NOIR CITY: D.C. begins October 11 at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center running for 14 days through Thursday, October 24. Following this year’s festival theme "Darkness Has No Borders," the D.C. lineup features 15 thematically linked double bills connecting non-English language noir films wiith movies made in the United States and United Kingdom. Highlights include the 4K restoration of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï (1967) paired with This Gun for Hire (1942) and the FNF’s latest restoration No abras nunca esa puerta (Never Open that Door – 1952 Argentina) followed by the FNF preservation print of Si muero antes de despertar (If I Should Die Before I Wake – 1952 Argentina) - the last part of a Cornell Woolrich trilogy originally planned for Never Open that Door but released as a stand-alone feature.
FNF founder Eddie Muller will introduce screenings during the festival's opening weekend, October 11–13. Film historian and FNF board member Foster Hirsch will introduce screenings October 18–20.
NOIR CITY: D.C. All-Access Pass - $200
The All-Access pass gives you admission to every screening at NOIR CITY D.C. (Oct. 11–24) at a significant discount, plus the opportunity to attend an exclusive passholder reception with Eddie Muller on Thursday evening, October 10.
All-Access Passes and individual tickets for the NOIR CITY D.C. film festival are now available on the AFI website.
NOIR CITY: D.C.: Oct 11-24
AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center
Silver Spring, MD
NOIR CITY: Philadelphia: Nov 15-17
The Colonial Theatre, Phoenixville, PA
NOIR CITY XMAS: Dec 18
Grand Lake Theatre, Oakland, CA
Join us at Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre for NOIR CITY 22, January 24 - February 2, 2025. There's something for everyone at 2025's festival as we screen double bills featuring the winsome women of film noir. Eddie Muller, FNF founder and host of TCM's Noir Alley, will be your guide through a 10-day journey with the women who made film noir fatale! Passports and tickets will be available later this year!
If you're an out-of-towner looking for lodging in Oakland, the Courtyard by Marriott Oakland Downtown is offering discounted room rates for NOIR CITY 22 festival guests. For the dates Thursday, January 23, through Sunday, February 2, you can get a room with a King bed or two Queen beds for $149/night plus tax. Located at 988 Broadway in downtown Oakland, the hotel is 2 miles from the Grand Lake Theatre.
⚠ To take advantage of this special $149/night room, your booking must be made on or before Friday, December 20, 2024.
NOTE For a stay of seven or more days, the Courtyard is offering a rate of $139/night + tax. For a long-term stay, please contact the hotel at 510-625-8282 and mention the NOIR CITY 22 special festival rate.
NOIR CITY returns to Phoenixville’s historical Colonial Theatre, November 15-17. Join FNF prez Eddie Muller for a three-day extravaganza featuring 10 films with the theme “Darkness Has No Borders”. This year’s program is tailored to satisfy folks who love noir that’s full of the colorful vernacular slang so essential to American and British noir—as well as adventurous viewers intrigued by a familiar story–a crime committed for passion or profit—playing out in cultures with different values, mores, and styles.
The festival opens Friday night with a salute to pulp writer Cornell Woolrich, the new FNF-funded restoration of the 1952 Argentine film No abras nunca esa puerta (Never Open That Door) followed by the FNF preservation print of Si muero antes de despertar (If I Should Die Before I Wake – 1952 Argentina) - the last part of a Cornell Woolrich trilogy originally planned for Never Open that Door but released as a stand-alone feature. Hollywood’s big screen adaptation of Woolrich’s Street of Chance (1952) finishes the evening. UCLA Film & Television Archive performed the restoration and preservation.
The Saturday matinee screenings comprise two prison break films, Black Tuesday (1954) and Jacques Becker’s Le trou (The Hole). The evening screenings feature two existential classics, the U.K. production The Bridge (1957) and Japan’s Zero no shoten (1961). Sunday’s program begins with two heist films, John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle (1944) and Symphonie pour un massacre (1963). The festival closes with two L. A. set noirs Murder by Contract (1958) and Italy’s Smog (1962).
Schedule, singe feature tickets ($20), and double feature tickets ($40) are available on the Colonial Theatre’s website.
At NOIR CITY 21 festival in Oakland, the Film Noir Foundation announced the recipient of 2024’s FNF-Nancy Mysel Legacy Grant — Lucas Cullen from the Selznick School in Rochester, New York. Lucas was gracious enough to supply us with an on-screen acceptance/thank-you video the audience could enjoy. READ MORE
The revised and expanded edition of FNF prez and Noir Alley host Eddie Muller's Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir is now available for purchase from the TCM Shop or your favorite bookseller. + READ MORE
We are proud to announce the release of two FNF restorations as Blu‑ray/DVD combos from Flicker Alley: The Bitter Stems and The Beast Must Die, two classics of Argentine noir.. → READ MORE
Did you know that The Film Noir Foundation livestreams every two weeks on our Facebook page in which Eddie Muller answers questions submitted by our e‑mail subscribers? All previous broadcasts are available on our YouTube broadcast archives page.
→ Subscribe to our mailing list, so you can get your question answered.
The next ASK EDDIE will broadcast on Facebook October 24 and on YouTube the following day.
Limited-time offer. The historic Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Oregon, has partnered with the Film Noir Foundation and Portland artist Matty Newton to create a sensational t-shirt design celebrating film noir. Pre-order your t-shirt now for $25 (plus tax, if applicable) and support the FNF with your purchase! Through November 30, the Hollywood Theatre will donate 10% of the Film Noir Forever t-shirt net proceeds to the Film Noir Foundation in honor of Noir-vember this year!
Shirts begin shipping USPS mid-November. Orders placed by November 30 will deliver by December 23.
Film Noir UK presents the Film Noir Fest 2024, Friday November 1 through Sunday, November 3 comprising 24 films featuring multiple “event strands”; Dangerous Divas, Lauren Bacall at 100, 1950s Mexican Noir, London Noir and Heritage Noir.
Set in the heart of Weston-super-Mare, Film Noir Fest is the UK's only film festival dedicated to showcasing the many aspects of film noir and classic crime films on the big screen.
The festival kicks off on Friday night with a salute to Lee Marvin at 100, a double feature of Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat (1953) and Point Blank (1967) with a recorded introduction by the latter’s director John Borman. The next two days feature 10 classic film noirs played simultaneously in two houses and then a neo-noir night featuring a 9:00 p.m. screening of Body Heat (1981) on Saturday and The Last Seduction (1994) on Sunday.
Go here for the complete lowdown including tickets, passes, schedule, and recommendations for where to stay and where to eat.
FNF prez Eddie Muller's newest book, NOIR BAR: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir combines two of his greatest passions, film noir and cocktails.
In the words of the author, "Noir Bar offers a booze-based excursion through America's most popular film genre, pairing easy-to-master recipes with the kind of behind-the-scenes anecdotes that I like to include in my film intros and books." Some of the drinks are the ones being imbibed on screen and some are named after the films, the characters or the actors themselves. The recipes came from a variety of sources including Ernest Hemmingway and Sam Fuller. Some were even created by Eddie himself. Eddie also draws on his past as a bartender to coach you on the supplies and the techniques you will need to create these libations in your own home. The book is stylishly laid out and filled with movie stills, poster art, behind-the-scenes images, and cocktail photography. The book is available from Running Press.
Preserved by the Film Noir Foundation in 2013 and now beautifully restored through the UCLA Film & Television Archive, Never Open That Door (No abras nunca esa puerta) is a significant example of the cross-cultural cinematic legacy shared by the United States and Argentina during the post-WWII era. Based on two short stories by American master of suspense fiction Cornell Woolrich, the film is brilliantly directed by Argentine filmmaker Carlos Hugo Christensen with extraordinary cinematography by Pablo Tabernero. ORDER YOUR COPY
Says FNF founder Eddie Muller about this recent restoration, “It is a revelation to experience the work of an all-American author, in Spanish, and rendered as well – or perhaps better – than any Hollywood adaptation of his work.”
Originally a three-part anthology of Woolrich tales, Never Open That Door was released separately from the 73-minute film If I Should Die Before I Wake (Si muero antes de despertar) adapted by screenwriter Alejandro Casona and Christensen. An exceedingly rare archival conservation scan of If I Should Die Before I Wake is featured in this publication.
BONUS MATERIALS INCLUDE:
✽ Introduction by author, film historian, and "noirchaeologist" Eddie Muller
✽ Audio commentary by author and film historian Guido Segal
✽ New documentary on Cornell Woolrich
✽ Newly recorded conversation - with Argentina's leading film archivist and cinema historian Fernando Martín Peña
Argentine director Román Viñoly Barreto's El vampiro negro (The Black Vampire) is available from Flicker Alley in a deluxe Blu‑ray/DVD edition. A virtually unknown remake of Fritz Lang's seminal 1931 thriller M, this 1953 Argentine noir is a female-centered take on the tale. + READ MORE
Come follow us on Tumblr to indulge your passion for noir! We'll be posting daily, celebrating all things noir with exclusive stills and images you won't see anywhere else, as well as trailers, film clips, and more.
Share our posts with your friends; your love of the art form is the Foundation's biggest asset in its mission to preserve and restore classics of the genre. We are also fully committed to present our rescued films in the way they were meant to be seen: in 35mm at our NOIR CITY festivals around the country.
NOIR CITY MAGAZINE - DIGITAL VERSION
For access to the best writing on noir available today, and to enjoy one of the most cutting-edge interactive multimedia cinema publications in the world, subscribe to NOIR CITY®.
Start by adding your name to our mailing list and then making a donation to the FNF of $20 or more. View the Table of Contents for the current issue here.
Keep us posted on noir news and events in your area! Email Anne Hockens, Film Noir Foundation news and events editor.