A man is sentenced to die for the murder of gorgeous actress, but the man’s wife (June Vincent) won’t give up trying to prove his innocence. She desperately enlists the aid of a pickled pianist on the skids (Dan Duryea) in the hopes of finding the real killer. A slick adaptation of a sordid Cornell Woolrich yarn.

The inaugural jazz noir. An ambitious band leader (Richard Whorf) falls hook, line, and sinker for a femme fatale club owner, and the complications that arise cause his band to violently and tragically implode. It’s all there in the lyrics of the titular song.

Humphrey Bogart is the sneakily heroic fisherman. Lauren Bacall is the songbird who steals his heart — and every scene in which she appears. Ground zero for one of Hollywood’s most beloved couples, and proof that director Howard Hawks could salvage Ernest Hemingway’s self-described “worst” novel.

The death of a notable composer gets ruled a suicide, but detective Joe Warne (George Raft) becomes so obsessed with the investigation, and the various women who wanted to see the composer dead, that he disobeys orders in an effort to learn the truth.

As flinty chanteuse Petey Brown, Ida Lupino is at the apex of her big-screen glamour, offering a radiantly romantic vision of the post-WWII American woman — able to settle everyone’s hash but her own. A coast-to-coast road trip through a world of atmospheric nightclubs, tenements, and backlot streets, this majestic melodrama is part noir, part soap opera, and pure Hollywood magic.

The sexual tension flies when Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) accepts a gig with sinister casino owner Ballin Mundson (George Macready) only to reignite a romance with Mundson’s bombshell wife, Gilda (Rita Hayworth). Cue betrayal, innuendo-spiked dialogue, and Hayworth’s legendary “Put the Blame on Mame” performance.