Very interesting results by casting a net widely. For one thing, the dominant character of neo-noir changes every few years. Early on, there's a atrain of the macho hero, a kind of vigilante who picks up from Bronson in Death Wish. Norris, Stallone, Van Damme do this. And they're not alone. A good many men appear as revengers and justice or retribution providers. This strain diminishes after the 70s and 80s. Arnold S. comes in. The comic element in a crime context is evident quite early, and it might build on much earlier Bob Hope vehicles or even 30s styles.

I think that if a scholar would take the entire list seriously as what people think of as neo-noir and tabulate the kinds of content we see over time, objectively, some very interesting stylized facts might emerge. The real maturatioon of neo-noir in terms of color palette lighting and other techniques comes more in the 90s and later. The more troubling content about identity is relatively recent, but there are always some earlier proto-movies. The action film has changed. The role of police has changed. The roles of females have broadened, and the male protagonist has altered considerably, not always but quite often, from the strong types to become a mess. But I think one has to count up the various types to get an accurate idea, and to do that one has to get into a thousand movies.


1986 Cobra
1986 Running Scared
1986 Wanted: Dead or Alive
1987 Untouchables, The
1987 Believers, The
1987 Tough Guys Don’t Dance
1987 Terminal Exposure
1987 Stranger, The
1988 Midnight Run
1988 Hero and the Terror
1988 Blue Iguana, The
1988 Last Rites
1988 Legend of Wolf Lodge, The aka Into the Fire
1988 Shadows in the Storm
1989 Renegades
1990 Darkman
1990 Lionheart
1990 Dark Angel
1990 Downtown
1990 Love at Large
1991 Rapture, The
1991 Company Business
1991 Blood and Concrete
1991 Leather Jackets
1992 Hoffa
1992 Knight Moves
1992 CIA Code Name: Alexa
1992 Harvest, The
1992 Silencer, The
1992 Maximum Force
1992 Delta Heat
1992 Ulterior Motives
1993 Mad Dog and Glory
1993 Cool Surface, The
1993 Sins of the Night
1993 Slaughter of the Innocents
1993 Street Knight
1993 Bitter Harvest
1993 Point of Impact
1993 Outfit, The
1994 Color of Night
1994 Trial by Jury
1994 Backstreet Justice
1994 Walker Texas Ranger 3: Deadly Reunion
1994 Caroline at Midnight
1994 Ring of Steel
1994 Hard Truth, The
1994 Rook, The
1994 Art Deco Detective