The Black Book (1949) poster
1949 · noir · french-revolution · expressionist

The Black Book

Directed by Anthony Mann1h 27m1949
ElsewhereIMDb6.92kTMDB6.853
  • sombre
  • kinetic
  • intense
Movie DNA

Sombre, breathless, measured noir / french-revolution, inventive in texture. Ambivalent, mid-stakes, cold, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

The French Revolution, 1794. The Marquis de Lafayette asks Charles D'Aubigny to infiltrate the Jacobin Party to overthrow Maximilian Robespierre, who, after gaining supreme power and establishing a reign of terror ruled by death, now intends to become the dictator of France.

Our read · The Black Book (1949) reads as a sombre, breathless, inventive noir · french-revolution · expressionist entry — measured in intensity, mid-stakes 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
Where to watch
StreamArtiflix
All options on JustWatch

Availability in Latvia · via JustWatch

More info & search links
Fingerprint

The shape of The Black Book

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want a stylish noir thriller set during the French Revolution's Terror.

ends unsettlingit stays with yousteady all the waygrips by minute 10attention 3/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-upgraphic violence

Skip it tonightYou want modern settings or cannot handle guillotine-era politics.

If The Black Book is your film
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)
daring undercover rescue amid revolutionary terror
(you want darker tone)
A Tale of Two Cities (1935)
personal stories inside the French Revolution chaos
(you dislike period melodrama)
The Duellists (1977)
Napoleonic era obsession and stylized violence
(you want ensemble not duel focus)
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