The time of the antiheroes and the femme fatale is not over. This is shown by the latest new neo noir movies such as "No Country for Old Men"(2007), "American Gangster" (2007) and Martin Scorseses "Departed" from 2006. The film noir stream is thus not just a stream, because it is not temporally limited. Can we call it a genre?

Until now you do not find the description "Film Noir" or "Neo Noir" as a genre on the back of a DvD or on film posters, the genre will be melodrama, thriller or else. Most of the Neo Noir movies are definitively melodramas or thrillers but they all have the facette that they give a deeper insight into the main character, often the whole movie concentrates on one character. If you combine this psychological analyse  with the common topics of thriller and melodrama you will get a Ne0 Noir movie. The film noir can be called stream because it is temporallly limited from the 1940ies to  1958, but neo Noir is definitively more than a stream but maybe too complex for a genre.

For all interested parties and further information I suggest the book "Film noir and Neo-Noir" by Paul Werner