It’s a rare phenomenon when a simple movie critic can turn a clever idea into a bona fide tradition, yet that’s precisely what Marya E. Gates accomplished with “Noirvember.” Originating over a decade ago as a hashtag, the concept began as a way to highlight film noir marathons—those compelling tales of mystery, intrigue, and crime that graced the screens in the 1940s. What started as a social media trend has since transformed into a beloved tradition among cinephiles, offering a seamless segue from the spine-chilling thrills of October to the festive celebrations of December. While film noir might not be The Nightmare Before Christmas, its moody aesthetic captures a unique holiday spirit through themes of cynicism, doom, and paranoia, making it surprisingly apt for the season.

In recognition of Noirvember, streaming platforms have increasingly started curating collections of classic noir films from the 1940s and 1950s, with the Criterion Channel leading the charge. While some streaming services may overlook these cinematic gems, the enduring influence of noir is evident in modern genres like erotic thrillers, slasher films, and contemporary mysteries. This ensures that nearly every streaming service boasts at least one noir-inspired film, if not an entire collection. Here are some top-notch noir films available on major streaming platforms to enhance your Noirvember experience.

1. HBO Max, thanks to its partnership with Turner Classic Movies, offers a rich selection of classic cinema, surpassing many other services. For instance, Robert Mitchum stars in a quintessential noir film about a former private investigator attempting to escape his past by running a gas station, only to be drawn back into a web of crime and deceit. Directed by Jacques Tourneur, known for early horror classics like Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie, the film showcases a haunting, dreamlike atmosphere through its black-and-white cinematography. A younger Kirk Douglas also shares the screen with Mitchum in this genre-defining movie.

   For viewers looking to stream Out of the Past, HBO Max is the platform of choice.

   Meanwhile, Prime Video, with its integration of Freevee’s ad-supported content, offers several notable noir films for those willing to endure a few commercial interruptions. One standout is The Third Man, celebrated for its unique style that reflects director Carol Reed’s fascination with German expressionism. Through its use of sharp shadows and tilted angles, the film vividly depicts post-WWII Vienna. Joseph Cotten delivers a compelling performance as a writer on a quest to uncover the truth about his childhood friend, whose death is shrouded in mystery. Orson Welles makes a memorable appearance, contributing to a film often lauded as one of the greatest ever made.

   Stream The Third Man on prime video

3. Paramount+: Chinatown (1974)

   The ’70s saw an echo boom of revisionist neo-noirs, appropriate for the most fertile period of American cinema since noir’s 1940s heyday. The best of them all is a signature Paramount movie that should logically never leave its streaming service: Chinatown, which has become the defining Los Angeles noir of the past 60 years. Director Roman Polanski, screenwriter Robert Towne, and star Jack Nicholson are all in top form for a mystery whose combination of seamy personal details and municipal-corruption structure has been paid affectionate homage (and just plain ripped off) countless times.

   Stream Chinatown on Paramount+

4. When Peacock started out, it seemed eager to entice film buffs with a whole bunch of movies from the Universal library. These days, it seems to have vaulted most of those titles or licensed them elsewhere, and Peacock has become one of the barest services for movies made before 1990. It does, however, have the extremely recent neo-noir Honey Don’t! – it was in theaters just a few months ago, in fact. Way back then, Honey Don’t!, the second in a series of lesbian-themed genre movies from Ethan Coen and his partner Tricia Cooke, didn’t get great notices, dismissed as an insubstantia exercise from filmmakers who have done better (especially on movies co-directed with Ethan’s brother Joel). But in addition to being just plain funny and entertaining with a knockout Margaret Qualley performance, Honey Don’t! works best as a riff on noir tropes, centrally Qualley’s gender-flip of the hard-boiled detective. It may be the most underrated movie of the year.

   Stream Honey Don’t! on Peacock

5. Criterion Channel: Framed (1947)

   You can count on Criterion to go further than just the canon noirs; they regularly program more specific thematic groups that dig deeper into the genre, often surfacing a number of 80-minute gems that aren’t as familiar to casual movie-watchers. This Noirvember, they’ve unveiled a batch of “Blackout Noirs,” co-curated by Decider contributor and film expert Glenn Kenny. They’re all probably worth your time if you love the genre, but you might start with Framed, starring Glenn Ford (who also appeared in the classic noirs Gilda and The Big Heat) as a truck driver who literally runs into trouble when a minor traffic accident leads him into a small town where he’s ensnared in a framing scheme.

   Stream Framed on The Criterion Channel

6. From feast to famine! It’s probably not a great sign that searching “noir” on Netflix turns up titles like Miraculous (to be fair, it’s a French-made cartoon with a character called Cat Noir) and Mank (it’s… partially set in the 1940s?). But speaking of David Fincher: His second film for Netflix went back to his murderous, heavily noir-influenced roots with a story about a contract killer who makes a deadly mistake and spends the rest of the movie stalking and killing those who wronged him over his screw-up. Michael Fassbender is note-perfect in the lead, and the movie itself is as tightly calibrated as the unnamed assassin’s weapons.

   Stream The Killer on netflix

7. There’s a ton to choose from on Tubi, probably the most impressive collection of free-streaming classic movies available. But if you haven’t seen it, it’s tough to beat The Lady from Shanghai, yet another 1947 classic, this one from Orson Welles, who directed, produced, and starred alongside Rita Hayworth, his wife at the time. (They divorced soon after completing the film.) Beset by Welles’ usual studio conflicts and, like clockwork, later reclaimed as a terrific piece of filmmaking despite whatever compromises went into it, the movie is best-known for its climactic hall-of-mirrors shoot-out, one of those much-imitated sequences viewers may recognize without having actually seen the real thing before. But Shanghai is more than those memorable shots. Its instantly hooky story, with Welles as a seaman drawn into a death-faking scheme by his attraction to a femme fatale (Hayworth), makes it one of the legendary filmmaker’s most purely entertaining movies.

   Stream The Lady from Shanghai on Tubi

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.