9. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Dir. John Huston
Widely considered to be the first proper noir, The Maltese Falcon stands as the apotheosis of the genre. Nearly everything that became synonymous with noir—high-contrast cinematography, a private detective protagonist, a deadly femme fatale, a labyrinthine plot—can be found here. And at the center of it all is Humphrey Bogart as “private dick” Sam Spade. With this performance he defined an archetype: the hard-boiled, world-weary detective who despite it all has maintained his sense of right and wrong in a universe gone mad. Though Bogart would go on to star in a number of other classic film noir including his turn as another hard-boiled detective, the infamous Philip Marlowe, in Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep (1946), The Maltese Falcon was his most influential film in the genre. Replete with a perfect cast full of essential character actors like Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, and Elisha Cook Jr., few films from its era are as compulsively watchable and as deliriously entertaining. The Maltese Falcon was also a rarity among the noir genre for being one of the only ones to be nominated for any major Academy Awards, receiving nods for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor for Greenstreet.
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