You’ve probably seen The Maltese Falcon and Double Indemnity dozens of times. And maybe you’re familiar with Gilda and Mildred Pierce. But are you wise to Behind Locked Doors? How about Quai des Orfèvres , Railroaded or Bob le Flambeur? Well if you’re not, then you don’t know from nothing, Jasper.

Of course there’s also the Neo-Noirs… They might be in color, but give them a chance to dazzle you with their shadowy sensibilities and you’ll be hooked.

So give these babies a dust and take a couple home for the night. DVDs are $2 and VHS only $1. With prices like that you can rent a couple and have change left from a fin to buy a cup of joe.

An early "proto-noir" from Fritz Lang with themes that will show themselves in countless imitators to follow. An innocent man is charged with a crime, held captive and threatened with death by a lynch mob. Lang's film is part social commentary on the fury of mob justice and part examination of the transformation of a mild-mannered man into an individual fueled by righteous fury and a driving desire to seek revenge.(DVD)

Three directed by Anthony Mann. In T-Men, Treasury agents delve deep into a murderous counterfeit ring to find the killer of a fellow agent. Sent up the river by his associates, gangster Joe Sullivan breaks out of jail and plots his revenge in Raw Deal. Based on a true crime, He Walked by Night, with its semi-documentary style story of a clever thief-turned-police-killer on the run, was the inspiration for Dragnet. All three films feature the moody, stark, contrasting photography of John Alton. (DVD)

A Nicholas Ray film starring Humphrey Bogart as a blacklisted Hollywood writer with a taste for alcohol and a tendency toward violence. Bogart’s Dixon Steele bends the ear of a sympathetic hatcheck girl then stands accused of murder after her body is found the next day. While he gains the trust and love of his lovely neighbor/alibi, Laurel, his rage and psychological demons threaten to turn her against him and question his innocence. (VHS)

Joan Crawford, Gloria Graham and Jack Palance star in this stylistically rich love-triangle/deception noir in which Lester and his ex-girlfriend Irene contrive to murder wife Myra for her considerable wealth. The catch? Myra knows. The highly involved plot contains several drafts of a will, a conversation overheard via dictating machine, poisoning attempts, lost and found guns, mistaken identities and a just-desserts car crash. (DVD)

One of noir’s favorite femmes fatales, Barbara Stanwyck’s city-wise Mae returns to the working-class town of her youth to find a husband and cuckold him. A standard noir triangle is made more compelling by the complexity of the characters portrayed by Stanwyck and Robert Ryan as her cruel and desperately alienated lover. Directed by Fritz Lang; also stars Marilyn Monroe as a simple, small town girl working in a fish-cannery. (DVD and VHS)

Intense and stylistic in its visuals, Samuel Fuller’s movie is all about contrasts. While camera provides stark images in black and white, the story mashes up all the opposites: love and hate, violence and passion, good and evil. Ostensibly about communists and stolen microfilm, this storyline is a Hitchcockian “MacGuffin” used to introduce us to characters which are brutal and tender in a turn. (VHS)

The hero of this neo-noir is a journalist going undercover into an insane asylum in order to follow a story about a murder suspect. In true noir style, director Samuel Fuller uses the inmates of the asylum, the truly alienated and dispossessed, as a metaphor for larger societal ills. Yet again, it’s the story of a man who gets in too deep that we watch and remember. (VHS)

The crème de la crème of neo-noirs, Roman Polanski directs Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway and John Huston in this deeply layered film classic. Heavy with the atmosphere of drought-plagued 1930s California, Chinatown is full of metaphors and symbols, yet remains a hard-boiled detective story at its heart. (DVD and VHS)

A modern entry into the Why it’s Never a Good Idea to Bump off the Husband for His Money category. Despite almost five decades of films making this point, seductress Matty Walker convinces her lover, a small-town lawyer, to shoot her husband so they can get away with his fortune. Maybe the umpteenth time’s a charm. A sultry thriller of story featuring Kathleen Turner and William Hurt with Ted Danson and Mickey Rourke. (VHS)

This is my personal all-time favorite neo-noir. The indomitable Coen brothers direct Gabriel Byrne, John Turturo (of course), Marcia Gay Harden and a host of other remarkable actors in this loose remake of Dashiell Hammett’s The Glass Key. Stylistically dazzling with jazzy dialogue and compelling imagery, the story, set in Prohibition-era New York follows Tom Reagan playing both sides against the middle as he negotiates between two crime bosses, his lover (whom he shares with his unwitting boss) and her brother all the while trying to cover his gambling debts. Great turns from Jon Polito, Steve Buscemi and Mike Starr. (VHS)

The noir genre loves to see high-minded folk immersed in seedy environments—Clive Owen’s Jack is a writer who decides to turn his experiences working in a London casino into a novel. Naturally, the more he becomes involved in the temptations around him the better his novel will be, so we can all see where this is going. A lesson from noir—you’re only as good as your worst intentions.

I’ve already raved about this new neo-noir endlessly on the New Videos—October page, so read that review, rent the movie and love it already.