Directed by Curtis Hanson • 1997 • United States
Starring Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey

Perhaps the finest neonoir since CHINATOWN, Curtis Hanson’s masterful adaptation of the novel by James Ellroy brings the sleazy underbelly of 1950s Los Angeles to the screen with sizzle and punch. Following a bloody mass murder early in the New Year, three detectives in the corrupt LA police force find themselves drawn into a web of scandal and violence. Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) makes money on the side by setting up celebrity arrests so that Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) can scoop them in his gossip magazine. Officer Bud White (Russell Crowe) will break any rule to bring criminals to justice. And Ed Exley (Guy Pearce) will do anything to get ahead as long as it’s by the book. The way Hanson orchestrates each piece of this taut, multistrand storyline is a thing of hard-boiled beauty.