Brick — (2005)

While the setting is youthful, the film plays its noir elements with "dead serious" sincerity rather than irony: Brick (2005)

The story follows (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a social loner who plunges into his school's criminal underworld to investigate the disappearance—and eventual death—of his ex-girlfriend, Emily.

Released in 2005, is the audacious feature directorial debut of Rian Johnson, who later directed Knives Out and Star Wars: The Last Jedi . Set in a modern California suburb, the film is a neo-noir mystery that transposes the gritty tropes of 1930s hardboiled detective fiction into the high-stakes world of a contemporary high school. A Hardboiled High School