5. Killers/The Killers
The first is a classic film noir starring Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner, starting with a seemingly unprovoked murder and unravelling gracefully and tensely with perfect noir beats and a script that channels Ernest Hemingway's source perfectly. Gardner is the archetypal femme fatale, and the slow-drip, utterly tense model for the narrative is an utterly engaging joy from start to finish. This first adaptation is certainly the best of the three major screen versions, though all three are vastly superior to the hitman romantic comedy of 2010 starring hot screen stars Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher, which confirms exactly how far so-called smart film writing has come in 50 years.
Handy Watching Tip Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher haven't made too many film noirs, and if the writing feels forced and awkward, rather than provocative and knowing, you're watching the more recent, and thus wrong one of the pair.