Film

Serie Noire

Name: Serie Noire
Genre: Drama, Crime
Released: 1979
Cast: Patrick Dewaere, Myriam Boyer, Marie Trintignant, Bernard Blier, Jeanne Herviale

Drama
Very dark

A 1979 French noir about a struggling door-to-door salesman who becomes dangerously obsessed with a vulnerable young woman. It's a descent into moral and psychological chaos shot with grimy precision. Alain Corneau's film moves like a thriller but thinks like tragedy—for viewers drawn to European crime cinema that doesn't flinch from ugliness.

TMDb rating

3.7

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like bleak, close-in character studies of a small man sliding toward ruin, where the grubby suburban textures do most of the talking.

Skip it if you need brisk plot or a clear moral compass; this one stays with an unpleasant man for most of its 111 minutes and rarely offers relief.

What it asks of you: Its pace is slow and its mood sour across roughly two hours, with a protagonist you will not warm to and a shape more brooding than eventful.

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

My Night at Maud's1969

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The Long Good Friday1980

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But Accents are thick and the opening twenty minutes are disorienting. You need to settle in and trust it.

Scarecrow1973

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In a Lonely Place1950

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Pickpocket1959

Bresson's austere masterpiece about a compulsive thief in Paris. Shot with ascetic precision, it's about the spiritual dimension of theft and obsession. Pure cinema: no wasted gesture, no easy answers.

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Naked Lunch1991

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A Man Escaped1956

Both feature protagonists consumed by a single objective, grinding through detail and routine. But where Corneau's salesman spirals inward toward destruction, Bresson's prisoner spirals upward toward freedom. The method is identical; the destination inverted.

Bresson's transcendent war film about a French Resistance fighter methodically planning escape from a Nazi prison. It's about patience, faith, and the quiet rebellion of routine. Spiritually connected to the obsessive focus of noir but aimed toward redemption.

But It's slow, repetitive, and spare to the point of emptiness. The power is in what's NOT shown. Modern viewers often find it tedious.

Possession1981

Both are about possession—obsession as metaphysical force rather than mere emotion. Żuławski makes it literal and cosmic; Corneau keeps it intimate and criminal. Same fever, different temperatures.

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But It's maximalist chaos masquerading as substance. The emotional extremity is constant, which exhausts rather than moves some viewers. You'll either surrender to it or resent it.