Get Carter (2012)

Starring Michael Caine as a vicious London hoodlum who tries to smoke out his brother's killer (it's not to be confused with the torpid new Sylvester Stallone remake), Get Carter was released in 1971, seven months before The French Connection. Though Hodges' film never achieved that level of fame, its shockingly amoral hero and location-shot existential realism were, in their way, every bit as blistering — and revolutionary. Caine, with his gimlet-eyed ironic elegance, has never had a role he dug into with greater relish than that of Jack Carter, who returns to his hometown of Newcastle and bullies his way through its sordid criminal maze. Get Carter is one of the few film noirs that appears to unfold spontaneously, with no hidden blueprint to shape the characters' fates. It's enough to make you wish that Hodges, who had a comeback this year with Croupier, got more work. A