Equal parts crime caper, detective story, stoner freakout, and hippy-dippy mystery, 1973’s The Long Goodbye is Robert Altman’s crowning achievement and a crackerjack of a whodunit. 

Objects that best represent the genre, along with a noir film I love that features each one in some way.

The L.A. singer, songwriter, and producer sweet-talks the 1999 Steven Soderbergh noir gem The Limey.

I take comfort in knowing that film noir—a genre that has existed for almost 100 years—has seen it all before. So here are few timeless, hard-won lessons and the noir films that illustrate them.

You really wanna know why I like noir? All right, pull up a chair and gimme a light. I’ll tell you what I know. 

12+1 questions about his experience shooting the neo-noir classic Fargo, Swedish cuisine, how to get eaten by CGI dinosaurs, what people often get wrong about him, and more.

Here’s the skinny: We put a couple gumshoes on the case to track down all of film noir’s low-lifes, grifters, heels, and molls so we could assemble a lineup worthy of this amazing genre.