This groundbreaking study reads neo-noir cinema as a response to the transformations in the American economy and society in the long era of national decline.

Neo-noir films exert their fascination not only through their suspense, shadowy atmosphere, and moral ambiguity, but also through their registration of the experience of American life in the long twilight of the American Dream. With a sharp curatorial eye and an elegant critical voice, Vernon Shetley interprets landmark works from the noir revival of the early 1970s to the present, showing how neo-noir reflects the darkening national mood as postwar prosperity gave way to economic stagnation and inequality, social alienation, and a deepening sense of crisis.

Through close readings of key films and overviews of neo-noir’s treatment of the genre’s defining themes and archetypes—desire and betrayal, corruption and alienation, the private detective and the femme fatale—Shetley delineates neo-noir’s exploration of anxieties about work, money, trust, and exchange. From Chinatown to Mulholland Drive, from Night Moves to Nightmare Alley, neo-noir’s marginalized characters and extreme situations emerge in Shetley’s account as powerful representations of concerns central to economic and social life. Combining illuminating analysis with lucid prose, this book offers scholars and general readers alike a fresh, penetrating understanding of the dynamics of neo-noir filmmaking and its continually renewed vitality over the last five decades.