The 1980s were a great decade for hard-boiled noir films, many from extremely prominent writers and directors. Cinema had evolved over the decades into something more realistic, violent, and cynical, so the classic film noirs of the 40s and 50s were a great fit for the decade. Movies drew on film noir tropes of femme fatales and solitary male detectives, secret murder plots and institutional corruption, and updated them for the then-contemporary audiences, producing some fantastic neo-noir movies as a result. There were a bevy of these films (Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, City on Fire, Fatal Attraction, Jagged Edge, Tightrope, Sudden Impact, Dressed to Kill, and a remake of The Postman Always Rings Twice, to name a few great titles), but these are the best.

8 Sharky’s Machine

Burt Reynolds is Sharky in Sharky’s Machine, a modern neo-noir and definitely his best film since Deliverance; he also directed this 1981 classic. Tom Sharky (Burt Reynolds) was recently demoted to the vice squad. On the job, he discovers an upscale expensive prostitution ring, and finds out that the man running for Governor of Georgia frequents the service, employing the beautiful Rachel Ward as Dominoe. This sets in motion the events for the rest of this action film.
Dominoe is murdered but appears again later in the film — the assassin had shot the wrong person. This leads to a strong conclusion with some mean violence and an excellent shootout, with Sharky having to take out many people. It is an exciting and memorable film, and Burt proves he can direct as well as act. There is corruption, mistaken identity, assassins, and other tropes familiar to fans of film noirs.

7 Black Rain

Black Rain is a Ridley Scott (Philip K. Dick’s Blade Runner, Hannibal) film from 1989, so we can assume it will be a great viewing experience. Michael Douglas and Andy Garcia are American cops assigned to take Sato Koji (played by Yusaku Matsuda) for extradition purposes. He escapes in Japan, and the Japanese police allow them to join in their manhunt for the wanted man. Ken Takakura plays their police boss, Assistant Inspector Matsumoto, as they delve deeply into the shady Japanese criminal world that is run by powerful and ruthless Yakuza. The criminal they are pursuing returns to America and so do the two detectives, still hunting him down.
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In one memorable scene, the police are ambushed and one of the characters is decapitated. There have been many great noir films produced or filmed in Japan (especially in the 50s and 60s) and its dark underworld of violence, corruption, counterfeiting money, and worse, and this is a great example of an American noir that references this and takes on an international perspective.

6 Body Double

Body Double is another Brian De Palma film that qualifies as a neo-noir, and is a classic suspense movie from a director who idolizes ‘the master of suspense,’ Alfred Hitchcock. Craig Wasson is a relatively weak actor (considering that Brian De Palma usually uses strong male leads like Al Pacino, John Travolta, or Nicolas Cage), but the casting is rather brilliant, because his character Jake Scully is an out of work (and weak) actor who lost his last job because of his intense claustrophobia, and has lost a place to live after his girlfriend dumps him. Scully meets Sam (played by Gregg Henry) who gives him an amazing opportunity when his rich friend with a beautiful penthouse apartment leaves and needs a house sitter, and he immediately says yes to this opportunity.
When Sam shows him the apartment, he tells him of another bonus — that a woman across the way from the Penthouse dances seductively in front of the window every single night, and the penthouse has a high-powered telescope, so they can spy on her sexually suggestive dancing. This theme of voyeurism (and it’s relationship to the scopophilia of watching a movie) nods to the best Hitchcock films like Psycho and Rear Window. Things are going fine until the dancer, Holly, played by Melanie Griffith, is attacked by a strange man who kills her in a gruesome fashion with a power drill. But, in this dark and murky world, nothing is as it seems and all the characters have secrets to hide. It is a high tension film with explicit violence and sex, and it is very suspenseful and mysterious, shot as a modern neo-noir, and using tropes like fake identities, sleazy killers, mental illness, deception, and more.

5 Blood Simple

Blood Simple is a film noir from the Coen Brothers, and their first feature. Although most of their films have noir elements to some degree, this film is an outright noir and tribute to past cinema. The plot involves people planning murders, dead bodies disappearing, and other events that have a touch of humor to them, and refer back to Hitchcock’s macabre comedy, The Trouble With Harry. The characters in Blood Simple are basic noir prototypes and the plot involves standard noir tropes, with a Coen Brothers take on it.
A great Frances McDormand stars as Abby, who is cheating on her husband Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya) with Ray (John Getz). A private detective uncovers the affair, and then things just go downhill. There is a disconnect between what the audience sees and what is actually true, a classic film noir technique; one character is buried alive in a horrific scene, and later he is back in the picture, even though it was assumed that he was murdered. It’s all very confusing but leads to an extremely satisfying outcome. M. Emmet Walsh is great in one of the film’s smaller roles.

4 Body Heat

Like Against All Odds, Body Heat could have come right out of the 1940s and feels more like a classic noir than a neo-noir. The film is based on the classic noir film, Double Indemnity, which is itself based on a James M. Cain book. The title refers to the lustful desires of the characters, in particular Kathleen Turner, who gives a wild and erotic performance. Ned, played by William Hurt, starts a steamy erotic affair with married Matty (Kathleen Turner, in arguably her greatest performance).
Her husband is away, and when he returns it is hard to continue the affair. Ned is a lawyer and goes to one of the criminals he has represented, played by an amazing Mickey Rourke, who is an expert on bombs and explosives. They enlist his help in killing Matty’s husband. Because this is a film noir, everything goes wrong with this seemingly easy-to-pull off crime. What makes this great is Kathleen Turner’s femme fatale character. She is as evil, seductive, manipulative, and steamy as any film noir femme fatale.

3 Scarface

Scarface is another Brian De Palma neo-noir, an update of the 30s gangster and mafia movie which was a progenitor of noir. The film is about Tony Montana (perfectly played by Al Pacino) who emigrates from Cuba and violently works his way up the drug trade chain until he runs an empire that is one of the biggest cocaine organizations in Florida. Of course, the police officers and others charged with stopping Tony are corrupt. All this corruption is a standard noir trope. Tony rises to the top of the underworld after killing his boss and falling for his boss’ wife (Michelle Pfeiffer), and vastly extending the reach of his cocaine empire. He breaks the crucial rule for high-ranking drug leaders, which is “Don’t get high on your own supply.” Tony consumes massive quantities of cocaine, and this severely affects his judgment and ability to make decisions.
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After he thwarts an important assassination, the highest-ranking cartel members in South America send a team of assassins after him. Meanwhile, he kills his best friend and the fiancé of his sister in a jealous incestuous rage. In one famous scene, one of Tony’s men has his arm chainsawed off. There is corruption at every level: the police, federal agents, the bankers who launder the drug money, and everyone else getting rich on cocaine money, a kind of systemic corruption representative of typically cynical film noirs. Tony’s final confrontation with the team of assassins is epic and one of the most beloved scenes in the movie. This is both a noir and a cult film and a gangster film and a drug war film all in one, and Al Pacino is absolutely perfect as one cinema’s great bad guys, the legendary Tony Montana.

2 Against All Odds

In 1984, director Taylor Hackford directed a remake of the classic 1947 Out of the Past called Against All Odds. Terry Brogan, played by Jeff Bridges, is a football player whose career is over, yet he still fights to return to the field. He is unsuccessful and turns to Jake Wise (masterfully played by James Woods), a former associate and a scam artist, blackmailer and killer. He tells Terry that his girlfriend Jessie Wyler (a classic femme fatale role played by Rachel Ward) has stolen his money and fled the country. Wise hires Terry to find his girlfriend.
Terry takes the job, but there is an ulterior motive, as Jake has blackmail material on Terry, who cheated while playing football. Terry finds her in beautiful Cozumel, Mexico. The cinematography is first-rate, giving us a noir view of a Mexico filled with secrets, something hearkening back to Out of the Past, Touch of Evil, and other excellent classic noirs. It remains one of the more underrated movies of the 1980s.

1 Blade Runner

Blade Runner is a great example of how diverse film noirs could be, as it is the only science fiction film in this list. Directed by Ridley Scott and based on the short story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by the visionary author Philip K Dick. The film takes place in a cyberpunk world and involves artificial intelligence robots known as Replicants who, through installed manufactured memories, believe they are human, and are unaware of their limited life space.
Harrison Ford’s Deckard wanders through the dark, neon-lit streets as it rains heavily, and shady characters are everywhere in a world of lust, greed, anger, and desire for power. These scenes could be right out of a vintage film noir like Double Indemnity, except that they are in color and feature great special effects. Blade Runner is not just a great noir or a great science fiction film; it is among the best films ever made. Avoid the studio cut and seek out the Director’s Cut. Rutger Hauer’s performance is legendary, as is his final speech, and Sean Young also makes a strong impression in this Ridley Scott film.

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