Frank Miller, TCM's Guest Programmer for December, is a man of many talents. As a comic book artist, he is known for his gritty yet elegant film noir style in such adventures as Daredevil, Ronin and Batman stories including The Dark Knight Returns. As a screenwriter, his credits include three Robocop films. He also co-directed the 2005 feature-film version of Sin City, and produced the 2007 blockbuster 300 - both of which were based on his own comics.

"I've always loved crime movies," Miller explains to host Robert Osborne in choosing The Naked City (1948), in which his favorite character is "New York City itself." He admires Gary Cooper's heroic performance in High Noon (1952), while finding that film to be "an epiphany...an inevitable surprise." Miller picks The Bishop's Wife (1947) because its cast - Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven - makes "the difference between a serviceable movie and a great movie." The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) gets Miller's nod partly because it "was made in the same decade when I cut my teeth in New York."

by Frank Miller