TV Noir: Dark Drama on the Small Screen

The pioneering, incisive, lavishly illustrated survey of noir on television—the first of its kind

Noir—as a style, movement, or sensibility—has its roots in hardboiled detective fiction by writers like Chandler and Hammett, and films adapted from their novels were among the first called “film noir” by French cineÌ?astes. But film isn’t the only medium with a taste for a dark story.

Hundreds of noir dramas have been produced for television, featuring detectives and femmes fatales, gangster...