Laura

Laura (1944) is Otto Preminger's defining film noir, and you can watch it online on iFILM. Detective Mark McPherson is assigned a brutal case: Laura Hunt, a rising advertising star, has been shot dead in the doorway of her own apartment, her face destroyed by the blast.

The deeper McPherson digs, the stranger his fixation grows. He spends his nights in the dead woman's rooms, staring at the portrait above her mantel, sifting her letters, listening to the acid-tongued columnist Waldo Lydecker, who built Laura into a socialite and resented anyone who got close to her. The suspects pile up: her smooth gigolo fiancé Shelby Carpenter, his wealthy patron, Lydecker himself. Then the investigation takes a turn that leaves the detective unsure who he's even chasing. Gene Tierney is Laura, Dana Andrews the detective, with Clifton Webb and Vincent Price circling.

David Raksin's theme became a jazz standard, and Joseph LaShelle took home the cinematography Oscar for its cold, gliding shadows. This one's for anyone who loves noir less for the gunplay than for the obsession underneath it. Stream Laura (1944) online on iFILM.