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The Long Shadow of M

A run from Lang's Weimar crime films through their noir and neo-noir children — killers, con men, masterminds, and manhunts — where you can watch expressionist menace mutate step by step into the modern thriller.

Deep film-school canon: a few broadly beloved classics (The Third Man, Laura, The Night of the Hunter, Touch of Evil) anchor a run that also asks patience for silent Weimar epics and rewards knowing the lineage — demanding in places, and several titles are genuinely menacing.

  • M (1931)
  • The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
  • Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler (1922)
  • Manhunter (1986)
  • The Third Man (1949)
  • Fury (1936)
  • The Night of the Hunter (1955)
  • Pandora's Box (1929)
  • Cape Fear (1962)
  • Following (1999)
  • Laura (1944)
  • In a Lonely Place (1950)
  • Touch of Evil (1958)
  • The Big Heat (1953) — The one to finally pull down first — it's Fritz Lang himself gone full American noir, a revenge-driven cop tearing into a crime syndicate, the missing hinge between M and everything downstream on this list.
  • Kiss Me Deadly (1955) — The overlooked apocalyptic noir that rhymes with Touch of Evil's rot — a brutish PI chasing a 'great whatsit' until menace curdles into a literal atom-bomb nightmare; if these landed, this is the one to recover.
  • Peeping Tom (1960) — If the child-killer of M and Manhunter's mind unsettled you, this is the under-seen companion — a shy cameraman who films his victims dying, the killer-as-voyeur study that ended Powell's career for how deep it looks.
  • Mr. Arkadin (1955) — The forgotten Welles between The Third Man and Touch of Evil — a mastermind with an erased past hiring a man to investigate him, all expressionist shadow and continental con; the one for Arkadin's hidden lineage.
  • Night and the City (1950) — The bombed-London noir that shares The Third Man's cracked postwar streets — a small-time hustler chasing one big score into doom; the overlooked Dassin to finally cross off.
  • Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) — Preminger again after Laura, but pitiless — a brutal detective who kills a suspect and covers it, haunted by his own criminal blood; the under-seen noir that sits right beside In a Lonely Place.
  • Pickup on South Street (1953) — The overlooked Fuller — a pickpocket lifting Cold War microfilm into a manhunt, tabloid-noir menace shot like a fist; if the con-and-pursuit films here clicked, this is the one to recover.
  • Nightmare Alley (2021) — The recent con-man noir you meant to get to — del Toro's carnival grifter and mentalist climbing toward a grand mastermind swindle, greasepaint expressionism in the Nightmare Alley key these films primed you for.
  • The Prowler (1951) — The buried Losey — a resentful patrolman who schemes his way into a lonely woman's house and bed, the predator-in-a-uniform noir; the deep-cut for anyone who wanted more menace after these.
  • Body Heat (1981) — The neo-noir child on your list that most openly carries the femme-fatale-and-murder-scheme DNA — a weak lawyer played by a woman smarter than he'll ever realize; the overlooked one to finally watch as noir's modern echo.