Directed by Masaki Kobayashi • 1956 • Japan
Perhaps Masaki Kobayashi's most sordid film, BLACK RIVER examines the rampant corruption on and around U.S. military bases in Japan following World War II. Kobayashi spirals out from the story of a love triangle that develops between a good-natured student, his innocent girlfriend, and a coldhearted petty criminal (Tatsuya Nakadai, in his first major role) to reveal a nation slowly succumbing to lawlessness and violence.
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Trouble in Mind
Directed by Alan Rudolph • 1985 • United States
Starring Kris Kristofferson, Keith Carradine, Lori SingerIn a down-and-out corner of Rain City—a mysterious, moody metropolis that seems to exist partly in the future, partly in the past—a collection of social cast-offs are drawn together by fate,...
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He Ran All the Way
Directed by John Berry • 1951 • United States
Starring John Garfield, Shelley Winters, Wallace FordJohn Garfield’s final film before his blacklisting and untimely death is a slam-bang pulp noir crackling with tightly wound tension. In one of his finest performances, Garfield plays a hardened so...
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Intimidation
Directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara • 1960 • Japan
Koreyoshi Kurahara's ingeniously plotted, pocket-size noir concerns the intertwined fates of a desperate bank manager, blackmailed for book-cooking, and his resentful but timid underling, passed over for a promotion. The marvelously moody Intimidatio...
