The Night of the Hunter (1955)(IMDB 8.0)(RobertMitchum-ShelleyWinters-LillianGish)(Dir-CharlesLaughton)

The Night of the Hunter (1955)(IMDB 8.0)(RobertMitchum-ShelleyWinters-LillianGish)(Dir-CharlesLaughton)
Drama, Crime, Classics, Mystery, Thriller, B/W
The Night of the Hunter is a 1955 American thriller film with many film nolr undertones, directed by Charles Laughton, and starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, and Lillian Gish. The screenplay by James Agee was based on the 1953 novel of the same title by Davis Grubb. The plot focuses on a corrupt minister-turned-serial killer who attempts to charm an unsuspecting widow and steal $10,000 hidden by her executed husband.
The novel and film draw on the true story of Harry Powers who was hanged in 1932 for the murder of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

In 1992, The Night of the Hunter was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. The influential film magazine Cahiers du cinéma selected The Night of the Hunter in 2008 as the second-best film of all time, behind Citizen Kane.