This one sneaks up on you. At first, I was thinking it was “just” a taut, well-done noirish thriller — it’s about this guy who comes into town to meet a friend, only the friend is dead when he arrives, and he starts looking into it, and it turns out there’s more there than meets the eye, right.

But then as it went on, it became clear that this was a portrait of a particular city at a particular time. It was made in 1949 and filmed on location in Vienna, where it takes place. And so the city is divided into the four zones of its postwar occupation (as Berlin was), and “the police” are really four separate police forces sorta working together. Shots are full of destroyed buildings and rubble, plot events turn on the almost necessarily shadowy nature of life in a city in that kind of situation. Really, I couldn’t have timed this better to coincide with my reading Postwar if I had done it on purpose.

But then it continues on, and you realize that while it is all those things, it’s also a series of sharp character portraits — the protagonist, the female lead, the police officers, and especially Orson Welles’ character when he shows up. The script and acting are both razor sharp.

And, oh, there’s the cinematography, which particularly stands out at the end in the sewers, and the weird zither music, and the ending is perfect, and y’know what, this one deserves to be way higher up on this list than it is. Really excellent stuff on any number of levels.