Film

Kiss of Death

Name: Kiss of Death
Genre: Crime, Thriller
Released: 1947
Cast: Victor Mature, Brian Donlevy, Coleen Gray, Richard Widmark, Taylor Holmes

Other titles called Kiss of Death: the 1995 film.

A hardboiled noir about redemption and the cost of betrayal. Victor Mature's ex-con struggles to build a legitimate life while Richard Widmark's unpredictable psychopath hunts him down. It's tense and morally murky—the good guy isn't entirely good, the bad guy is disturbingly charismatic, and violence erupts without warning. For anyone who loves 1940s crime films with real teeth.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love postwar noir where the menace is a human being and the moral struggle sits in a fragile, decent man who keeps choosing the harder road, with Widmark's giggling killer as the chill at its center.

Skip it if you need brisk plotting or a clean, fully modern sense of pace, since this 1947 black-and-white film moves at its own unhurried speed and its melodrama can feel stagey to newer eyes.

What it asks of you: Under ninety-nine minutes, it asks you to settle into shadowy studio dialogue and slow-building dread, paying attention to faces and small hesitations more than to action set pieces.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Out of the Past1947

Mitchum's doomed detective entangled with femme fatales and impossible choices. Moody, cynical, with the same fatalistic pull—you know things will end badly and you watch anyway.

But The plot doubles back on itself enough that some find it confusing on first watch. Patience required.

Gun Crazy1950

Young lovers on the run, killing spree, genuine danger that feels alive. Raw, kinetic energy and a moral undertow that stays with you long after the final frame.

But Shot on a low budget and it shows. Some sequences feel rushed; the logic of the plot occasionally bends for plot momentum.

Sweet Smell of Success1957

A columnist and fixer scheme to destroy a man's life. Savage, witty dialogue you'll quote forever, with a corruption so complete it becomes almost darkly funny.

But The characters are vile from start to finish with no redemption arc. If you need someone to root for, look elsewhere.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Kiss of Death

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Big Heat1953

Both track a protagonist driven by forces outside their control into moral compromise. Widmark's psychopath becomes your window into chaos; Lang's cop becomes the thing he despises.

Fritz Lang's masterpiece of ordinary man transformed into an instrument of revenge. A cop's wife murdered, his descent into violence, and a betrayal that rewires his entire moral compass.

But The violence is sudden and brutal, shocking even now. A woman is scarred with boiling coffee—it's neither stylized nor forgiving.

The Killers1946

Two hitmen arrive in a small town to kill a man. Hemingway's story opened up into something richer—fractured timeline, multiple perspectives, a mystery that unfolds like a puzzle.

But Burt Lancaster's limited acting range shows. Some plot threads feel underdeveloped compared to the elegant setup.

In a Lonely Place1950

Bogart as a violent man falsely accused of murder, caught between suspicion and love. A portrait of masculine rage and paranoia that's startlingly modern and deeply unsettling.

But There's little comfort here. Bogart's character is magnetic but fundamentally broken, and the film offers no easy answers.

The Grifters1990

Con artists, double-crosses, and a mother-son dynamic that curdles every scene. Dark, sharp, with an ending that lands like a punch you didn't see coming.

But Deliberately bleak. Everyone is compromised, morality is transactional, and happy endings don't exist in this world.

The Killing1956

Kubrick's racetrack heist film told in fractured time. Taut, clever, and every character is equally selfish—a machine of ambition that inevitably breaks down.

But The fractured chronology can feel gimmicky. Some scenes repeat from different angles in ways that test patience.

The Asphalt Jungle1950

The template for every heist film after: meticulous planning, precise execution, the perfect crime that unravels anyway. Methodical, character-driven, and fatalistic.

But The pacing is glacial by modern standards. You'll wait a long time for the heist, longer still for what follows.

A Prophet2009

The central question is identical: can a criminal genuinely go straight, or are they forever marked by what they've done? Kiss of Death asks it with 1940s fatalism; A Prophet asks it with brutal modernity.

A young man enters prison and emerges transformed—not redeemed, ascendant. Lean, muscular, and hypnotic. The world-building of a criminal microcosm that feels absolutely real.

But French prison hierarchy and language might alienate some viewers. The protagonist's rise is seductive but morally hollow.

Johnny Guitar1954

Both are films where an outsider (the ex-con, the woman gunslinger) tries to claim a normal life in a world hostile to their reformation. Both discover that society's forgiveness is conditional and easily revoked.

A saloon owner and a woman gunslinger in the old west, with queer subtext burning just beneath the surface. Nicholas Ray made a Western that inverts every rule—Joan Crawford is the moral force.

But The dialogue is theatrical, almost operatic. The plot logic sometimes buckles under the weight of allegory. It's strange and demands you accept its logic completely or reject it entirely.