Noir City
February 14-20 at new location: SIFF Cinema Downtown
February 14-20, 2025
Noir City Seattle returns—this year at SIFF Cinema Downtown—for the 17th year with a lineup featuring the femmes that made film noir fatale!
Due to unforeseen technical challenges, all scheduled 35mm Noir City screenings will now be presented digitally.
Friday evening’s screenings of The Narrow Margin and Hell's Half Acre were cancelled due to technical difficulties with the sound system, and have been rescheduled for Monday. Our Box Office team has emailed ticket purchasers and passholders. Questions? Email boxoffice@siff.net.
Rescheduled showtimes:
Mon 2/17, 12:30pm - The Narrow Margin (35mm)
Mon 2/17, 3:00pm -Hell's Half Acre (35mm)
18 films including 12 presented on 35mm & two restorations
Join us at SIFF Cinema Downtown for 18 classic films shining a spotlight on women whose cinematic legacy is entwined with the rise of film noir. Twelve of those will be presented on glorious 35mm including the newest Film Noir Foundation’s restoration of Cry Danger, plus a new 4K restoration of Robert Siodmak’s Phantom Lady. Many of the films star the actresses profiled in Muller’s 2002 book ”Dark City Dames: The Wicked Women of Film Noir,” which is being reissued in April 2025 in a newly revised and expanded edition.
Expert hosts
Film Noir Foundation founder, Turner Classic Movies host, and "Czar of Noir'' Eddie Muller will present all screenings February 14-16, with local noir experts and authors Vince and Rosemarie Keenan taking over hosting duties February 17-20. Enjoy their expert takes and tidbits of film noir facts in their introductions each evening!
Live music
Starting at 5:30pm, join us on Opening Night for a special performance from the Dmitri Matheny Quintet, performing jazz from the silver screen. Lyrical flugelhornist Dmitri Matheny will be joined by his all-star band prior to the screening of The Narrow Margin. A Noir City Seattle tradition not to be missed!
Members: Make sure to sign in to your SIFF account before selecting showtimes and passes. Note: Reserved seating is not available for Noir City.
SIFF year-round passes are not valid for these screenings. Vouchers are being accepted.
PASSES & TICKETS
Passes - $158 Non-Members ($133 SIFF Members) *
Individual Tickets: Select showtimes on individual film pages to purchase.
Regular: $20 ($15 SIFF Member)
Senior (65+) & Student (with valid ID): $19
Child (12 and Under): $15
*Pricing reflects all-in amount, including service charge.
Noir City: The Sleeping City
USA | 1950 | 86 min. | George Sherman
February 15, 2025
Cop Richard Conte poses as a doctor to investigate a murder in a big city hospital. Coleen Gray is the dedicated nurse who helps him get to the bottom of things—which may include the East River. Shot on location in New York City's Bellevue Hospital.
Noir City: Mary Ryan, Detective
USA | 1949 | 68 min. | Abby Berlin
February 15, 2025
Intended as the first in a series of B features about an intrepid policewoman (stylish and vivacious Marsha Hunt), this engaging entry was the only one produced. Although modestly budgeted, it has a sharp and satisfying script from B veteran George Bricker, adept direction, and a supporting cast of B stalwarts such as John Litel, Harry Shannon, and June Vincent.
Noir City: Out of the Past
USA | 1947 | 97 min. | Jacques Tourneur
February 15, 2025
Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas vie for the honor of being betrayed by Jane Greer, the most desirable of devil dolls, in this quintessential noir masterpiece. A grubby private eye (Mitchum) is hired by a sleek gangster (Douglas) to rein in his fugitive frail (Greer). Equal measures of poetry, poignancy, and hardboiled fatalism.
Noir City: Cry Danger
USA | 1951 | 79 min. | Robert Parrish
February 15, 2025
Film Noir Foundation Restoration. When Rocky Mulloy (Dick Powell) is sprung from prison after serving five years on a robbery charge, he returns to Los Angeles looking to settle things with the crooks who set him up. A shady, wounded war vet (Richard Erdman) and his cellmate’s gorgeous wife (Rhonda Fleming) help him play cat-and-mouse with the local gangster (William Conrad) out to get him. A crackerjack crime film—short, smart, sassy, and full of surprises.
Noir City: Tension
USA | 1949 | 95 min. | John Berry
February 16, 2025
Audrey Totter pulls out all the stops portraying her ultimate “bad girl,” vile voluptuary Claire Quimby, in one of the most underrated noir films of the forties. Richard Basehart plays a milquetoast pharmacist married to the over-sexed and chronically unfaithful Claire. But this sad sack has a plan to get revenge.
Noir City: Alias Nick Beal
USA | 1949 | 93 min. | John Farrow
February 16, 2025
This Faustian tale of soul corruption has campaigning politician Thomas Mitchell making a devilish pact with slick fixer Nick Beal (Ray Milland)—who may be Lucifer incarnate. Beal ensnares the faithful family man in a scandalous affair with delectable devil-doll Audrey Totter, over whom he casts a devious spell.
Noir City: Caged
USA | 1950 | 97 min. | John Cromwell
February 16, 2025
The best “women behind bars” movie ever made. Sentenced to prison for her role in a robbery that killed her husband, innocent Marie Allen (Oscar-nominated Eleanor Parker), undergoes a degrading transformation in the “joint.” Writer Virginia Kellogg went undercover as an inmate in several southern prisons to research the groundbreaking and controversial script.
Noir City: 99 River Street
USA | 1953 | 83 min. | Phil Karlson
February 16, 2025
Very few films captured as well as 99 River Street the pulpy delights of 1950s paperback crime fiction, making this perhaps the signature film of slam-bang director Phil Karlson. Amid the gaggle of tough guys, Evelyn Keyes and Peggie Castle radiate sexy charisma. A “one long night” thriller that delivers nail-biting suspense start to finish.
Noir City: The Narrow Margin
USA | 1952 | 71 min. | Richard Fleischer
February 17, 2025
Set mostly on a train rife with killers, a tough cop (Charles McGraw) is assigned to haul a mobster’s wife to L.A. to testify against a gang of mobsters. Marie Windsor gives one of her signature performances in this inventive B film thriller.
Noir City: Hell's Half Acre
USA | 1954 | 90 min. | John H. Auer
February 17, 2025
Ready for a hundred-proof dose of “Tiki Noir?” Evelyn Keyes goes undercover as a taxi-dancer in Honolulu’s notorious red-light district searching for her missing GI husband. Toss sultry and statuesque Marie Windsor into the mix and it’s noir Nirvana with a slack-key guitar soundtrack.
Noir City: Murder, My Sweet
USA | 1944 | 95 min. | Edward Dmytryk
February 17, 2025
Philip Marlowe (Dick Powell), quintessential L.A. private eye, searches for an ex-con’s girlfriend, but winds up swimming in deceit and double-crosses. A brilliant evocation of novelist Raymond Chandler’s favorite corrupt city, featuring tempting Claire Trevor as the femme fatale, a role that re-vamped her career.
Noir City: My True Story
USA | 1951 | 67 min. | Mickey Rooney
February 17, 2025
Mickey Rooney directed this unusual drama, produced in association with True Story magazine. Helen Walker (Nightmare Alley) gives a fantastic performance as an ex-con who gets railroaded into working with a gang of thieves who are after an unusual payoff—a supply of myrrh, the secret ingredient used in “Temptation” perfume.
Noir City: Raw Deal
USA | 1948 | 79 min. | Anthony Mann
February 18, 2025
Dennis O’Keefe busts out of prison hellbent on settling scores with double-crossing gangster Raymond Burr. Along for the ride are good-girl social worker Marsha Hunt and bad-girl gun moll Claire Trevor, duking it out for the soul of this vengeful homme fatale.
Noir City: The Killing
USA | 1956 | 85 min. | Stanley Kubrick
February 18, 2025
You’ll think you’ve died and gone to hardboiled heaven. Or is it hell? Kubrick was only twenty-eight when he unleashed this twisty and twisted masterpiece studded with diamond-hard dialogue courtesy of pulp master Jim Thompson. Sterling Hayden arranges a clockwork racetrack robbery only to learn the hard way what happens to best-laid plans.
Noir City: Detour
USA | 1945 | 68 min. | Edgar G. Ulmer
February 19, 2025
Ann Savage’s ferocious performance as “Vera” is at the black heart of this classic—the ultimate in noir fatalism. Tom Neal plays Al Roberts who hitchhikes cross-country to reunite with his estranged girlfriend. Things go from bad to worse once vixenish vagabond Vera gets her hooks into him.
Noir City: Phantom Lady (4K Restoration)
USA | 1944 | 87 min. | Robert Siodmak
February 19, 2025
Ella Raines is “one hep kitten” as she high-heels her way through the noir demimonde, searching for the one woman who can save her boss from a murder rap. Director Siodmak wrings every bit of shadowy mystery from the novel by master of suspense Cornell Woolrich. New 4K digital restoration!
Noir City: The Long Wait
USA | 1954 | 94 min. | Victor Saville
February 20, 2025
Johnny McBride (Anthony Quinn) is injured in a car accident and wakes to discover he has no memory and no fingerprints! Then he discovers he’s wanted for murder! This Mickey Spillane story has one of the genre’s kinkiest climaxes, making maximum use of fulsome fifties femme Peggie Castle.
Noir City: Ace in the Hole
USA | 1951 | 111 min. | Billy Wilder
February 20, 2025
On its release, critics called this the most bitter, cynical, mean-spirited movie ever made. It still might hold the honor. What’s certain is how scarily prescient Wilder’s tale of media manipulation turned out to be. Kirk Douglas is stupendously rotten as a reporter reclaiming the spotlight. A genuine masterpiece.