Crime & Westerns

Two American genres and what they became. The gangster cycle and film noir, The Godfather, Bonnie and Clyde, the classic western, Leone and the spaghetti westerns, and the revisionist films that pulled them apart.

Part of Films

34 moments in this segment.

1. 1941-10-03 - The Maltese Falcon. John Huston's directorial debut. Bogart as Sam Spade. The film that announced film noir as a genre and turned hard-boiled detective fiction into the dominant American style.
2. 1941-10-03 - Maltese Falcon (1941) Official Trailer - Humphrey Bogart Movie. 00:02:43
3. 1944-07-06 - Double Indemnity. Billy Wilder, from a James M. Cain story Raymond Chandler rewrote. The noir blueprint, venetian-blind shadows, doomed lovers, insurance fraud, voiceover narration. Wilder taught Chandler to script and Chandler taught Wilder to drink.
4. 1944-07-06 - Double Indemnity Official Trailer #1 - Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck Movie (1944) HD. 00:02:15
5. 1949-09-01 - The Third Man. Carol Reed. Postwar Vienna in tilted angles and chiaroscuro. Orson Welles's Harry Lime delivers the cuckoo-clock speech (which Welles wrote himself). One of the great noirs.
6. 1949-09-01 - The Third Man | Official Trailer. 00:01:34
7. 1967-08-04 - Bonnie and Clyde. Arthur Penn. Beatty and Dunaway as glamorous bank robbers. The shocking violence and amoral heroes scandalised critics and announced New Hollywood. Pauline Kael's 9,000-word New Yorker rave made her career.
8. 1967-08-04 - Bonnie And Clyde (1967) Official Trailer #1 - Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway Movie. 00:02:54
9. 1971-10-07 - The French Connection. William Friedkin. The car-chasing-the-elevated-train sequence was shot without permits at 90mph. Gene Hackman as Popeye Doyle won Best Actor. First R-rated Best Picture.
10. 1971-10-07 - The French Connection (1971) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. 00:02:47
11. 1972-03-15 - The Godfather. Francis Ford Coppola. Brando as Vito Corleone; Pacino's coming-of-age as Michael. The greatest American film by general critical consensus. Made Mario Puzo's pulp novel into Greek tragedy.
12. 1973-10-14 - Mean Streets. Martin Scorsese's breakthrough. Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro in Little Italy. The Stones on the soundtrack. Scorsese's lifelong project, Catholic guilt, low-level criminals, jukebox needle drops, begins here.
13. 1973-10-14 - Mean Streets - Original Theatrical Trailer. 00:03:38
14. 1974-06-20 - Chinatown. Roman Polanski, script by Robert Towne. Jack Nicholson investigating the LA water wars. The pure neo-noir; Towne's screenplay is taught in every film school. "Forget it, Jake."
15. 1974-06-20 - Chinatown (1974) Trailer #1 | Movieclips Classic Trailers. 00:03:16
16. 1976-02-08 - Taxi Driver. Scorsese, script by Paul Schrader. De Niro's Travis Bickle. "You talkin' to me?" John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate Reagan to impress Jodie Foster, who plays a 12-year-old prostitute in the film.
17. 1976-02-08 - TAXI DRIVER [1976] - Official Trailer (HD). ) · 00:03:05
18. 1983-12-09 - Scarface. Brian De Palma + Oliver Stone script. Al Pacino as Tony Montana. Critically panned, banned in some markets, became the most quoted gangster film in hip-hop history.
19. 1983-12-09 - Scarface Trailer HD (1983). Director: Brian De Palma Cast: Al Pacino, Steven Bauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio Plot: In 1980 Miami, a determined Cuban immigrant takes over a drug empire while succumbing to greed.
20. 1990-09-08 - GoodFellas. Scorsese. Henry Hill's rise and fall in the Lucchese crime family. The Copacabana Steadicam shot. The pure narrative drive that defined gangster cinema for the next 30 years.
21. 1990-09-08 - Goodfellas (1990) Official Trailer #1 - Martin Scorsese Movie. 00:01:28
22. 1992-01-21 - Reservoir Dogs. Quentin Tarantino's debut, $1.2M budget. Non-linear timeline, profanity-as-music, mid-heist diner conversation. Made him an instant figure and primed the world for Pulp Fiction.
23. 1992-01-21 - Reservoir Dogs (1992) Official Trailer #1 - Quentin Tarantino Movie. 00:02:04
24. 1992-08-03 - Unforgiven. Clint Eastwood. The deconstructed Western, aging gunfighters with no glamour, only consequence. Won Best Picture; Eastwood's "It's a hell of a thing, killing a man" closed out the genre as a moral exercise.
25. 1992-08-03 - Unforgiven (1992) Official Trailer - Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman Movie H. 00:01:56
26. 1994-05-21 - Pulp Fiction. Tarantino. Won the Palme d'Or, reset what an independent film could earn, brought Travolta back, made the diner-philosophy-monologue a cinema staple. The most influential film of the 1990s.
27. 1994-05-21 - Pulp Fiction Official Trailer #1 - (1994) HD. 00:03:06
28. 1995-12-15 - Heat. Michael Mann. Pacino and De Niro on screen together, for one diner scene, for the first time. The downtown LA bank-robbery shootout. The high-water mark for the LA crime film.
29. 1995-12-15 - Heat Trailer HD (1995). ) · 00:02:27
30. 2002-05-18 - City of God. Fernandes Meirelles. Cast Rio favela non-actors. Burst of energy that put Latin American cinema back on the world map. Made gritty, kinetic poverty-cinema briefly fashionable.
31. 2002-05-18 - City of God (2002) Official Trailer - Crime Drama HD. 00:01:04
32. 2007-05-19 - No Country for Old Men. Coen brothers. Javier Bardem's coin-flip killer. Won Best Picture. Single-handedly restored the dread-Western to American cinema; ended with a monologue rather than a resolution.
33. 2007-05-19 - No Country For Old Men (2007) Official Trailer - Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem Movie HD. 00:02:31
34. 2022-01-13 - THE GODFATHER | 50th Anniversary Trailer | Paramount Pictures. 00:02:00