The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)

Film noir often ends feeling inconsequential - why did anyone need to know that grubby little crime story? - but this 1946 classic, featuring the debut film performance of Kirk Douglas and another perfectly-cast sneering, icy performance from Barbara Stanwyck in the title role, in a story of guilt, fear, shame, and love spanning decades, is not just cynical and dark but elicits strong interest in the fates of a trio of kids, two of whom harbor a murderous secret.

★★★★☆

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Blade Runner (1982)

This classic film noir, an adaptation of Philip K Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, stars Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, a gumshoe-turned-bounty hunter tasked with tracking down, in a future cyberpunk-neon Los Angeles of perpetual rain, six runaway replicants, androids built by the Tyrell Corporation replete with emotions and memories, making it hard for Deckard to distinguish them from humans.

★★★★☆ 

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS