Street with no name: a history of the classic American film noir

Flourishing in the United States during the 1940s and 50s, the bleak, violent genre of filmmaking known as film noir often reflected the attitudes of writers and directors whose lives and work were affected by the events that followed World War I.

Many of the films were indelibly American, and yet the sources of this genre are to be found mainly in Germany and France, and emigrant writers and directors who developed the form in the United States.

This history of film noir traces the style back to its German expressionist (1920s) and French cinema golden age (1930s) forerunners.

The genre's influence on celebrated French new wave filmmakers is also examined, as is noir's contemporary manifestation in the cinema since 1975.