The French Connection
Billy Friedkin nails it. Gene Hackman and Roy Scheider nail it. Composer Don Ellis nails it. Cinematographer Owen Roizman nails it. Editor Jerry Greenberg nails it. Stunt coordinator Bill Hickman nails it. Basically, consider everything nailed. And that dark, unresolved ending!
Double Indemnity
Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler team up to give us the quintessential noir, in which greedy insurance salesman Fred MacMurray plots with blonde siren Barbara Stanwyck to bump off her old man and cash in a life policy. But they figured without the dogged determination of claims adjustor Edward G Robinson.
Bound
The Warchowskis handle neo noir with aplomb, with a taut, gender-bending take on femme fatales as gangster’s moll Jennifer Tilly hatches a plan with ex-jailbird Gina Gershon, at the expense of brutal mob launderer Joe Pantoliano. A bold and striking first feature.
A Week In Film 