A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot, crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong, he goes undercover, scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the crook whose desperation has led him to a life of crime. Meanwhile, seasoned detective Satō (Takashi Shimura) tries desperately to keep him on the right side of the law.

A masterful mix of noir and police thriller, Stray Dog is a stylistic film full of atmosphere that probes the squalid nature of the criminal mind.

Inspired by the 50th anniversary restoration of Francis Ford Coppola’s neo-noir thriller The Conversation (at QFT from Sat 13 July), we are spending July looking at noir detectives, from classic noir’s police investigators to neo-noir’s common people turned amateur sleuths.