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Film noir is a film style and mood primarily associated with crime films, that portrays its principal characters in a nihilistic and existentialist world. Film noir is primarily derived from the hard-boiled style of crime fiction of the Depression era (many films noir were adaptations of such novels) and the gritty style of 1930s horror fiction. Film noir is first clearly seen in films released in the early 1940s. "Noirs" were historically made in black and white, and had a dark, high-contrast style with roots in German Expressionist cinematography.

The term film noir (French for "black film") was unknown to the filmmakers and actors while they were creating the classic films noirs. Film noir was defined in retrospect by film historians and critics; many of the creators of film noir later professed to be unaware at the time of having created a distinctive type of film.

The use of the plural film noirs in English, is untrue to the French origin of the term. The plural form of......

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