The Killers
“She's a match for any mobster!”
Robert SiodmakCast
Burt Lancaster 
Ava Gardner 
Edmond O'Brien
Credits
Written by: Anthony Veiller
Plot
Two hitmen arrive in a small town and kill a gas-station attendant known as the Swede, who accepts his death without resistance. Insurance investigator Jim Reardon, curious about the Swede's passivity, retraces his past through flashbacks: a boxing career, a beautiful woman named Kitty and a payroll robbery that went wrong. Robert Siodmak's 1946 film noir, loosely based on Hemingway's story, launched Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner and is a model of the genre's shadowed fatalism.
Sinekatalog’s take
Robert Siodmak's noir, from a Hemingway story, opens with two hitmen killing a man who doesn't resist. Burt Lancaster's debut and Ava Gardner's femme fatale drive an insurance-investigator flashback tale.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.
Ratings
IMDb: 7.7 / 10 (26,533 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.
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