The Long Wait is a 1954 American crime drama film noir directed by Victor Saville starring Anthony Quinn, Charles Coburn, Gene Evans and Peggie Castle.

Johnny McBride is badly hurt while hitch hiking and loses his memory when the car he is riding in crashes; he also has his fingerprints burned off.

Two years later, a clue leads him to his old home town, where he finds he is a murder suspect.

[3] Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style by Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward writes: "The inclusion of amnesia, giving the hero a sense of hopelessness compounded by the frustration of his loss of identity, instills a distinct existential bias into McBride's search.

This attitude combines with a pervading sense of corruption and dehumanization to give The Long Wait a fatalistic noir ethos.