Film

Laura

Name: Laura
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Released: 1944
Cast: Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson

Film noir

Laura is the film noir that trades gunfights for gossip: a murder mystery propelled by cocktail-party wit and one detective's slow, faintly embarrassing infatuation with a woman he believes is dead. Clifton Webb's acid narration and that impossibly hummable theme give it a hothouse elegance rare in the genre. Watch it for the atmosphere and the twist, not the chase.

TMDb rating

3.8

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love talky, elegant puzzles where the real pleasure lies in waspish dialogue, cigarette-smoke glamour, and a detective slowly losing his composure over an obsession.

Skip it if you want brisk plotting or gritty realism; this is slow to get going, its romance is more mood than heat, and the investigation takes a back seat to talk.

What it asks of you: Settle in for under ninety minutes of unhurried, shadowy talk, where attention pays off in small looks and sly remarks rather than action.

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

If you liked this

Double Indemnity1944

Same year, same studio system, same appetite for romance curdling into crime — Billy Wilder's insurance-scam noir has the sharpest dialogue of the decade and a narrator just as unreliable as Waldo Lydecker.

But Barbara Stanwyck's femme fatale is icier and more calculating than Laura ever gets — less swoon, more dread.

The Maltese Falcon1941

The blueprint for the wisecracking detective drowning in a case that's really about ego and desire, with Bogart at his most controlled and a rogues' gallery of liars circling him.

But It's plot-dense and talky in a way that rewards attention rather than mood — less swoony, more procedural.

The Big Sleep1946

Bogart and Bacall's chemistry carries a plot so tangled even the screenwriters reportedly lost track of who killed whom — pure pleasure in tone over logic.

But If you liked Laura's tight, solvable puzzle, this one deliberately refuses to add up.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Laura

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Blade Runner1982

Both are detective stories where the investigator falls for the very subject he's meant to be pursuing or dismantling, and both quietly ask whether love built on incomplete knowledge counts as real.

Swap gaslight and gossip for neon and rain: a noir detective falls for a woman assembled from someone else's memories, and the case unravels the same question Laura does — do you love the person, or the portrait of her?

But It's a slow, atmospheric sci-fi with minimal plot momentum; if you want banter and a tidy solvable mystery, this isn't it.

Rebecca1940

Hitchcock's first Hollywood film is also about a woman defined entirely by other people's obsession with her — except here she's dead for real, and her ghost runs the house.

But It's slower and more gothic-domestic than detective-driven; the mystery is marriage, not murder.

Sunset Boulevard1950

Another acid-tongued narrator, another story about the dangerous distance between an image and the person underneath it — Wilder's Hollywood satire is even more cutting than Lydecker's columns.

But It trades Laura's romantic ache for something much colder and crueller about fame and delusion.

Gilda1946

Rita Hayworth's entrance alone justifies the runtime, and the love-hate tangle between her and her old flame has the same simmering, can't-look-away quality as McPherson's fixation.

But The plot is thinner than Laura's — this one's carried almost entirely by star power and heat.

The Third Man1949

A man goes looking for a friend's killer and ends up questioning everything he thought he knew about someone he loved — post-war Vienna standing in for the moral fog of the case.

But It's bleaker and more cynical, with none of Laura's drawing-room glamour.

Chinatown1974

The private eye falls for the woman at the centre of his case, the twists keep rewriting who's guilty, and the whole thing is soaked in the same seductive dread.

But Much darker and more corrosive by the end — this one doesn't let anyone off easy.

Mildred Pierce1945

A murder mystery wrapped around a woman's whole biography, told mostly in flashback by people convinced they understand her — the structure is almost a mirror of Laura's portrait-building.

But It's more melodrama than mystery, with the emotional stakes centred on motherhood rather than romantic obsession.

In the Mood for Love2000

Both hinge on falling for an idea shaped by absence and glimpses rather than full presence — Wong Kar-wai swaps the murder plot for pure longing, but the architecture of obsession is identical.

Hong Kong, decades later, a different language and a far quieter register — but the same central ache: love built out of half-knowledge, glances, and rooms someone recently left.

But There's no mystery to solve and almost no plot momentum; it's mood and repetition, which will frustrate anyone wanting Laura's forward pull.

Basic Instinct1992

Same premise stripped of manners: a detective investigating a woman falls into dangerous obsession with his own suspect, but the film leans into pulp and heat instead of drawing-room dialogue.

Take McPherson's inappropriate fixation on his murder suspect and push it into overtly erotic, gleefully trashy overdrive — it's the id to Laura's superego, same engine dressed in leather instead of tweed.

But It's lurid and occasionally ridiculous — anyone hoping for Laura's restraint and wit will find this a tonal shock.