With so many flavors of noir and so many movies to choose from, it isn’t easy doing a top ten list—let alone a top five—of what I consider to be some of my favorite genres.

But, I gave it the old Sam Spade try.

For the sake of not being obvious, I couldn’t include my top classic commercial entries—Maltese Falcon, Key Largo, Casablanca (don’t even start), Dark Passage, or The Big Sleep. Cripe, did I really just name all Bogey pictures?

Check out my full discussion of some of my favorite American film noir and (mostly) Nouvelle Vague offerings over at The Truffaut Affair movie site.