10 Greatest Directorial Film Debuts

Considered my many to be Hollywood's first major noir film, The Maltese Falcon is often credited with transforming American cinema into a golden era of morally flawed detectives and femme fatales.

For main actor Humphrery Bogart, the movie was instrumental in his sudden rise to the top of Hollywood in the 1940s and the same can be said for the actor's close friend and Maltese Falcon director, John Huston.

During his time in Hollywood, Huston did it all! Screenwriter, actor, producer, director, the filmmaker was a titan of the film industry and with The Maltese Falcon he directed his first all-time classic film.

Based on a novel of the same name, the film follows a private detective who stumbles across a hunt for the treasured Maltese Falcon statue. One of the most recognisable props in film history, the deadly competition for the statue is classic noir, with deceit and suspicion around every corner.

The Maltese Falcon would be nominated for three Oscars and in 1988, the noir classic was one of twenty-five classic American films to be preserved at the inaugural National Film Registry.