22. The Big Sleep (1946)
The Big Sleep is another benchmark of the Film Noir era, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in star-studded performances. It is known for its convoluted plot, though managed to (debatably) make it to the silver screen with a mostly coherent plot.
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Originally written as a short story by Raymond Chandler, he expanded it into a full novel in a process that he called “cannibalizing it,” a common habit of his when writing. It was something he had done numerous times before with other novels he published.