John Huston sketches a dark, cynical world with painfully deep perception. Detective Sam Spade’s (Humphrey Bogart) search for his partner’s killer leads him to a group of determined individuals who want the jeweled falcon of Malta: Brigid O'Shaughnessey (Mary Astor), the beautiful femme fatale, cowardly Joel Cairo (Peter Lorre), and pompously inflated Casper Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet).

"A work of entertainment that is yet so skillfully constructed that, after many years and many viewings, has the same brittle explosiveness-and some of the same surprise-that it had in 1941."

- Pauline Kael

"Outstanding . . . improves with each viewing."

- Leonard Maltin