the list.

Consider that I'm using IMDB's automatic classification of these movies when I create the list. I think my default classification for something like White Heat and Little Caesar would also be gangster. But that's where I don't fully understand where the boundary might be drawn either.

I have not seen Out of the Past, mostly because Mitchum is not an actor I naturally gravitate to. But I certainly will give it a try now.

EDIT B: I checked and Out of the Past is already in my Netflix "Saved" queue, so it's not available through them at the moment. I will have to try alternate paths.

Damion Crowley
Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you.--R.E.

Hi, Damion! Be sure to check out the thread "Your all time favorite Noir films"--and then watch my all-time favorites! :-)