They Live by Night (1948)

Directed by

Nicholas Ray

Genre

drama film, film noir, crime film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 35m

Rated

NR

Rating

6.8 of 10 from 186 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young fugitive escapes prison and meets a woman. They fall in love and try to build a normal life together. But his criminal past and the law keep closing in on them.

tensemelancholicromanticdoomedgrittybittersweeturgentnoir

What happens

They Live by Night is a 1948 American film noir notable for being the directorial debut of Nicholas Ray and starring Cathy O'Donnell and Farley Granger. Based on Edward Anderson's Depression-era novel Thieves Like Us, the film follows a young fugitive who falls in love with a woman and attempts to begin a life with her. The film opened theatrically in London in August 1948 under the title The Twisted Road and was released in the United States by RKO Radio Pictures as They Live by Night in November 1949. Although the film received favorable reviews from film critics, it was a box-office failure, losing the studio $445,000 (equivalent to $6.02 million in 2025). Although the film is widely considered as the prototype for the "couple on the run" genre and the forerunner to Bonnie and Clyde (1967), the story was first depicted in Fritz Lang's 1937 film You Only Live Once, starring Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney. Director Jim Jarmusch cites the film as one of the influences on no wave cinema and his work in general. Robert Altman directed another adaptation of the novel in 1974 using the original title of the novel, Thieves Like Us. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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