The Golden Era of Suspense by Nate Dow

by starsofheaven-dow | created - 04 Jul 2013 | updated - 24 Aug 2013 | Public

Suspense... these are movies that might have some.

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1. The Big Steal (1949)

Approved | 71 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Romance

An army lieutenant accused of robbery pursues the real thief on a frantic chase through Mexico aided by the thief's fiancee.

Director: Don Siegel | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, William Bendix, Patric Knowles

Votes: 5,391

Very, very good dialogue.

2. Pickup on South Street (1953)

Passed | 80 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

A pickpocket unwittingly lifts a message destined for enemy agents and becomes a target for a Communist spy ring.

Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye

Votes: 16,159

Just think the next time you pick someones pocket... death could be in that pocket.

3. Run for the Sun (1956)

Approved | 99 min | Adventure, Thriller

In Central America, an action-adventure novelist and a journalist for a magazine find themselves at the mercy of Nazi war criminals.

Director: Roy Boulting | Stars: Richard Widmark, Trevor Howard, Jane Greer, Peter van Eyck

Votes: 1,517

Dishonesty never pays. Someone always gets hurt.

4. His Kind of Woman (1951)

Approved | 120 min | Action, Crime, Film-Noir

A deported gangster's plan to re-enter the USA involves skulduggery at a Mexican resort, and gambler Dan Milner is caught in the middle.

Directors: John Farrow, Richard Fleischer | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, Vincent Price, Tim Holt

Votes: 4,963

Awesome movie. Someone should tell them that hot Irons burn things. now why did i say that... it will come to me eventually.

5. Macao (1952)

Passed | 81 min | Adventure, Crime, Drama

Nick Cochran, an American in exile in Macao, has a chance to restore his name by helping capture an international crime lord. Undercover, can he mislead the bad guys and still woo the attractive singer/petty crook, Julie Benson?

Directors: Josef von Sternberg, Mel Ferrer, Nicholas Ray, Robert Stevenson | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell, William Bendix, Thomas Gomez

Votes: 3,812

A case of mistaken identity. well you try to convince a scared crook your not the police.

6. Notorious (1946)

Not Rated | 102 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Romance

100 Metascore

The daughter of a convicted German spy is asked by American agents to gather information on a ring of German scientists in South America. How far will she have to go to ingratiate herself with them?

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern

Votes: 107,334 | Gross: $10.46M

One of Cary Grant's more interesting films.

7. Saboteur (1942)

Passed | 109 min | Thriller, War

64 Metascore

A young man accused of sabotage goes on the run to prove his innocence.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Priscilla Lane, Robert Cummings, Otto Kruger, Alan Baxter

Votes: 28,000

There is nothing like being hand-cuffed to the prime suspect. wait... that was the other movie.

8. Spellbound (1945)

Approved | 111 min | Film-Noir, Mystery, Romance

78 Metascore

A psychiatrist protects the identity of an amnesia patient accused of murder while attempting to recover his memory.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll

Votes: 52,271 | Gross: $7.00M

"You have Amnesia but Freud is hooey this you know." I happen to know too and i don't have amnesia.

9. Laura (1944)

Passed | 88 min | Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery

A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he is investigating.

Directors: Otto Preminger, Rouben Mamoulian | Stars: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price

Votes: 51,509 | Gross: $4.36M

The only thing more haunting then her picture over the fire place is the theme song.

10. Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950)

Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Det. Sgt. Mark Dixon wants to be something his old man wasn't: a guy on the right side of the law. Will Dixon's vicious nature get the better of him?

Director: Otto Preminger | Stars: Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Gary Merrill, Bert Freed

Votes: 9,973

I love the restaurant they eat at I'd like to eat there myself.

11. The Fearmakers (1958)

Approved | 85 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A Korean War veteran returns to Washington D.C. only to discover his business partner had died and their public-research business sold, so he works there undercover to find out the truth.

Director: Jacques Tourneur | Stars: Dana Andrews, Dick Foran, Marilee Earle, Veda Ann Borg

Votes: 849

I love the film. absolutely love it.

12. Rear Window (1954)

PG | 112 min | Mystery, Thriller

100 Metascore

A wheelchair-bound photographer spies on his neighbors from his Greenwich Village courtyard apartment window and, despite the skepticism of his fashion-model girlfriend, becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter

Votes: 522,500 | Gross: $36.76M

13. To Catch a Thief (1955)

PG | 106 min | Mystery, Romance, Thriller

82 Metascore

A retired jewel thief sets out to prove his innocence after being suspected of returning to his former occupation.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock | Stars: Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams

Votes: 79,820 | Gross: $8.75M

Danger is so overrated.

14. Ransom! (1956)

Approved | 109 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

After the child of wealthy parents gets abducted, the police and a member of the press intervene to assist the parents in their search but end up complicating their impending decisions.

Director: Alex Segal | Stars: Glenn Ford, Donna Reed, Leslie Nielsen, Juano Hernandez

Votes: 2,330

Philosophy! interesting thing theories you never know if there true.

15. While the City Sleeps (1956)

Approved | 100 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A serial killer has been killing beautiful women in New York and the new owner of a media company offers a high ranking job to the first of his senior executives who can get the earliest scoops on the case.

Director: Fritz Lang | Stars: Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders, Howard Duff

Votes: 7,083

this movie was a bit ahead of its time. maybe not nothing new under the sun. was yester years so much better...?

16. The Big Clock (1948)

Not Rated | 95 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A magazine tycoon commits a murder and pins it on an innocent man, who then tries to solve the murder himself.

Director: John Farrow | Stars: Ray Milland, Maureen O'Sullivan, Charles Laughton, George Macready

Votes: 9,544

17. The Big Sleep (1946)

Passed | 114 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

86 Metascore

Private detective Philip Marlowe is hired by a wealthy family. Before the complex case is over, he's seen murder, blackmail and what might be love.

Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers

Votes: 90,561 | Gross: $6.54M

The next few movies are Bogart and Bacall. Great Chemistry and why not they where married by the time "The Big Sleep" was released. To Have and Have Not was when they met.

18. Key Largo (1948)

Approved | 100 min | Action, Crime, Drama

A man visits his war buddy's family hotel and finds a gangster running things. As a hurricane approaches, the two end up confronting each other.

Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore

Votes: 44,002

19. Dark Passage (1947)

Passed | 106 min | Film-Noir, Thriller

68 Metascore

A man convicted of murdering his wife escapes from prison and works with a woman to try to prove his innocence.

Director: Delmer Daves | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bruce Bennett, Agnes Moorehead

Votes: 22,060

20. To Have and Have Not (1944)

Passed | 100 min | Adventure, Comedy, Film-Noir

90 Metascore

During World War II, American expatriate Harry Morgan helps transport a French Resistance leader and his beautiful wife to Martinique while romancing a sensuous lounge singer.

Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Walter Brennan, Dolores Moran

Votes: 38,019

21. Lady in the Lake (1946)

Passed | 105 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

The lady editor of a crime magazine hires Phillip Marlowe to find the wife of her boss. The private detective soon finds himself involved in murder.

Director: Robert Montgomery | Stars: Robert Montgomery, Audrey Totter, Lloyd Nolan, Tom Tully

Votes: 6,376

Interesting movie. you only see the hero when he looks in the Mirror.

22. Ten Little Indians (1965)

Not Rated | 91 min | Crime, Mystery, Thriller

Ten people are invited to a luxury mountaintop mansion, only to find that an unseen person is killing them one by one. Could one of them be the killer?

Director: George Pollock | Stars: Hugh O'Brian, Shirley Eaton, Fabian, Leo Genn

Votes: 5,301

Some say this was Agatha Christie's best Book.

23. Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

Approved | 116 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

76 Metascore

A veteran British barrister must defend his client in a murder trial that has surprise after surprise.

Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, Elsa Lanchester

Votes: 137,982 | Gross: $8.18M

Agatha Christie wrote another masterpiece with this one.

24. On Dangerous Ground (1951)

Approved | 82 min | Drama, Film-Noir

78 Metascore

Rough city cop Jim Wilson is disciplined by his captain and is sent upstate, to a snowy mountain town, to help the local sheriff solve a murder case.

Directors: Nicholas Ray, Ida Lupino | Stars: Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond, Charles Kemper

Votes: 8,073

How the seeing are so blind... at least I think so.

25. The Dark Corner (1946)

Passed | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A secretary tries to help her boss who's been framed for murder.

Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: Lucille Ball, Clifton Webb, William Bendix, Mark Stevens

Votes: 5,212

26. I Love Trouble (1948)

Passed | 93 min | Crime, Film-Noir, Mystery

P.I. Stu is hired to investigate the past of a millionaire Johnson's wife who is missing. Stu finds that the wife had left her home town with an actor, went to college using a stolen identity and purloined $40,000 from a night club.

Director: S. Sylvan Simon | Stars: Franchot Tone, Janet Blair, Janis Carter, Adele Jergens

Votes: 1,044

Some private-eyes never learn.

27. Impact (1949)

Passed | 111 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

A unfaithful wife plots with her lover to kill her husband, but the lover is accidentally killed instead. The husband stays in hiding and lets his wife be charged with conspiracy.

Director: Arthur Lubin | Stars: Brian Donlevy, Ella Raines, Charles Coburn, Helen Walker

Votes: 4,724

Ella Rains is fantastic in the film. It is also great to see guy that usually plays the villain have the starring role.

28. Mirage (1965)

Approved | 108 min | Mystery, Thriller

An accountant suddenly suffers from amnesia. This appears related to the suicide of his boss. Now some violent thugs are out to get him. They work for a shadowy figure known simply as The Major.

Director: Edward Dmytryk | Stars: Gregory Peck, Diane Baker, Walter Matthau, Kevin McCarthy

Votes: 5,953 | Gross: $3.27M

Mirage. A wonderful movie on humanity. Question is caring just a mirage.

29. Borderline (1950)

Approved | 88 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir

Two undercover agents infiltrate a drug-smuggling ring in Mexico, but neither is aware of the other's identity.

Director: William A. Seiter | Stars: Fred MacMurray, Claire Trevor, Raymond Burr, José Torvay

Votes: 1,630

I thought you where suppose to be relieved when you found out the person you like isn't a crook.

30. Doomed Cargo (1936)

Not Rated | 67 min | Crime, Thriller

A wise cracking American P.I. traveling abroad with his love interest and sidekick, stumbles on to a dead body. After it disappears again, he starts to unravel a devious crime ring.

Director: Albert de Courville | Stars: Edmund Lowe, Constance Cummings, Thomy Bourdelle, Henry Oscar

Votes: 421

This is another movie with great dialogue.



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