This course will be devoted to a detailed study of film noir. We will examine the components of noir: its thematic preoccupations, its narrative paradigms, and its visual stylistics. We will study film noir’s roots in German Expressionism, Depression-Era gangster movies, and hard-boiled detective fiction. And we will consider the particular amalgam of cultural factors in post-World War II America that gave rise to the noir cycle. Finally, we will chart film noir’s enduring legacy in the French New Wave, its 1970s revival, and the resurgence of “neo-noir” in recent years.