10 Greatest Neo-Noir Films Of The 21st Century

Guillermo Del Toro’s latest was included in the nominees for this year’s Best Picture Oscar, but it was never going to win. It’s too lurid, too grotesque, frankly too fun for that particular ceremony.

The film is a remake of the 1947 version (though based on the 1946 source novel by William Lindsay Gresham) and is set in the murky world of clairvoyance. Drifter Stan Carlisle (a delightfully malevolent Bradley Cooper) joins a circus during hard times and learns the tricks of the carnival psychic. He takes his show on the road with wife Molly, but the big city proves a tougher nut to crack for the venal huckster.

Del Toro embraces the noir vibe like a proper cinephile. While Nightmare Alley is often visually arresting, the director takes pains to ensure the grime and muck is properly realised. It’s a tragedy of sorts and embraces its melodramatic core (especially in Cate Blanchett’s arresting femme fatale).

Carlisle is a fascinating character whose downfall is completely predictable but no less captivating for it - it doesn’t get much more noir than that.