The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025

82. 1944 - Double Indemnity

Double Indemnity
Paramount Pictures

Honourable Mentions: Gaslight, Laura, The Uninvited

One of the most iconic Film Noirs of all time, Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity is every bit the sleek, sexy and ironically punitive classic it's made out to be, featuring perhaps the greatest femme fatale put to screen in Barbara Stanwyck's Phyllis Dietrichson, who enlists the help of a horned-up insurance salesman, Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), to kill her husband and pocket the proceeds of a lucrative life insurance policy.

Edward G. Robinson is the intrepid investigator out to spoil the ruse, with MacMurray's Neff spiralling as his scheme frays apart. Raymond Chandler's prose was fertile ground for Hollywood, and while many of the author's works would be adapted as films in the ensuing years, none quite match the inky salaciousness of Wilder's first attempt.

 
Posted On: 
Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.