01
They Live by Night
Why this pick
This lyrical noir shares Moonrise’s sense of inherited doom, vulnerable lovers, and fugitives seeking a life beyond the identities society has assigned them.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1948 1h 30m USA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Moonrise
Drama
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved Moonrise, try these.
01
02
The Night of the Hunter
Why this pick
Its stylized Southern nightscape, river-and-swamp imagery, and fairy-tale menace echo Moonrise’s expressionistic vision of childhood trauma and moral escape.
03
The Breaking Point
Why this pick
A pressured working man is drawn toward catastrophe in this unsentimental noir, with the same intimate focus on guilt, desperation, and a protagonist struggling against a fate that feels prewritten.
04
Odd Man Out
Why this pick
A wounded man’s increasingly desperate flight through one long night creates the same subjective, haunted tension as Moonrise, while treating him with unusual tenderness rather than simple judgment.
05
The Prowler
Why this pick
Its stark low-budget noir atmosphere and psychological intensity make desire and shame feel inescapable, recalling Moonrise’s interest in people trapped by inner damage and social scrutiny.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
In a small southern town, Danny Hawkins (Dane Clark) is the son of a murderer who was hanged for his crimes. Throughout his childhood, he is haunted by his father's past and cruelly harassed by other children, including the bully Jerry Sykes (Lloyd Bridges). As a young man, Danny's only friend is Gilly Johnson (Gail Russell), who is falling in love with him, despite the fact that her boyfriend is Danny's chief tormentor, Jerry Sykes. After a particularly intense confrontation in the woods, during a dance, Danny and Sykes fight and, in self-defense, Danny kills him. He fears the same fate as his father and his behavior grows erratic and temperamental, puzzling Gilly. When Jerry's body is found and Sheriff Clem Otis (Allyn Joslyn), who suspects Danny acted in self-defense and is sympathetic, starts closing in, Danny becomes crazed. He nearly strangles the harmless mute Billy Scripture (Harry Morgan), who found Danny's pocket knife near the murder scene, and he jumps from a Ferris Wheel when he notices Otis following Gilly and him as they try to enjoy a date at the fair. While hiding out in the swamps, Hawkins visits his grandma (Ethel Barrymore), who tells him the truth about his father's crime. Hawkins realizes he is not tainted by "bad blood" and turns himself in to the police.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Dane Clark
Danny Hawkins
Ethel Barrymore
Grandma
Allyn Joslyn
Clem Otis
Rex Ingram
Mose
David Street
Ken Williams
Irving Bacon
Judd Jenkins
Houseley Stevenson
Uncle Joe Jingle
Phil Brown
Elmer - Soda Jerk