For Empire's Ultimate Movie Playlist issue – on sale now, and available to order online here – we asked Hollywood to recommend must-see films in a series of expertly-curated lists, full of firm favourites and forgotten classics. Here, writer-director Shane Black delivers his own thriller school with 10 noir-in-a-nutshell movies.
Read all of the Ultimate Movie Playlist selections in the September 2020 issue – on sale now.
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The Exorcist (1973)
Let’s start with my favorite movie. Noir? Yup. From the compromised ex-boxer priest to the plodding, sardonic detective, the budding evil gives purpose to their wearying lives of quiet desperation. Also, it’s got banter. As in wisecracks. Yes, The Exorcist.
Dirty Harry (1971)
Simple premise, yet a tour de force of cinematic set pieces. You can pluck any of a half dozen sequences and teach them in film class. Workaday heroes, check. Great banter, check.
Night Moves (1975)
If The Big Sleep was the quintessential evocation of Raymond Chandler, this ‘70s thriller is surely birthed from his successor, Ross MacDonald. Sad, wrenching, poignant. A hero who knows not what he does – or rather: WHY.
No Country For Old Men (2007)
Crime as literature, pure and simple. Violence that is clumsy, erratic, shocking – even comical. Look and learn.
The Handmaiden (2016)
Hitchcockian as it gets. A stunning, often infuriating look at depravity, and the brilliant women who conquer it. Someone will doubtless miss the point and call for its cancellation.
Three Days Of The Condor (1975)
A bleak Christmas adds colour to Sidney Pollock’s story of a frightened loner on the CIA’s kill list. Quirky, awkward, REAL. A good primer for thriller fans.
The Lives Of Others (2006)
A story about the East German Stasi that practically drags you up onto the screen with the characters. So engaging that when I screened it (blind) at my house, my guests offered reverent thanks. They’d been changed.
Eastern Promises (2007)
People like to point to Cronenberg’s A History Of Violence as his triumph, but I was much more impressed with this tight, diamond-crafted gem. The steam bath sequence is SWEET.
Phone (2002)
On the surface, an easily overlooked Korean ghost thriller... but so much more. It aspires, by the end, to a level of sadness that isn’t just surprising – it’s a powerful lesson for horror filmmakers.
Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)
The Holy Grail. In Barry Levinson’s Diner, that character who keeps popping his head in? He’s quoting this movie. Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman on screenplay – say no more.
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Also inside the Ultimate Movie Preview issue: Action aficionados Edgar Wright and Gareth Evans on their favourite Jackie Chan flicks, horror hitmaker Mike Flanagan on the spookiest haunted house films, the legendary Sandy Powell on her favourite screen costumes, Richard Kelly’s personal pick of the most mind-bending movies, the Duffer Brothers on the films that changed their lives, Paul Feig and Henry Golding’s greatest Brit-flicks, Delroy Lindo on the movies that moved him, Joe Dante and John Landis on the greatest (and hairiest) werewolf horrors, Nicole Holofcener on the films that always make her cry, Christopher McQuarrie’s pick of the heist genre, Drew Pearce on musicians in movies, Corin Hardy’s pick of crime thrillers, Jack Reynor’s lockdown watch-list, Noel Clarke on the international films that inspired him, and much, much more.
Find the issue on shelves now, or order a copy online with free UK postage here.