” – the top-ten most cited noir films are: Out of the Past (1947), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Laura (1944), Touch of Evil (1958), D.O.A. (1949), Double Indemnity (1944), The Killers (1946), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Big Sleep (1946) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955). The most cited years are between 1944 to 1958, with 1947 being the peak year.”

This may not be much more than an aggregate of subjective opinions, but the web site has a number of interesting references, in addition to a comprehensive overview of films belonging to the genre.

When a genre falls apart like that, I don’t see how it makes sense to keep the classic period going until Touch of Evil. I don’t dislike that movie so much that I don’t accept that it’s pretty good. It is. But it’s not part of any moment I can still see going at that point. I know this is very subjective, but art history can’t be purely quantitative. And my subjective view, from fast-forwarding through a lot of these, and watching some of them, is that there was something _alive_ in the late 40s, something they didn’t have a name for but that people would later referred to as film noir, and that something died in the early 50s. The influence lasted much longer, but that’s when I would say the classic period ended.

Perhaps the most basic classification of movies is that there are two kinds – good ones and bad ones. The distinction is largely subjective. I look at Touch of Evil and I see a good, albeit flawed, movie. In places, such as the opening sequence, I’d call it great. You hate it. And because our opinions are subjective neither of us is likely to convince the other.

Likewise, while the classic film noir period is usually described as encompassing both decades (see, e.g., http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html ), by the late 50s it was in serious decline. Argue that the quantity and quality had dropped significantly and you’ll get no disagreement from me.