6. The Maltease Falcon (1941)
"A Story as Explosive as His Blazing Automatics" reads this poster's tagline for the classic film noir The Maltese Falcon. But those looking for an action movie, either in 1941 or in 2012, will be disappointed. Private Eye Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) never fires a gun throughout the film. There's nothing really "explosive" about the story either. Words and seduction are the weapons in this twisty mystery about the search for the ancient statue of a bird, the Maltese Falcon of the title. The final confrontation between Spade, femme fatale Brigid O'Shaughnessy (Mary Astor), Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre) and Kaspar Guttman (Sydney Greenstreet), consists of exposition, not explosives.