Motherless Brooklyn is one of the best movies very few people saw in 2019. Written, directed, starring, and produced by Edward Norton in a labor of love that took over 20 years to make, the film is adapted from the 1999 novel by Jonathan Lethem.
Set in 1950s New York, the film follows Detective Lionel Essrog, a man afflicted with Tourette’s Syndrome as he searches for his vanished boss, Frank Mina (Bruce Willis). As Lionel gets deeper into a web of intrigue, he uncovers a shocking history about Brooklyn that remained a secret for decades. The film can be categorized as a neo-noir, which there are several examples of to keep Motherless Brooklyn company. Below you’ll find 10 movies you need to watch if you liked Motherless Brooklyn.
The Two Jakes
For the sequel to Chinatown, Jack Nicholson directs himself opposite Harvey Keitel in The Two Jakes, a neo-noir that puts Jake Gittes on a case of murder, sex, and mysterious intrigue.
Written by Chinatown scribe Robert Townsend, the sequel kicks up when Jake Gittes is hired by Jake Berman (Keitel) to catch his wife in the throes of infidelity. When the adulterer turns out to be Berman’s business associate, the two Jakes get more than they bargained for as their lives become in danger.
Sin City
Robert Rodriguez’s highly stylized tale of Las Vegas criminality not only relies on old film noir tropes of the 40s and 50s, but it’s also a futuristic vision of where those tropes can advance to. The result is a striking black-and-white neo-noir we’ve never seen before!
Starring a cavalcade of cool throwback actors like Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Benicio Del Toro and the like, the film weaves three disparate narratives all set in Sin City around violent acts of crime. The classic Frank Miller comic informs the visual tableau of the film, which uses light and shadow like the halcyon days of film noir.
Devil In A Blue Dress
Following his superb debut One False Move, director Carl Franklin cast Denzel Washington to headline the 40s-set detective film noir, The Devil in a Blue Dress.
Washington plays Easy Rawlins, a private eye hired to find the missing white woman in the black neighborhoods of 1948 Los Angeles. As Easy navigates the racial strife of the day, he must use his wits and wiles to find the woman in question while maintaining an air of dignity among the privileged white folks.
Brick
Before Rian Johnson was producing genre-bending work like Knives Out, Looper, and that little Star Wars film, he got his start but cutting his teeth in the neo-noir genre with Brick.
Starring Joseph Gordon Levitt as a precocious high-schooler, the film adheres to an old film noir formula, right down to the inclusion of a devious femme fatale. When Brendan’s ex-girlfriend goes missing, he takes it upon himself to investigate the sordid underworld of his high school to find answers. The movie crackles with 40s-style dialogue and inspired camerawork.
Angel Heart
Albeit bloodier and scarier than most of the fare on this list, anyone who likes Motherless Brooklyn should have zero trouble falling in love with Alan Parker’s Angel Heart.
Starring Mickey Rourke as a troubled private eye, the film gets going when Harry Angel (Rourke) gets entangled in a mysterious serial killer plot as he searches for the whereabouts of a man named Johnny Favorite. With Robert De Niro playing the evil role of Louis Cyphre (hint), a shocking conclusion will leave you breathless.
Body Heat
One of the sexiest neo-noirs ever made belongs to Lawrence Kasdan’s Body Heat, an indirect update of the 1944 crime classic Double Indemnity.
William Hurt stars as Ned Racine, an everyday schmoe who gets in way over his head when he meets the sultry seductress Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner). Once wrapping Ned around her pretty little finger, she convinces him to comply in a plot to murder her wealthy husband. Ned agrees, only to fall victim to one crazy plot twist after another.
Memento
From one directorial debut to another! Just as Lawrence Kasdan did with Body Heat, Christopher Nolan got his start by riffing on an updated film noir with the head-spinning movie Memento.
Told in reverse chronological order, the film concerns a man named Leonard (Guy Pearce), who suffers from temporary amnesia. Meaning, he can’t make new memories. As a result, to catch his wife’s killer, Leonard jots notes and clues as tattoos on his body until he has enough information to find the man responsible. Unlike any film you’ve ever seen!
The Man Who Wasn’t There
The Coen Brothers have flirted with neo-noir tropes and tenets in several films, including their debut Blood Simple in 1984. Their best of the bunch though has to be The Man Who Wasn’t There, starring the great Billy Bob Thornton.
Set in 1949 Northern California, the heartfelt homage to the halcyon days of film noir follows Ed Crane (Thornton), a simple barber who gets entangles in a sordid murder plot. When Ed tries to blackmail his wife’s boss, with whom she’s having an affair, he plans to use the money to begin a dry-cleaning venture. As per usual, the plan falls flat.
L.A. Confidential
One of two movies Edward Norton has publicly stated as inspiring his new film includes L.A. Confidential, Curtis Hanson’s A-list production of Hollywood sex, murder, and intrigue.
Based on the James Ellroy novel, the film finds a corrupt L.A. police force in the 1950s getting involved in a series of inexplicable murders. With three cops on various sides of the law, they must work together, and against one another, to figure out who is dirty and who has a clean conscience. Twenty-three years after its release, it still ranks as #119 on IMDB’s Top 250.
Chinatown
No single neo-noir film is better, or as instrumental to the making of Motherless Brooklyn, than Roman Polanski’s 1974 classic, Chinatown. None!
With Jack Nicholson starring as the ever-cool Jake Gittes, the film revolves around the stolen water L.A. used to get rich on by irrigating the San Fernando Valley in the 1930s. As Gittes searches for answers pertaining to an adulterous businessman, he becomes embroiled in a plot that exposes far more criminality than he could ever imagine. Over 45 years later the film still ranks as #149 on IMDB’s Top 250!
