L.A. Confidential

"Everything is suspect... Everyone is for sale... And nothing is what it seems."

1997 2h 18m EN

🙌

7.8

BANGER

🔥

99%

CERTIFIED FRESH

💯

METACRITIC

⭐

8.2

IMDB

★7.8TMDB · 5,779🍅99%Rotten Tomatoes●91Metacritic★8.2IMDB · 655,630

CrimeMysteryThriller

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Three detectives in the corrupt and brutal L.A. police force of the 1950s use differing methods to uncover a conspiracy behind the shotgun slayings of the patrons at an all-night diner.

“Everything is suspect... Everyone is for sale... And nothing is what it seems.”

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Cast

Kevin Spacey
Jack Vincennes
Russell Crowe
Wendell 'Bud' White
Guy Pearce
Edmund 'Ed' Exley
James Cromwell
Dudley Smith
Kim Basinger
Lynn Bracken
Danny DeVito
Sid Hudgens
David Strathairn
Pierce Patchett
Ron Rifkin
D.A. Ellis Loew

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Curtis Hanson
Writers: Brian Helgeland, Curtis Hanson, Gary Damian Thomas
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Made its money back 3.6× over at the box office.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

29 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

CAST

Did you know

280+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Curtis Hanson, shot by Dante Spinotti. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Original score by Jerry Goldsmith. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Peter Honess shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Kevin Spacey and Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Everything is suspect... Everyone is for sale... And nothing is what it seems.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Curtis Hanson directs. Dante Spinotti behind the camera. Jerry Goldsmith scores. Peter Honess cuts. Made its budget back several times over at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Made its money back 3.6× over at the box office.
229 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
3280+ people credited in cast and crew — a small city's worth of labour.
4Directed by Curtis Hanson, shot by Dante Spinotti. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Jerry Goldsmith. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Peter Honess shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Kevin Spacey and Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "Everything is suspect... Everyone is for sale... And nothing is what it seems.".
9IMDB entry: tt0119488 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 14 themes, including "corruption", "based on novel or book", "call girl", "shotgun".
11Released under 10 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Dante Spinotti
Original score: Jerry Goldsmith
Editing: Peter Honess
Production design: Jeannine Oppewall
Costume design: Ruth Myers
Makeup / hair: Lance Anderson
VFX supervisor: Peter Donen
Sound: Terry Rodman
Stunt coordinator: Jeff Imada
Runtime: 138 min · 2h 18m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $35,000,000
Box office: $126,216,940
Return: 361% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: L.A. Confidential (1997)
Rotten Tomatoes: 99% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 91/100
IMDB rating: 8.2/10 · 655,630 votes
MPAA: R

Awards

Won 2 Oscars. 91 wins & 86 nominations total

National Board of Review: Top Ten Films
National Board of Review Award for Best Film
Silver nugget for the best foreign film
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Film
Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Curtis Hanson

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

John Chard2016-08-07
★ 10/10
City of Angels? More Like City of Demons! Curtis Hanson directs and co-adapts the screenplay with Brian Helgeland from legendary pulp novelist James Ellroy's novel. It stars Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito and David Strathairn. Music is by Jerry Goldsmith and cinematography by Dante Spinotti. It's 1950s Los Angeles and three cops of very different morals and stature are about to be entwined in crime and corruption... I admire you as a policeman, particularly your adherence to violence as a necessary adjunct to the job. Tremendous film making. Hanson takes Ellroy's labyrinthine story and pumps it with period authenticity and seamless direction, the latter of which sees him garner superlative performances from the cast. This is the side of Los Angeles nobody wants to talk about, it's awash with corpses, hookers, seedy set-ups, violence, drugs, racism and corruption a go-go. And that's just involving the politicians, the press and the coppers! Rollo Tomasi. The absence of genuine heroes on show still further keeps "The City of Angels" covered in dark clouds, where even as the plot twists and turns, as the mysteries unravel and brutality unfurls, the final destination of the principal characters is never clear, thus there's a continuing edge of seat pulse beat within the pic. It's also sexy and dangerous, the dialogue sharper than a serpent's tooth, and while the ending is a little too cosy as opposed to original noir wave conventions, this is pure noir in all but black and white photography. It won only two Academy Awards, Basinger for Best Actress in a Supporting Role and for Hanson and Hegeland for Best Writing - Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published. Frankly it should have won a dozen or so for it's not just one of the best films of the 1990s, but also one of the best Neo-Noirs ever produced. 10/10
CinemaSerf2024-04-22
★ 7/10
After the seemingly indiscriminate slaughter of the folks at a diner, it's the ambitious "Exley" (Guy Pearce) who suggests to his bosses that it's time for the LAPD to get it's act together and root out the corruption endemic within the force. To that end, he is promoted by "Capt. Smith" (James Cornwall) and sets about trying to assert a bit more of the rule of law rather than the rule of vengeance - that'd be the "White" (Russell Crowe) method, or the more venal and sleazy fashion of "Vincennes" (Kevin Spacey). Needless to say, nobody takes kindly to this new pure as the driven snow approach, but gradually "Exley" starts to make a bit of headway into the world of organised crime, and to realise just how involved the police are in covering up crimes from fraud to murder. He's also aware that someone is pulling his strings, so some sort of rapport with one of his suspicions colleagues is going to have to be forged if he is to stay alive! Each of these characters get their moment in the sun and that allows us to meet the unscrupulous red-top publisher "Hudgens" (an energetic Danny DeVito) and the sophisticated call-girl "Lynn" (Kim Basinger) who is quite often pretending to be Veronica Lake! I think my only problem with this film was that I reckoned on who was doing what really early on, so the jeopardy was a little bit compromised. That said, though, it's one of Crowe's more natural performances and Pearce shows us he can deliver gritty and bruising parts well too. I could have been doing with a little more of Basinger's quite intriguing character, just to break up the relentlessness of the story a bit more, but it's a solid adaptation of James Ellroy's uncompromising book that Curtis Hanson presents and it doesn't hang about.