Storylines of Noir

Noir films don't have a very formulaic storyline to follow, most days it's now just a way to describe a movie set entirely in black, shades of grey and white for an art style. What each noir films linked together, however, is some kind of tension between the story and it's characters. The majority of Noir films hold some kind of mystery, which can fall into many different genres such as Detective, Thriller, Horror, Crime. For a noir film there is:

1. Some kind of introduction, either to characters and possibly some foreshadowing to future events. A good example of this is Hitchcock's "Stranger's on a Train", where at the beginning the main character has an argument with his wife, saying on the payphone that "I want to kill my wife!" to a friend. This comes to foreshadow the future death of the wife.

1. There needs to be development between events or characters, or even new events or new characters. This time can be used to go into more detail about characters, their back story, interests, and other elements to flesh out and make the characters more human than simply actors on a screen. Events can also be updated similar to a news article or shown before our very eyes.
2. (OPTIONAL) The film follows with a twist that the audience doesn't see coming throughout the film. A good twist is mentioned in the development or beginning, but doesn't become too obvious that it doesn't become a twist anymore (Despicable Me 2 is a bad example of twisting a plot line, as it's mentioned obviously with the constant mention and reappearance of the villain El Macho). A good twist for a Noir Film would be to find out that such things have happened to said character. A common one for Noir in my opinion would be saying the killer is someone who we've always seen as innocent.

1. The film must conclude with one last event or 2, wrapping everything up and making sure that there is no more plot holes to fill. For a Noir film, this could be "Murderer gets captured, main character hooks up again with love interest, and optional lastly, the cycle repeats itself".