Anthology of Award Winning Shorts

Noire has many definitions, depending on the opinion of the writer or historian. Some say it isn't a noire without a femme fatale. Some say that it should never end well for the protagonist. And some say that only those stories made within a certain time period qualify as a noire. But noire encompassed many things during its heyday between the forties and fifties, including no femme fatale, and the protagonist ended well. So it definitely could include everything from a happy ending, to an all male cast, or made outside the forties and fifties, or even an all female cast. A true noire is dark, and the characters are placed within those dire circumstances, that darkness, and they must fight it or succumb to their demise. And that alone is the definition of the word.