Just how dark do you like your film noir? You’re not going to find much stronger stuff than Scarlet Street, directed by Fritz Lang and starring Edward G. Robinson as a meek amateur painter who gets sucked into a world of deceit, infidelity, theft and worse.

This movie was so dark that it was banned by the New York State Censor Board in 1946. Today, its dense structure and strong performances enticed an extremely strong rating from IMDb users, placing it 36th on the Internet Archive Top 100.

Here’s a nice reminder that the Internet Archive’s Feature Films collection, like my IA Top 100 list, isn’t just black and white movies from 70 years ago. Sita Sings the Blues is a colorful modern animated movie of the epic Indian tale of Ramayana set to the 1920s jazz vocals of Annette Hanshaw.

Rotten Tomatoes‘ roundup of 32 critics gave a 100% score for Nina Paley’s masterpiece. She originally released it through a Creative Commons license, which is how the IA got it, and in 2013 she officially released it into the public domain. Not only is it a fine movie, it’s an amazing example of what one person can create.

Street Scene is a pretty stagey movie, but that works to its benefit. Elmer Rice adapted the screenplay from his Pulitzer Prize-winning play, and director King Vidor keeps essentially all the action on the street and sidewalks in front of a half-block of tenements.

Made before the Hays Code clamped down on what Hollywood could say, the movie is frank about such topics as a milkman’s affair and the workplace harassment of a married boss coming on to a teenage employee. The themes are timeless, one reason it ranks in the Internet Archive Top 100.

This Libyan movie, funded by Muammar Gaddafi’s government, depicts the country’s struggles to throw off Italian colonialism in the late 1920s. Oliver Reed stars as a Mussolini-appointed governor, and Anthony Quinn portrays the leader of the resistance.

Stuart Galbraith IV wrote on DVDTalk that the film “is a fascinating look inside a facet of Arab culture profoundly significant yet virtually unknown outside North Africa and the Arab world. Produced and directed by the late Moustapha Akkad, the film was notorious for reportedly losing most of its $35 million investment”. Now all that production value is available for us to watch as part of the Internet Archive Top 100.

Now this is just fun. The Internet Archive Top 100 needs more comedies like this one. Of the Bob Hope / Bing Crosby road movies, this is the only one in color, which was used to lavish effect. As usual Bob and Bing battle to save Dorothy Lamour as each wants her for himself.

Once again the IMDb users’ lack of enthusiasm for lightweight comedies pushed this further down the list than I would have preferred. A good review by Leonard Maltin and my thumb on the scale were enough to keep this perfectly silly story in the top 40.