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Fritz Lang fashioned one of the most uncompromising noir films ever produced with 1953's The Big Heat. Glenn Ford plays a hard-nosed cop who refuses to be pushed around by the local crime syndicate. When his intractability causes his wife to be killed by the mob, he throws away his badge and takes justice into his own hands. Lang often crafted dark visions of society but even by his standards, The Big Heat depicts a particularly corrupt world. Ford's cop's blinkered pursuit of what he believes to be justice leaves a trail of corpses in its wake – and not just from the side of the "bad guys". His contrasting of the faux-idyllic bliss of domesticity against the seedy criminal underbelly is evocative and powerful. The cast is universally strong: in particular, Lee Marvin, as the crime boss's second-in-command, brings a sweaty danger to the role, while his girlfriend, played by Gloria Grahame in a powerhouse performance, straddles the line between morality and criminality as she starts to play both sides of the law. Noir films don't come much darker than this masterwork from Fritz Lang.