0 used for describing films or books that show the world as being unpleasant, strange, or cruel:
a noir thriller
1 a type of movie, usually filmed in a city, that shows the world as an unhappy, violent place in which many unpleasant people live, or a film of this type:
Path reuse has been a bête noir of generative systems.
At other times, when those countries were the bêtes noirs of this country's foreign policy, the blame was heaped onto them.
Stories typically merge classic urban crime, noir, and drama, with occasional forays into political thriller, survival horror, and space opera.
The trilogy also experiments with film noir conventions, and explores hypnosis and the relationship between reality and unreality.
The film has been highly praised by modern critics, and is viewed as an important example of the film noir genre.
The series' titular character is a detective who has humorous adventures inspired by "film noir" and stereotypical 1950s lounge culture.
His use of light and shadow effects have been compared to the cinematography of "film noir".
But soap and film noir have a lot in common the bad girls have to be punished.
