Directed by Seijun Suzuki • 1967 • Japan
When Japanese New Wave bad boy Seijun Suzuki delivered this brutal, hilarious, and visually inspired masterpiece to the executives at his studio, he was promptly fired. Branded to Kill tells the ecstatically bent story of a yakuza assassin with a fetish for sniffing steamed rice (the chipmunk-cheeked superstar Joe Shishido) who botches a job and ends up a target himself. This is Suzuki at his most extreme--the flabbergasting pinnacle of his sixties pop-art aesthetic.
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The Naked City
Directed by Jules Dassin • 1948 • United States
Starring Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart“There are eight million stories in the Naked City,” as the narrator immortally states at the close of this breathtakingly vivid film and this is one of them. Master noir craftsman Jules Dassin a...
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Bad Day at Black Rock
Directed by John Sturges • 1955 • United States
Starring Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Anne FrancisAce genre craftsman John Sturges directs Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan in this taut western noir. Tracy is the one-armed war veteran John J. Macreedy, who arrives in the remote desert outpost of Bla...
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Out of the Past
Directed by Jacques Tourneur • 1947 • United States
Starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk DouglasEverything you want in a film noir you’ll find in OUT OF THE PAST: a tenacious detective (Robert Mitchum) spinning his wheels to make good, a drop-dead beauty (Jane Greer) up to no good, and a m...
