glu
Studio
Join the waitlist
All comparisons
By scene · 25 models

Best AI image generator for film noir

25 models compared (November 2026)

Best for film noir: Recraft V4.1 Utility Pro (7.8 out of 10), ahead of Nano Banana Pro and Luma Uni-1, from our scores for prompt adherence, realism and film look.

We sent the same prompt, word for word, to the 25 best-ranked AI image models and put every result side by side. One image each, no retouching, no picking the best of several. Each card shows the model, its maker and its benchmark score.

The prompt

Wide shot at seated eye level across a cramped detective's office, the detective centred behind a cluttered oak desk, room to crop on both sides. A man in his late forties sits motionless in a rumpled flannel three-piece suit, tie loosened, collar frayed, a half-burnt cigarette between two fingers, staring at a telephone he has decided not to answer. A ribbon of smoke curls up and flattens into haze under the ceiling. Venetian-blind shadows slice across his face, the desk and the cracked plaster wall in hard parallel bars, and rain on the window throws tiny moving shadows on his cheek. The key is a streetlamp outside, hard and high through the blinds, almost no fill, 8:1, with a brass desk lamp glinting in a water glass. 35mm Kodak Double-X black and white, Cooke S4/i 32mm at T2.8, inky blacks, silvery highlights, fine organic grain, a frame from a 1940s crime picture restored in 4K. True-to-life skin, pores and stubble, no CGI look. No text, no logos, no watermarks.

Shape
16:9, or the nearest a model offers
Made
Models
25, 24 finished
How we ran it and ranked it

Every model got the prompt exactly as written above. Where a model can rewrite or expand a prompt before it draws, that was switched off, so each one worked from the same words. We made one image per model at 16:9; a model that cannot make 16:9 made its nearest shape, and its picture is trimmed slightly at the edges to fill the frame. Where a model drew black cinema bars into its picture, the bars are cut off for display. Nothing was retouched or chosen from several tries. A model that failed was tried once more; if it failed again, its card says so and why.

The order is the models' benchmark rank, not our opinion: their score in the Artificial Analysis text-to-image arena (human preference Elo, checked 8 November 2026), or, for a model Artificial Analysis does not score, the Arena text-to-image leaderboard (checked 6 November 2026). The two boards use different scales, so each score is placed by the share of its own board it beats. A model sold under two names is one model, shown once under both.

A model whose content filter refused the prompt is shown as refused, with no picture. Only models whose pictures may be used commercially are included.

The answer at the top and the notes under What we noticed come from our own scores, not the benchmark. Each picture was scored 1 to 10 on prompt adherence, realism and film look, and the scores were checked by an independent cross-review.

The 25 results

Ranked by benchmark. Select a picture to see it full size, then use the arrows or your arrow keys to compare.

  1. #1

    Nano Banana 2

    · Google· AA Elo 1142
  2. #2

    Muse Image

    · Meta· AA Elo 1128
  3. #3

    Nano Banana Pro

    · Google· AA Elo 1119
  4. #4

    Qwen Image 3.0 Pro

    · Alibaba· AA Elo 1095
  5. #5

    Qwen Image 3.0

    · Alibaba· AA Elo 1073
  6. #6

    FLUX.3 Klein

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1043
  7. #7

    FIBO 2.0

    · Bria· AA Elo 1039
  8. #8

    Seedream 4.5

    · ByteDance· AA Elo 1030
  9. #9

    FLUX.2 [flex]

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1028
  10. #10

    Recraft V4.1 Utility

    · Recraft· AA Elo 1028
  11. #11

    Luma Uni-1 Max

    · Luma AI· AA Elo 1026
  12. #12

    Grok Imagine Image

    · xAI· AA Elo 1024
  13. #13

    FLUX.2 [max]

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1021
  14. #14

    Seedream 5.0 Lite

    · ByteDance· AA Elo 1019
  15. #15

    Recraft V4.1 Utility Pro

    · Recraft· AA Elo 1018
  16. #16

    Wan 2.6

    · Alibaba· AA Elo 1018
  17. #17

    FLUX.2 [pro]

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1003
  18. #18

    FLUX.2 [dev]

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 1000
  19. #19

    FLUX.2 [dev] Turbo

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 996
  20. #20

    Luma Uni-1

    · Luma AI· AA Elo 994
  21. #21

    Recraft V4.1 Pro

    · Recraft· Arena 1132
  22. #22

    FLUX.2 [dev] Flash

    · Black Forest Labs· AA Elo 989
  23. #23

    HunyuanImage 3.0 Instruct

    · Tencent· AA Elo 988
  24. #24

    Wan 2.7 Image

    · Alibaba· AA Elo 988
  25. #25

    Cosmos 3 Super

    · NVIDIA· AA Elo 987

What we noticed

Our read of these pictures. It's one image per model, so treat it as a snapshot, not a verdict.

  • Strongest: Recraft V4.1 Utility Pro. Weakest: FLUX.2 [dev] Flash.

    Recraft V4.1 Utility Pro could pass for a restored 1940s print: blind shadows cut across his face, the window is streaked with rain, the plaster is cracked and the blacks are deep. One flaw: its smoke doesn't come from his cigarette but rises above the streetlamp. It came back at about 3:2, not 16:9. At the other end, FLUX.2 [dev] Flash puts black clover-shaped marks on both cheeks, and FLUX.2 [dev] and [dev] Turbo put stray dark marks on his face too, and FLUX.2 [pro] ignored black and white altogether and made a warm colour picture.

  • Hard blind light, but rarely on the face

    The prompt asks for venetian-blind shadows across his face, the desk and the wall. Most models put the bars on the wall behind him and lit his face softly. Only Recraft V4.1 Utility Pro, Seedream 4.5 and HunyuanImage 3.0 Instruct laid the shadow bars across his face, which is the shot that says noir at a glance.

  • Smoke, and the story in the props

    Recraft V4.1 Pro and Nano Banana Pro show the smoke flattening into a haze under the ceiling, as written, and Recraft V4.1 Utility's curls up into a looser haze; Grok Imagine Image and FLUX.2 [max] show hardly any smoke. Neither Recraft picture ties the smoke to the cigarette: in V4.1 Utility Pro it rises above the streetlamp, and in V4.1 Pro the ribbon runs down to his head. Several changed the story. Seedream 4.5 and Wan 2.7 Image have him answering the telephone he has decided not to answer, and others drop his fixation on it: FLUX.3 Klein has him look toward the window, FLUX.2 [max] at the viewer. FIBO 2.0, Wan 2.7 Image and Luma Uni-1 added a second telephone, FIBO 2.0 also four glass ashtrays, and Nano Banana 2 and Nano Banana Pro gave him two cigarettes at once.

  • Who nailed the 1940s look

    Luma Uni-1 and Luma Uni-1 Max came closest to a frame of 1940s film: low-key light, inky blacks and real grain, and Uni-1 Max even gave him a candlestick telephone of the period. Seedream 5.0 Lite had the strongest mood, the whole room barred with shadow under a lit streetlamp. FLUX.2 [flex], FLUX.2 [max] and Grok Imagine Image read as clean modern black-and-white photographs rather than film stills.

  • One model refused

    Muse Image refused the prompt twice: its content filter rejects tobacco, so a smoking scene is off the table for it. With the cigarette swapped for a coffee mug in our own test, it made an image without complaint.

See how these models rank across all 10 scenes

Head to heads featuring these models

Two of the models above on the same film scenes, judged pair by pair.

Other scenes

The same 25 models on another film shot.

Join the waitlist

Sign in once. If you don't have an invite yet, that puts you on the waitlist, and we'll email you when your invite is ready. For people 18 or over.

Join the waitlist

Sold under more than one name, shown once: Nano Banana 2 (Nano Banana 2, Gemini 3.1 Flash Image Preview); Nano Banana Pro (Nano Banana Pro, Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview).