Line #123 Main/CityNoir


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4	[[quoteright:335:[[Film/{{Watchmen}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/e70a5aa4_795c_4443_a694_a180c982ab6d.png]]]]
5	[[caption-width-right:335:As gray as the souls that live in it.]]
6
7	->''"When the darkness fell, UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity became something else, any old [[Music/FrankSinatra Sinatra]] song notwithstanding. Bad things happened in the night, on the streets of that other city. Noir York City."''
8	-->-- '''Max''', ''VideoGame/MaxPayne1''
9
10	The localized, urban version of a CrapsackWorld. ApatheticCitizens shuffle though [[TheCityNarrows a dangerous maze of alleys]] among [[EvilTowerOfOminousness overbearing black skyscrapers]], [[NoTellMotel cheap hotels]], [[TheOldestProfession strip clubs]] and {{Sinister Subway}}s as sirens wail in the background. Expect [[DeliberatelyMonochrome a limited color palette]], a palpable air of [[WrongSideOfTheTracks decay and depression]], and a [[ViceCity high crime rate]].
11
12	Usually, cities like this [[UrbanSegregation will consist]] of a downtown area full of {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s in gated compounds surrounded by [[WretchedHive a giant slum of poor people and petty criminals]].
13
14	It will often be informed by ''Film/TaxiDriver''[[TheBigRottenApple -era New York]] (sinister clouds of steam emerging from the sewers, prostitutes and drug dealers on every corner, depressive [[KnightInSourArmor Knights in Sour Armor]] moaning about how crappy the place is, etc.), though the origins of City Noir are [[OlderThanTheyThink actually]] in GermanExpressionism. It may take these things to surreal lengths.
15
16	If our story takes place in the future, it will be a CyberPunk {{dystopia}} full of dark {{Star Scraper}}s (symbolizing class oppression), neon signs (symbolizing MegaCorp domination) and other signs of [[BadFuture a future gone wrong]]. If it takes place in the past, the City Noir of choice will probably either be [[UsefulNotes/{{London}} industrial revolution-era London]] or a [[FantasyCounterpartCulture fantasy counterpart]] version of it. Facsimiles of cities like New York and Chicago during TheGreatDepression might alternately pop up, although for American audiences they may well be shot through the NostalgiaFilter.
17
18	Cities Noir enjoy [[AlwaysNight twenty hour nights]] and [[CyberpunkWithAChanceOfRain constant cloud cover]]. The remaining four hours of daylight consist of two hours of [[GrayRainOfDepression rain]], one hour of thunderstorms, and one hour of sunsets. Sunrises usually mean the story is [[CueTheSun ending]].
19
20	These places are a staple of FilmNoir and DarkerAndEdgier shows.
21
22	A sister trope to SoiledCityOnAHill, ViceCity, WretchedHive and {{Gangsterland}}. The ShiningCity is the [[OppositeTropes antithesis]]. A NeonCity may verge on a City Noir if enough of the signs are broken. See also TheCityNarrows and TheBigRottenApple which is what you get when you cross City Noir with the BigApplesauce trope. See CyberpunkWithAChanceOfRain for the CyberPunk City Noir weather forecast.
23	----
24	!!Examples
25
26	[[foldercontrol]]
27
28	[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
29	* Neo-Tokyo in ''Manga/{{Akira}}'' is a classic and influential example in the genre. It is interesting the compare the colour pallet: Neo-Tokyo evokes the sinister vibe while being much more colour-rich than the typical western example.
30	* ''Manga/{{Tekkonkinkreet}}'': [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-zagged]] by Treasure Town. It doesn't really look like a City Noir during the day -- on account of all the sunshine and life. It is much less depressing than most examples, but it's definitely run-down, dangerous, and filled with people who can't stand living there. Ironically, the villain's plan is to turn the whole place into a family friendly amusement park by flat out murdering any hoodlums and street kids who don't follow the program.
31	* ''Anime/TheBigO'' gives us Paradigm City, which combined [[ComicBook/{{Batman}} Gotham]]'s gothic noir look with a sci-fi [[DomedHometown domed city]], where everyone is recovering from a collective loss of their past due to mass amnesia [[spoiler: and the entire city may not even be real.]]
32	%% * ''Anime/BubblegumCrisis'' was heavily influenced by ''Blade Runner,'' so the bad sections of Mega Tokyo have a City Noir look.
33	%% * Niihama in ''Anime/GhostInTheShellStandAloneComplex''
34	%% * ''[[Anime/GhostInTheShell1995 Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence]]''
35	%% ** Niihama
36	%% ** Etorofu in the movie, which borrows heavily from the Film Noir tradition in its visual style.
37	%% * The unnamed city in ''Anime/{{Kakurenbo}}''.
38	%% * ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'': Gringey City. Just... Ew. Grimer stinks.
39	%% * ''Manga/SilentMobius'' is another series that inherits much of its city design from ''Blade Runner.''
40	* ''Anime/{{Texhnolyze}}'' -- Lux, a bleak, underground, city which doesn't have the benefit of even a corrupt government and is instead carved up between a criminal organization, a ChurchMilitant, some {{Delinquents}} and [[RoyallyScrewedUp the Class]].
41	[[/folder]]
42
43	[[folder:Art]]
44	* HR Giger created a [[https://www.budsartbooks.com/product/h-r-giger-n-y-city/ book of art prints based on a visit to New York City]], first printed in 1981. His biomechanical texture in full use at this time, we end up with towering forms in this texture, often with deep valleys between units of some giant alien machine and some... [[https://www.artsy.net/artwork/h-r-giger-new-york-city NSFW]] public transport units.
45	The Shaft series also appears to have an element of this trope; though Giger always said they came from dreams of a locked door and dark stairway in his parent's house, the darkness between towering structures is plain to see.
46	[[/folder]]
47
48	[[folder:Comic Books]]
49	* ''ComicBook/{{Batman}}'': Gotham is an influential example, although [[ArtEvolution it wasn't always portrayed this way.]] The criminal element runs rampant in this city, and the law enforcement seriously cannot deal... Lucky they have Batman.
50	** ''Batman: The Animated Series'' is especially notable in this regard. The animators even developed a new kind of ArtDeco dubbed "Dark Deco" to make Gotham look as sinister and oppressive as possible.
51	* ''ComicBook/SinCity'': The venal Basin City (known as "Sin City" to the people who live there) and the seedy inhabitants who lurk in its alleys and doorway. It's almost exclusively set in and around Basin City's criminal underworld. Exaggeration unto high art.
52	* Hub City from Franchise/TheDCU is a worse Gotham.
53	* Central City in ''ComicBook/TheSpirit.''
54	* Indigo City in ''ComicBook/TomorrowStories''' Greyshirt feature, which is heavily inspired by ''The Spirit''.
55	* New Old Detroit, the setting for the ''Series/DoctorWho'' comic strip "The Deep Hereafter" in ''Magazine/DoctorWhoMagazine''.
56	* New York City has its crime rate increased when ComicBook/ThePunisher's around (both petty criminals, gangs, and mafia / Mafiya), otherwise there'd be nothing left for him to do.
57	* ''ComicBook/TheSimpingDetective'': Mega City One in this spinoff of ''ComicBook/JudgeDredd''. It's not really an example in its parent series since Dredd is one of the super-cops actually running the city, but ''Simping'''s protagonist Jack Point is a hardboiled detective who navigates the strange underworld of MC-1 and happens to dress like a clown.
58	[[/folder]]
59
60	[[folder:Fan Works]]
61	* Played fairly straight in ''Fanfic/StarlightoverDetrot'' up until the twist. Of course, any city run by ponies will be full of zany magic, intelligent surveillence "bugs", and corruption spanning a thousand years.
62	[[/folder]]
63
64	[[folder:Film]]
65	* ''Film/TaxiDriver'': It cannot be pressed enough how important this film was for this trope. An insomniac and depressed New York City cab driver becomes obsessed with cleansing the city of human "trash".
66	* Coruscant, in ''Franchise/StarWars.'' Underneath (As in, literally, underneath; ground level up to around forty stories) the bright starships, the shiny skyscrapers, and the epic cityscape lies a planetwide hellhole of slums, filled with crime, despair, mutated monsters, as a result of widespread dumping of waste into the Underworld (as it is called) and general lack of maintenance by city authorities.
67	* The titular city of Creator/FritzLang's ''Film/{{Metropolis}}'' is the UrExample. Creator/FritzLang was inspired to create Metropolis by UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity. The society is divided in two, the workers on the underground and the wealthy on the exterior. There is EvilTowerOfOminousness -- a gigantic, unimaginably huge tower with heliports on top overshadowing everything.
68	* Another of Fritz Lang's films, ''Film/{{M}}'' has a city where a paranoid citizenship have begun to attack anyone and everyone in search of a child killer, and the gangsters and police think dangerously alike.
69	* ''Film/DarkCity1998'' is this setting taken to surreal heights through deliberate use of DieselPunk by the city's alien overlords.
70	* ''Film/TheMatrix'': While at the beginning of the movie and in all of the "Real World" scenes the scenery is dark and depressing, all of the scenes in the Matrix after Neo is awakened take place in broad daylight with only moderate cloud cover.
71	* ''Film/{{Se7en}}'''s nameless, constantly-rainy city, where a sadistic serial killer is on the loose.
72	* New York in ''Film/TheFifthElement'' uses the setting in an interesting juxtopostion with the rest of the movie which is generally light and playful.
73	* Detroit/Delta City in ''Franchise/RoboCop''. Detroit is deemed as city "beyond saving", they want to tear it down and rebuild it as Delta City. Naturally, the place is a CrapsackWorld where the police force has been privatized and handed over to a MegaCorp.
74	* The UsefulNotes/LosAngeles of ''Film/BladeRunner'' is the TropeCodifier for cyberpunk versions of this. The film is set in a dystopian near-future City Noir version of Los Angeles and it established much of the tone and flavor of the CyberPunk genre.
75	%%* ''Film/{{Payback}}''
76	* ''Film/{{Freejack}}'': The film is set in a dystopic CyberPunk PollutedWasteland version of New York in 2009.
77	* Detroit in ''Film/TheCrow1994'', in a heightened and stylised manner.
78	* NYC, specifically Brighton Beach, in ''Film/LittleOdessa''. The place is bleak, cold and people shoot each other in broad daylight.
79	* Champion City in ''Film/MysteryMen'' is the {{parody}} version of Gotham.
80	* ''Film/SweeneyToddTheDemonBarberOfFleetStreet'': Creator/TimBurton's vision of VictorianLondon definitely fits the trope. Polluted streets and alleys, sewers with steam coming from them, dirty houses and dirtier rooms. The city is full of evil and corrupted people, including rapists, child abusers, serial killers turning people into meat, and so on and so forth. It's all visually very dark, as is usual in Tim Burton's works.
81	* Gotham in ''Film/Batman1989'' and ''Film/BatmanReturns''. (More so in the first movie, though.)
82	* [[WrongSideOfTheTracks Skid Row]] in ''Film/LittleShopOfHorrors'' is a lighthearted version.
83	* The film version of ''Film/TheSpirit'' gets this treatment.
84	* Iverstown from ''Film/TheStrangeLoveOfMarthaIvers''.
85	%%* ''Film/TheElementOfCrime''
86	* ''Film/{{Brazil}}'' is set in one. The city is an inescapable bureaucratic force hewn from concrete, steel and litter.
87	* This is how the year 2024 looks in ''Film/HighlanderIITheQuickening''. "No sun, no stars, only heat and humidity."
88	%% * ''Film/SinCity'', heavy emphasis on the noir.
89	%% * ''Film/{{Watchmen}}'' is very big on this.
90	* Creator/TheSpierigBrothers love this trope:
91	** ''Film/{{Daybreakers}}'' has apathetic citizens shuffle though a maze of overbearing black skyscrapers and {{Sinister Subway}}s as sirens wail in the background. Although this trope is played straight from an audience point of view it is something of a meta-inversion; The city is populated by vampires (of the sunlights burns them to ash variety) so a dark shadowy city is a nice comfortable level of lighting from there point of view. Even if they are apathetically shuffling to their day jobs like us regular human schulbs.
92	** ''Film/{{Predestination}}'' features shady characters with hats and [[TrenchcoatBrigade trenchcoats]], a mysterious organization and [[SmokingIsCool cool smoking]].
93	* Jim is a violent cop in a violent city in ''Film/OnDangerousGround''.
94	* ''Film/WhereTheSidewalkEnds'' takes place in the ugly, vice-ridden city of New York.
95	* ''Film/TheCarRoadToRevenge'' is set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture in a city so crime ridden that death sentences are carried out in the courtroom immediately after they are pronounced. It is mentioned that this 'innovation' was introduced by D.A. Craddock, implying that the rest of the world is not as bad as this city.
96	* The Gotham City of 1981 as presented in ''Film/{{Joker\|2019}}.'' Imagined as a love letter to earlier city noir films such as ''Film/TaxiDriver,'' this version of Gotham is dirty, depressing, overloaded with rat-infested trash and inhabited by citizens who are apathetic at best and absolute assholes at worst. You can tell things are really bad when the ''Joker himself'' is made out to be one of the few sympathetic people living there.
97	[[/folder]]
98
99	[[folder:Literature]]
100	* A key theme in the works of Creator/FyodorDostoevsky, particularly ''Literature/NotesFromUnderground'' and ''Literature/CrimeAndPunishment''.
101	* Seen in many of the books and stories by Creator/PhilipKDick, but particularly noteworthy in ''Literature/DoAndroidsDreamOfElectricSheep'', ''Literature/FlowMyTearsThePolicemanSaid'', and ''Literature/AScannerDarkly''.
102	* Also seen throughout the works of Creator/WilliamGibson.
103	* ''[[Literature/TakeshiKovacs Altered Carbon]]'' by Creator/RichardKMorgan
104	* ''Literature/BerlinAlexanderplatz'' is a portrayal of UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} in the UsefulNotes/WeimarRepublic days and it really portrays the bleakness, poverty, and perverse mentality of the time and place, especially in the criminal classes of mob-bosses, low-lifes, prostitutes that appear in the books. The main character himself is a ShellShockedVeteran from the first war turned pimp. It was highly successful in its day and inspired many German-Austrian writers and directors who eventually came to America and made the original film noir.
105	* The Bernie Gunther historical fiction detective novels by Philip Kerr also depict UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} as a grim and desperate place, rife with crime. It's particularly bad in the ones set during the Nazi Germany time frame (''Literature/MarchViolets'', ''Literature/ThePaleCriminal'', and others), but life is terrible in a different way in ''Literature/AGermanRequiem'', set in Berlin two years after the war.
106	* ''Literature/BoneSong'' by John Meaney has Tristopolis, an UrbanFantasy version of this trope where humans live side by side with mages, witches, [[RevenantZombie zombies]], [[OurGhostsAreDifferent wraiths]], CatFolk, [[OurGargoylesRock talking gargoyles]], and other fantasy creatures. The city's culture largely centers around death (the citizens invoke "Hades" and "Thanatos" in place of "God", and skulls are a prominent decorative element in architecture), the donut shops sell Tarantula Creams and coffee in snakeskin cups, and the city is powered by necroflux, a type of energy derived from the bones of the dead.
107	* Creator/ChinaMieville's [[Literature/BasLagCycle New Crobuzon]] - as featured in ''Literature/PerdidoStreetStation'' and ''Literature/IronCouncil'' is a SteamPunk example ... if drifting into FantasyKitchenSink at times.
108	* ''Literature/ConcienciaYVoluntad'' makes an extensive use of this trope with Ensenada, that has a [[CyberpunkWithAChanceOfRain perpetual raining city]] as a main setting.
109	* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'': Ankh-Morpork, particularly [[TheCityNarrows the Shades]], is often portrayed as a GaslampFantasy version of this trope. ''Literature/GuardsGuards'' and the rest of the "City Watch" sub-series are the most prominent examples. ''VideoGame/DiscworldNoir'' emphasized it, but that's just part and parcel of being a parody of private detective stories.
110	* The unending, grim, grey town in Creator/CSLewis' ''Literature/TheGreatDivorce''. It's called "the grey town" and it's a dismal place where it is always twilight, the lights are on but are not welcoming, and it's always raining, even inside. The place seems empty and vast and there are too many houses. The place is crowd-less, and the only queue of people is at a bus station. Um... a very discomforting city.
111	* The unnamed city in ''Literature/TheManualOfDetection''.
112	* The home city of Haroun and Rashid in Creator/SalmanRushdie's ''Literature/HarounAndTheSeaOfStories'' is described as "[[CityWithNoName a sad city, the saddest of cities, a city so ruinously sad it had forgotten its name]]". This is at least partly due to the constant pollution from the many factories which manufacture... sadness.
113	* Hidden London, in ''Literature/ShadowPolice'', is pretty horrifying.
114	* Phoenix, Arizona in ''The Water Knife'' by Creator/PaoloBacigalupi definitely counts. The rich live in shining, air conditioned, arcologies with plenty of water. The poor and refugees from Texas are brutally exploited and live in the remains of the gutted suburbs ruled over by vicious gang leaders who stamp out any effort by their victims to improve their lot in life.
115	* Literature/TheDresdenFiles moves into this territory whrenever the plot takes its OccultDetective protagonist into the seedier parts of Chicago.
116	* The first half of William Lindsay Gresham's cult noir thriller ''Literature/NightmareAlley'' is set in a [[CrappyCarnival travelling carnival]] but the second half moves the setting to 1940s New York with its shadowy back alleys and [[DenofIniquity dens of iniquity]].
117	[[/folder]]
118
119	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
120	* Deliberate according to WordOfGod in ''Series/TheBridge2011''. The series consciously avoids any well-known tourist sites in Copenhagen or Malmö, with all scenes set in either bland, characterless office buildings or run-down, workaday suburban or rural places.
121	* Downplayed in ''Series/CasesOfTheFirstDepartment''. Prague is not absolutely horrible and dark here, but the city is wonderfully shabby, gray, rainy or cold. It's noticeable especially if you compare it to Prague's usual idealized depictions set in sunny picturesque streets or beautiful historical palaces. Some murders happened in ghettos and poor neighbourhoods, and even the police building looks almost pitiful compared to high-tech sets of other modern {{police procedural}}s.
122	* Played absolutely straight in ''{{Series/Gotham}}'', it's even lampshaded by Carmine Falcone: "The sun never shines in Gotham."
123	* New New York in it's second appearance on ''Series/DoctorWho''. Emotions are bought and sold, driving anywhere takes years, the air in some places is lethal to people. And there are giant crab monsters living in the fast lane. Basically, all the problems of urban life made much worse and beyond. This being a British show however, the people are NOT apathetic or cynical, for the most part. Averts TheBigRottenApple because New New York bears absolutely no resemblance to it's namesake. Rather, it seems to be exceedingly British (despite this supposedly being an alien planet: but then again, this is normal for the show). In particular, the city resembles London following the Second World War.
124	[[/folder]]
125
126	[[folder:Music]]
127	%% * Portrayed perfectly in the [[TheBigRottenApple New York]] of Afrika Baambaataa and Leftfield's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvxbFWY2Hsc "Afrika Shox" video.]]
128	%%* Music/TheProtomen: "Don't turn your back on the city"
129	* The futuristic metropoli described in many Music/JudasPriest songs, especially "The Sentinel" ("Along deserted avenues, steam begins to rise....")
130	* The video for Music/MichaelJackson's song "Music/BillieJean" is set primarily in a City Noir. The shops on the street are closed, trash piles on the corners and billows in the wind like tumbleweeds. The only life outside of Jackson and the paparazzo following him is a homeless man sleeping in an alley. This is reinforced in the opening of the video which is DeliberatelyMonochrome.
131	%% * The music video for Bush's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FExyoAh6Ng "Greedy Fly"]] is City Noir mixed with MindScrew. For added points, it was filmed in the same building as ''Film/{{Se7en}}''.
132	%% * Music/MachinaeSupremacy's "Dark City" evokes this feeling, though (perhaps curiously, given their inclination toward sci-fi themes) without specifically invoking the film of the same name.
133
134	[[/folder]]
135
136	[[folder:Pinball]]
137	* Creator/{{Capcom}}'s unreleased ''Pinball/{{Kingpin}}'' takes place in "the Big City," a GangsterLand version of this.
138	[[/folder]]
139
140	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
141	* ''TabletopGame/{{Champions}}'': Hudson City, the "Dark Champions" default setting, is a troubled setting based strongly on the old "urban jungle" perception of New York City. The most obvious crime and grime are in the [[WrongSideOfTheTracks Southside neighborhoods]] (south of the Stewart River), but thanks to [[ViceCity organized crime and corporate corruption]], even the nice neighborhoods of the Northside often have dark secrets hiding behind the facade.
142	%%* ''TabletopGame/CityOfMist'' has this trope as its setting, or at least the half of the setting that [[{{Muggles}} most people]] [[TheMasquerade can see...]]%%Describe how the trope is used.
143	* ''TabletopGame/Cyberpunk2020'': Night City, the default setting, has all that defines a Cyberpunk-style City Noir.
144	* ''TabletopGame/InNomine'': Sin City is a town in Hell that Valefor, the Prince of Theft, has remodeled into a send-up to noir movies, apparently mainly for his own entertainment. The result is a maze of perpetually wet streets, lit by streetlamps that always leave deep pools of shadow, home to demonic mafiosos in pinstripe suits and fedoras, mysterious and furtive figures in concealing trenchcoats, and cat burglars in black leather scurrying around the rooftops. Valefor's mansion, the Palazzo Furto, lies on a hill overlooking the city.
145	[[/folder]]
146
147	[[folder:Video Games]]
148	* Liberty City from ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIV'' exemplifies this trope.
149	* ''VideoGame/MaxPayne1'' gave us one of the best and most original video game examples. There is nothing like New York, a winter storm, and some Norse aesthetics to get the noir blood running...
150	* Midgar from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII''.
151	* ''VideoGame/Nightshade1992'''s Metro City is about as old an example as you're going to get (even if it's mostly a [[ParodiedTrope spoof]] of the genre).
152	* Metro City of ''VideoGame/CondemnedCriminalOrigins'' is somewhat of a {{deconstruction}} of this trope.
153	* ''VideoGame/InFamous''' Empire City, a [[NoCommunitiesWereHarmed fictional stand-in for smaller New York]]. The city is quarantined due to an apparent plague, and there are three enigmatic gangs known as the Reapers, the Dust Men, and the First Sons who begin a turf war over the city. Empire City has areas in its sewer systems that can fit entire underground communities of homeless citizens.
154	* ''[[VideoGame/NeedForSpeed Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit]]'''s Empire City (wonder why this name is so common?).
155	* ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'s'' New York.
156	* Rapture in ''VideoGame/BioShock1'', especially in its state of decay. Going one better than constant rain, it is underwater. Even better, its leaking in a lot of places.
157	* The city from ''VideoGame/{{Thief}}'' called... [[CityWithNoName The City]]. Oookay.
158	* The first level of ''VideoGame/ThePunisherTHQ'' begins with a monologue about how even though the politicians have tried to clean up the city, all they succeeded in doing was pushing crime to other neighborhoods.
159	* City 17 in ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'' was this on concept art in early stage of development, and it picked up a strong Eastern European inflection in the final work.
160	* Detroit (again) from ''VideoGame/DeusExHumanRevolution'', along with Hengsha in Shanghai, in somewhat different styles. Detroit is very obviously based on ''Film/BladeRunner's'' LA, and Hengsha looks more like [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Midgar]]. New York from [[VideoGame/DeusEx the original]] might have counted, too, but we don't get to see much of it, and it's too poorly-rendered to tell. The developers had big plans for the Montreal level, but time constraints forced them to [[WhatCouldHaveBeen cut out the entire thing in exchange for a single mission level.]]
161	* The urban locations in ''VideoGame/KingpinLifeOfCrime'' feature everything between desolate ghettos and classy, but equally vile Radio City with its ArtDeco architecture (bearing a suspicious resemblance to some places in ''Film/{{Payback}}''). Also notable for a weird mix of modern as well as 1920s, '30s and steampunk/sci-fi styles (Cypress Hill music, Tommy guns, and thugs with cybernetic facial modifications all in the same setting!)
162	* ''VideoGame/Halo3ODST'''s version of New Mombasa evokes this in the nighttime sections, though the city was brighter and more welcoming before the Covenant invaded.
163	* The City of Steelport in ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird'' has art deco and industry seemingly running everywhere, and half of the time the game spawns you at night. Or in the rain. It gets even more noir in ''VideoGame/SaintsRowIV'', where it (or rather, its simulation) is taken over by alien invaders, who ramp up the police brutality and apparently turn off the sun, so the entire city is permanently surrounded in dusky gloom. And ''then'' it gets explicit, when upon completing the main storyline and gaining full control of the simulation, you can change its color scheme to the DeliberatelyMonochrome "Noir Mode".
164	* Bezoar City of ''VideoGame/HardReset'' is perhaps the vastest, most towering example to be found on this page. When we say towering, we damn well mean it too; at certain points, the wind whistles by fast enough to suggest you are a very... appreciable distance from the ground that you most definitely can't see. Yet, when you look up, there's still a lot more city to go. At least once, you will go down the street through an industrial complex, only to find yourself on the ledge of a skyscraper.
165	* ''VideoGame/BearWithMe'': Paper City seems to be a LighterAndSofter version of a Noir city, everything is black and white and it always rains, the local politicians are corrupt and the police are incompetent.
166	* Los Angleles in the ''VideoGame/BladeRunner'' video game. It's dark, rainy, and dirty.
167	* The four nightmarish, Cog-swarming, gigantic Cog Headquarters in ''VideoGame/ToontownOnline'' are very good examples, especially the Lawbot HQ, which appears to have an entire, New York-esque, city in the background.
168	* The ''VideoGame/JakAndDaxter'' series has Haven City, a sprawling metropolis believed to be the last surviving city on the planet. It's heavily polluted, in a severe state of disrepair, and has a mafia that actively works with the city's [[TheEmpire evil government]]. By the time of Jak II, it's been under siege for hundreds of years, and the citizenry is impoverished and downtrodden due to the war and the Baron's tyrannical rule. On top of that, the government has secretly worked out a deal with their supposed enemy, the [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Metal Heads]], to supply them with eco in exchange for attacking the city just enough to [[MonsterProtectionRacket justify its continued rule.]] Did we mention that the Baron has a plan to destroy the Metal Heads that would [[TakingYouWithMe also destroy the entire universe?]]
169	* This is how Emerald City is portrayed in ''VideoGame/EmeraldCityConfidential''. Because of its DarkerAndEdgier tone, Emerald City is filled with criminals, corrupt authority figures, and cynical city dwellers.
170	* Cloudbank in ''VideoGame/{{Transistor}}'' is perhaps a slightly more colorful and opulent version, though it's still fairly bleak and CyberPunk-esque (especially with {{Killer Robot}}s running amok.)
171	* Though downplayed, this trope is undeniably present in ''[[VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite Pokémon Black]]'''s version-exclusive location, Black City; a shady metropolis dominated by skyscrapers of the color its name would suggest with battle-hungry residents, a market that tries to sell you items for up to ''fifty times their actual worth'', and a mayor who openly boasts that his city is fueled by greed and selfishness. It's a stark contrast to its counterpart, the lush and idyllic [[{{Arcadia}} White Forest]].
172	* In ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'':
173	** Windhelm is the capital of the Stormcloak rebellion, Riften, capital of the Rift, and Markarth, capital of the Reach. Windhelm is full of narrow, winding streets, racism against the city's Argonian and Dark Elf residents is commonplace, and when you first arrive, the city is being stalked by an insane, necromantic SerialKiller. Since Windhelm is located in the northern reaches of Skyrim however, Windhelm trades the usual rainfall for heavy snow instead.
174	** Riften is a perpetually foggy city rife with corruption; it the home to the Thieves Guild (who in a break from previous Elder Scrolls games are not a band of Robin Hood types who protect the poor, but are in fact little more than a collection of thugs, blackmailers, exortionists, and con-men). The local Jarl is incompetent and out of touch with her people, and the real power in Riften is the head of the local mead dynasty, Maven Black-Briar, who has the Thieves Guild at her beck and call, has ties to the [[ProfessionalKiller Dark Brotherhood]], and [[spoiler: can actually become Jarl if you side with the Empire in the Civil War]]. It's not uncommon to see Thieves running loose in the marketplace, and Honorhall Orphanage, Skyrim's only home for orphaned children, is ([[AssholeVictim initially]]) run by a monstrous woman named Grelod [[IronicNickname the Kind]] who regularly abuses her wards and refuses to let any of them actually get adopted. And be warned if you venture into the Ratway, the sewers beneath the city, which is home not only to the Thieves Guild, but also home to a number of other thugs, miscreants and outcasts who dwell down there.
175	** Markarth has to take the cake however. Upon entering the city for the first time, you're treated to the sight of a woman being murdered in the middle of the marketplace (possibly) in broad daylight, before her assailant is killed by the guards who assure you that everything is under control and that there are no Forsworn in Markarth. You're drawn into a conspiracy surrounding the Forsworn, the former inhabitants of the Reach, and the powerful and corrupt Silver-Blood family that really rules the city, and by the end of the questline, you'll be looking at quite a number of dead caught in the crossfire. The city is built over an ancient Dwemer city teeming with killer robots, giant spiders, and vicious Falmer that are only kept from sweeping through the city because they're too busy killing each other, there's a haunted house that houses an artifact of Molag Bal, one of the truly most despicable Daedric Princes, and if you do Namira's Daedric quest as well [[spoiler: you discover a not insignificant number of Markarth residents are cannibals]]. It's a pretty miserable place to live.
176	* Betancuria in ''VideoGame/ADanceWithRogues'' is a fantasy variation of this trope. It has mostly dull, monochrome architecture, and it rains almost every day. Crime is rampant, serial killers and street gangs run riot, so the local ThievesGuild-slash-TheMafia are actually the ''good'' guys by comparison--though, of course, the foreign military force currently occupying the city after a brutal conquest doesn't see it that way.
177	* The CityWithNoName from ''VideoGame/{{Blackout}}'' shows off the trope from quite a few angles across its four different {{Hub Level}}s: the pretty, but somewhat surreal Uptown, the shady and dirty Downtown, the worn Docks where every building is crooked, and the oppressive Suburbs in pristine concrete.
178	* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'': Zozo. Take the blurb and replace "ApatheticCitizens" with "crazy liars, thieves and crazy lying thieves" and you'll get a perfect description of the place. Everything else is here: the dark skyscrapers, the perpetual rain and the crime rate is so high the city is actually a DungeonTown despite being populated: hunchbacked freaks of nature, sickle-wielding masked thieves, spell-casting prostitutes and towering brutes whose very step shake the ground are all fought here.
179	* Part of [[CityOfAdventure Chronopolis]] in ''VideoGame/LegoMarvelSuperHeroes2'' is the aptly-named Manhattan Noir, a Great Depression/Prohibition-era area where the missions tend to focus more on street-level BadassNormal characters like ComicBook/{{Daredevil}} and Kingpin. The game even applies a near-monochrome filter when in the area.
180	* Chicago in ''VideoGame/{{Hitman Absolution}}'' is portrayed as this, straight out of a Frank Miller comic, fitting its more grindhouse tone.
181	* ''VideoGame/ShadowsOfDoubt'' has every randomly generated city be like this, with a combination of desaturated palette, glum atmosphere, and dystopian backstory giving the entire city a callously hopeless vibe which only resonates further when you encounter desperate homeless people trying to rob you, illegal gun shops and under-the-table cybernetics providers, and at least one insane cult/narcotics ring.
182	* Kanai Ward in ''VideoGame/MasterDetectiveArchivesRainCode'' is basically this, being a dystopian city run by a corrupt security force with a corrupt corporation serving as its government, while blanketed in a gloomy, rainy atmosphere.
183	[[/folder]]
184
185	[[folder:Visual Novels]]
186	* To quote the description of [=ClockUp=]'s ''Maggot Baits''' Jahougai, the Heretical City—
187	-->Several years ago, in the city at the heart of Kanto once known as Kajou, a connection formed between this world and an Abyss from whence a vortex of chaotic power swept across the land, unleashing rampant supernatural phenomena and turning the city into a pandemonium.
188	-->Faced with the appearance of immortal Witches shrouded in mystery, the government decreed the complete isolation of the city, declared it an abandoned territory, and erased it from official maps.
189	-->For a while, the place once known as Kajou seemed destined to remain a ghost town, but soon it became a den of criminals and clandestine migrants, a refuge for those seeking asylum from their crushing debts and misery outside society, and a hunting ground for those who feed on misery, such as prostitutes, yakuza, and traffickers.
190	-->After a few years which saw its population grow to 150,000, the unrecognized extraterritorial city had become Jahougai, the Heretical City. There, the meeting of a man and a Witch marks the beginning of this story.
191	-->In this wicked city where no law holds and danger reigns unfolds the cruel fate of a man and a Witch.
192	* In ''VisualNovel/{{Superhuman}}'', Michael is sent to live in one for a year by his father to toughen him up and prepare him for life as a member of a crime family.
193	[[/folder]]
194
195	[[folder:Webcomics]]
196	* ''Webcomic/LastRes0rt'''s City of Wonder. (although at least in terms of being a darkly colored city, they have the excuse of it being located inside a freakin' space station, so any sunlight or other weather that exists there is manufactured ''anyway''...)
197	* Greysky City in ''Webcomic/TheOrderOfTheStick'' is Haley and Ian Starshine's city of origin; an exaggerated hive of scum and villainy. Its MeaningfulName should tell you something about it.
198	-->'''Haley:''' It's a dangerous place where people get killed for having gold in their pockets. Not everywhere on this plane is Happy Sunshine Land, you know.
199	* The unnamed city that ''Webcomic/TheLettersoftheDevil'' inhabits is a world of barely-hidden corruption. As the mysterious "L" says in the Prologue, "The city is beautiful from a distance. It hides the Rot well."
200	* Nocturne City in [[http://strangeaeons.comicdish.com/ Strange Aeons]] is not only this (right down to the name), it appears to be setting up to be an exaggerated parody of noir cities.
201	* ''Webcomic/{{Pibgorn}}'': [[http://www.gocomics.com/pibgorn/2009/06/04/ Whenever Nat Bustard shows up, this can't be far behind]]
202	* The [[http://cockeyed.webcomic.ws/comics/91/ ''Noireville'']] setting from ''Cockeyed Comics''.
203	* Riverside, WA in ''Webcomic/RiversideExtras''.
204	[[/folder]]
205
206	[[folder:Western Animation]]
207	* WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries relies heavily on this trope for the stylistic views of Gotham City. And yes, it is often night, but that's when the bats take wing...
208	* While the daytime shots of Republic City in ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'' are very [[SceneryPorn beautiful]], it turns out that the city hides a dark underbelly of crime and poverty. In particular, the night fight scenes in the streets take cues from this trope.
209	** The same can be said to apply to the highly class-segregated Ba Sing Se of the [[WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender original series]], with [[GovernmentConspiracy secret agents of the government conspiring]] to keep the perfect balance they have created in the city, which also means keeping the hundred year world war secret to the public, and brainwashing anyone who dared to disrupt order.
210	*** Season Three of ''Korra'' reveals that Ba Sing Se, despite its technological modernization, has barely improved in the 70 years in-universe since we last saw it (debatabely worse even), due to its selfish and tyrannical queen; when said queen is [[spoiler:assassinated by the anarchist BigBad, the entire city instantly falls into an orgy of looting and vandalism]].
211	* ''WesternAnimation/BlackDynamite'' features a very limited color palette when it portrays its city setting. As well the city's palpable air of decay and depression and high crime rate, most action takes place in a ghetto overrun by whores, orphans and corruption, where [[DirtyCop the cops are crooked]] and the IRS is psychotic. PlayedForLaughs.
212	[[/folder]]
213
214	[[folder:Other]]
215	* Very common in CyberPunk works, as befits their FilmNoir roots.
216	* Supposedly, a TruthInTelevision with ''Film/TaxiDriver''-era UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity.
217	* Post-Motor City UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}} is almost always portrayed this way.
218	* VictorianLondon is often portrayed this way. Noir fiction can draw on VictorianLondon.
219	* It would seem that many [[UsefulNotes/TheNewRussia Post-Soviet Russian]] metropolises embody the trope.
220	** Moscow fits the trope perfectly, both in works like S. Lukyanenko's Watch tetralogy and in RealLife. The climate is dark and cold for nine months and blisteringly hot for the remaining three, the architecture consists mostly of drab Commie-era concrete towers with some neo-gothic Stalinist skyscrapers added downtown and a lot of squalid 'khrushevka' apartment houses in the outskirts, the citizens are apathetic, the {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s are flamboyant jerks and the psychological atmosphere of the place was nasty enough even before the global financial crisis, and now it's downright unbearable.
221	** Moscow, however, has nothing on [[UsefulNotes/TheCityFormerlyKnownAs the second capital of Russia]], which has been a City Noir for ''centuries'' -- before the term was even conceived -- probably ever since its inception. Even the classical writers of Russian literature would agree: Creator/FyodorDostoevsky himself famously called Saint-Petersburg the "City of the Half-Mad" in ''Literature/CrimeAndPunishment'', while Creator/NikolaiGogol devoted an entire short story describing how gloomy and dark it was. And there's a good reason for that: [[TheNightThatNeverEnds on average, there are only two hundred days in the year that are rainy and only fifty that are sunny]], and the weather and life conditions were (and are) so unbearable that most of the peasants who constructed the city died and became the city's foundations. The (beautiful, mind you) famous baroque architecture of the city does not help either: [[InvokedTrope knowing full well that the place where Saint-Petersburg stood was naturally very gloomy]], they chose to use bright, pastel tones like yellow and cyan to add some color to the city, which, as Dostoyevsky pointed out, [[GoneHorriblyWrong made it look like a giant insane asylum]]. Saint-Petersburg also became famous for its rampant crime during TheNineties, and albeit the power of TheMafiya waned after Putin's ascension, the atmosphere of the city still reeks of criminality. In short, it is the ''quintessential'' City Noir, with all of its main characteristics with the sole exception of huge skyscrapers. However, even that only applies to the old part of the city. The newer districts have a lot of tall ugly buildings [[note]]most of those may not really count as skyscrapers, since they're about 75-100 meters tall[[/note]], and [[https://severdol.ru/forum/download/file.php?id=39226&mode=view/XVlf9twz0w4.jpg several suburbs]] [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DNjVqGvWkAABUKq.jpg consist entirely of them]].
222	** Other Russian major cities are Cities Noir, but with less decadence and more, often much more, of the city on the WrongSideOfTheTracks.
223	* Rather funny, the Eastern European cities [[TheNineties in the first 10 years]] [[WhyWereBummedCommunismFell after Communism fell]] were almost as Noir as designed by the director of ''Film/RoboCop1987'' himself due to the drabness of Communist architecture combined with [[TheAllegedCar rusty cheapo]] [[TheEighties 1980s]] cars and buses and explosion of street vendors, small shops, advertising panels, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking unemployed older people and young rappers]]. It was so common before the economic development [[TurnOfTheMillennium of the 2000s]] that ordinary population got sick of it altogether and nowadays [[BerserkButton they fly into a rage]] when they see something like it.
224	* UsefulNotes/{{Glasgow}}, UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} is the rainiest city in the UK. Similarly, it is full of drab, square council houses, with tower blocks puncturing the earth every now and then, derelict industrial works, some truly squalid [[TheCityNarrows City Narrows]], with an old centre filled with neo-Gothic remnants of Empire. Dark as hell in the winter too. Subverting this trope, however, is the fact that the inhabitants are A: [[ThePollyanna some of the cheeriest people in the UK]] and B: fiercely proud of their city, often [[ViolentGlaswegian getting angry and sometimes violent towards people]] who make it look -- AAK!
225	* Kowloon Walled City was an ungoverned, densely populated settlement in Kowloon City, UsefulNotes/HongKong. Originally a Chinese military fort, the Walled City became an enclave after the New Territories were leased to the UK by China in 1898. Its population increased dramatically following the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II. By 1990, the walled city contained 50,000 residents in 14 story high buildings so densely packed within its 2.6-hectare borders that the sun never reached the lower levels. From the 1950s to the 1970s, it was controlled by local [[TheTriadsAndTheTongs triads]] and had high rates of prostitution, gambling, and drug abuse.
226	[[/folder]]

Context Main / CityNoir