This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene ...

Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Starring: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson
Directed By: Otto Preminger, Rouben Mamoulian

Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Starring: Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, William Bendix, Howard Da Silva, Doris Dowling
Directed By: George Marshall

Fritz Lang did his best work in Hollywood throughout the 1940s, and The Woman in the Window ranks among his best films from that period. Equally adept at crafting first-rate Westerns and melodramatic thrillers, Lang returned to the latter category for The Woman in the Window, a deliciously devious follow-up to 1944's Ministry of Fear and a near-perfect companion piece to ...

Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, Raymond Massey, Edmund Breon, Dan Duryea
Directed By: Fritz Lang

Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Starring: Doris Day, Rex Harrison, John Gavin, Myrna Loy, Roddy McDowall
Directed By: David Miller

The fractured Europe post-World War II is perfectly captured in Carol Reed's masterpiece thriller, set in a Vienna still shell-shocked from battle. Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) is an alcoholic pulp writer come to visit his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). But when Cotton first arrives in Vienna, Lime's funeral is under way. From Lime's girlfriend and an occupying British officer, Martins ...

Manufacturer: Homevision
Starring: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, Trevor Howard, Bernard Lee
Directed By: Carol Reed

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made screen history together more than once, but they were never more popular than in this 1946 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel, directed by Howard Hawks (To Have and Have Not). Bogart plays private eye Philip Marlowe, who is hired by a wealthy socialite (Bacall) to look into troubles stirred up by her wild, young sister (Martha Vickers). Legendarily ...

Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Dorothy Malone
Directed By: Howard Hawks

Manufacturer: MGM (Warner)
Starring: Robert Taylor, Lana Turner, Edward Arnold, Van Heflin, Robert Sterling
Directed By: Mervyn LeRoy

Manufacturer: Universal Pictures
Starring: Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis, Aurora Miranda, Thomas Gomez
Directed By: Robert Siodmak

Manufacturer: MGM (Warner)
Starring: Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Zachary Scott, Faye Emerson, Victor Francen
Directed By: Jean Negulesco

Director Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard) and writer Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep) adapted James M. Cain's hard-boiled novel into this wildly thrilling story of insurance man Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), who schemes the perfect murder with the beautiful dame Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck): kill Dietrichson's husband and make off with the insurance money. But, of course, in ...

Manufacturer: MCA/Universal Home Video
Starring: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall, Jean Heather
Directed By: Billy Wilder