The word “romantic” has positive connotations to most people but there’s a definite dark side to romance, which is why it makes perfect sense that Noir City opens at SIFF Cinema on Valentine’s Day. To benefit the Film Noir Foundation, the co-producers of the event, SIFF is screening fourteen fine noir films in seven double-feature nights. Noir films are all about the dark side of romance–cheating spouses, duplicitous lovers, scheming seducers, murder, mayhem and more. The film noir view of love isn’t a pretty one, but the movies themselves are gorgeous and fascinating.

As a dedicated fan of film noir, I’ve already seen many of the films in the series, but that’s not going to stop me from going–a good film is a good film wherever you see it, but there’s some especially thrilling about watching a beautifully bleak film on the big screen in a darkened theater. I highly recommend seeing High Sierra (paired with The Hard Way), Moonrise/Night Has a Thousand Eyes, or Conflict (playing with The Suspect, a noir set in Edwardian England), but you can’t go wrong with any of these films.