Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) poster
1940 · noir · dream · wrongful-accusation

Stranger on the Third Floor

Directed by Boris Ingster1h 4m1940
ElsewhereIMDb6.85kRT75%TMDB6.5107
  • heavy
  • brisk
  • intense
Movie DNA

Heavy, kinetic, measured noir / dream, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, intimate, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Newspaper reporter Michael Ward plunges into a nightmare of guilt, fearing that his "evidence" has sentenced the wrong man to death.

Our read · Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) reads as a heavy, kinetic, inventive noir · dream · wrongful-accusation entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, cold in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Video previewNo trailer available for this one.
Where the cast leads
Fingerprint

The shape of Stranger on the Third Floor

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want early film noir with nightmare guilt and a reporter's conscience.

ends unsettlingit stays with youa slow buildgrips by minute 8attention 4/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around

Skip it tonightSkip if old black and white or 1940s B-movie style will feel slow.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
Your take
Rate it
star-clip-1-0star-clip-2-0star-clip-3-0star-clip-4-0star-clip-5-0
React
Discussion

Discussion

cmd enter to post

What does your Movie DNA look like?

Rate a few films you've seen. We map your taste across the same twelve axes and find the films you'll actually want to watch tonight.

Calibrate yourself