10 Film Noir for Beginners

4. The Asphalt Jungle (1950)

Dir. John Huston

Bertrand Tavernier once recounted how Jean-Pierre Melville, director of neo-noir classics Le Doulos (1963) and Le Samouraï (1967), once forced his entire crew to watch John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle in penance after sitting through Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar (1954). Though we can now laugh at this story—after all, Johnny Guitar is a classic in its own right—it underscores the importance of The Asphalt Jungle within the discourse of noir filmmaking. The film is one of, if not the, best heist films ever made. Following a group of rag-tag criminals orchestrating a doomed jewelry heist, it set the template for generations of caper films from The Killing (1956) to The Italian Job (1969) to Ocean’s Eleven (2001). Here we see many of the genre’s archetypes officially codified: a team of professionals, each member specializing in a specific skill like safe-cracking or getaway driving; an extended heist sequence where the plan finally comes together; and crucially, a nihilistic ending where a) the criminals are all captured or killed, and/or b) the loot gets lost. Just like in other noir films, the protagonists are doomed from the start. But that doesn’t stop them from trying.