The Killers

Often cited as the Citizen Kane of film noir, Robert Siodmak’s The Killers helped define the look and mood of postwar film noir, pairing fatalistic storytelling with some of the most striking shadow-drenched imagery of the era. Adapted from a short story by Ernest Hemingway, the film unfolds as a fractured investigation into the life — and death — of a doomed ex-boxer played by Burt Lancaster in his screen debut. With Ava Gardner’s unforgettable femme fatale performance and a structure that moves through flashbacks, betrayals, and dead ends, The Killers became one of the foundational noirs of the 1940s.

Two hit men walk into a diner asking for a man called “the Swede” (Lancaster). When the killers find the Swede, he’s expecting them and doesn’t put up a fight. Since the Swede had a life insurance policy, an investigator (Edmond O’Brien), on a hunch, decides to look into the murder. As the Swede’s past is laid bare, it comes to light that he was in love with a beautiful woman (Gardner) who may have lured him into pulling off a bank robbery overseen by another man (Albert Dekker).