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Answers: what does it mean and where does it come from?

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Film noir is french for black (dark) film. It's related to crime drama but isn't quite crime drama. The movies focus on characters who who put up against a world that doesn't care. The setting is always urban. The plot focuses on characters who make one small mistake and the mistakes lead to bigger mistakes and eventually a character's downfall. Reasons for this are money, femme fatales (ladies who men would kill and die for), and the average greed and what not.
Lighting is always dark and never forget the venitian blinds.

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The term "film noir" means "black film" in French.

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography, while many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Depression.

First applied to Hollywood movies by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, was unknown to most American film industry professionals of the era. Film noir's aesthetics are deeply influenced by German Expressionism, a cinematic movement of the 1910s and 1920s. An important, and possibly influential, cinematic antecedent to classic noir was 1930s French poetic realism, with its romantic, fatalistic attitude and celebration of doomed heroes; an acknowledged influence on certain trends in noir was 1940s Italian neorealism, with its emphasis on quasi-documentary authenticity.

These films include:
low-key lighting schemes producing stark light/dark contrasts and dramatic shadow patterning.
Film noir is also known for its use of Dutch angles, low-angle shots, and wide-angle lenses and other devices of disorientation
Location shooting
Flashbacks, flashforwards, and other techniques that disrupt and sometimes obscure the narrative sequence.
Voice over narration
Crime, usually murder, greed, jealousy
False suspicions and accusations of crime
flawed heroes
alienation
urban setting

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There are French film noir films but it is primarily an American tradition. Next ask which is our favorite. I love Gilda and Big Heat!!! I recently saw Railroaded. That was great too.

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