  Cosmological observations and the dynamics of the Milky Way provide ample
evidence for an invisible and dominant mass component. This so-called dark
matter could be made of new, colour and charge neutral particles, which were
non-relativistic when they decoupled from ordinary matter in the early
universe. Such weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) are predicted to
have a non-zero coupling to baryons and could be detected via their collisions
with atomic nuclei in ultra-low background, deep underground detectors. Among
these, detectors based on liquefied noble gases have demonstrated tremendous
discovery potential over the last decade. After briefly introducing the
phenomenology of direct dark matter detection, I will review the main
properties of liquefied argon and xenon as WIMP targets and discuss sources of
background. I will then describe existing and planned argon and xenon detectors
that employ the so-called single- and dual-phase detection techniques,
addressing their complementarity and science reach.
