Now playing on the Criterion Channel: https://www.criterionchannel.com/1950-peak-noir The nihilistic shadow that loomed over postwar Hollywood was at its darkest in 1950, the year when the highest number of noir films were released. Ranging from canonical classics to hidden gems, these movies found directors like Nicholas Ray, Billy Wilder, and John Huston pushing noir beyond hard-boiled detective stories and hybridizing it with other genres: social-problem films tackling racism (NO WAY OUT) and mob violence (TRY AND GET ME!), melodrama and “women’s pictures” (CAGED, THE DAMNED DON’T CRY), heist capers (THE ASPHALT JUNGLE), road movies (GUN CRAZY), and even cynical self-portraits of Hollywood itself (SUNSET BOULEVARD, IN A LONELY PLACE). Exemplars of a move toward realism in Hollywood—many feature location shooting; true-crime sources; a grittier, less glamorous visual palette; and bleaker endings—these films exemplify the studio system at its peak, as well as the radical changes coming to the movies and the country itself.