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01/01/00
L.A. Confidential (1997)
99
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:80
Fresh:79
Rotten:1
Average Rating:8.6/10
Consensus: Taut pacing, brilliantly dense writing and Oscar-worthy acting combine to produce a smart, popcorn-friendly thrill ride.
Synopsis: Director Curtis Hanson captures the duality of 1950s Los Angeles in this striking film noir adaptation of James Ellroy's novel. The City of Angels might be sunny, inviting, and glamorous to the... [More]
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger
Director: Curtis Hanson
Reviews for L.A. Confidential
Top CriticBrilliant, bold entertainment with complex characters that burn into the psyche. The most satisfying film of the year.
01/01/00
Top CriticWriter-director Curtis Hanson's adaptation of the James Ellroy novel wasn't merely one of the two or three greatest movies of the 1990s; it stands as a masterpiece for the ages.
11/26/08
Everything Angelinos love and hate about their city is here, as well as anything a movie fan could possibly wish for.
10/14/08
A modern cinematic classic...the alchemical reaction of a director and a charmed collaboration of actors, writers, and design artists...[Blu-ray]
10/04/08
...one of the most absorbing, compelling, most thoroughly enjoyable crime thrillers to have come along in the past decade.
09/29/08
A neo-noir masterpiece in the league of "Double Indemnity"...
09/26/08
Taut, atmospheric, acted with confident ease -- this is one of the greatest American movies of the 1990s.
04/09/08
You have to pay close attention to follow the double-crossing intricacies of the plot, but the reward for your work is dark and dirty fun.
04/09/08
Stop reading. Put this review on hold until after you've seen L.A. Confidential.
04/09/08
Spacey's Vincennes is the standout in a just about flawless ensemble, and director Curtis Hanson keeps the hugely complicated story zooming along the boulevard of broken dreams without losing sight of the details that make the trip worthwhile.
04/09/08
An irresistible treat with enough narrative twists and memorable characters for a half-dozen films.
04/09/08
Top CriticThis movie restores genre elements to a level of potency that's disturbing, satisfying, and rare as hell.
04/09/08
Dizzying and powerful.
09/24/07
A parlor game has already begun as to whether the supreme acting revelation in L.A. Confidential is provided by Mr. Crowe, Mr. Spacey or Mr. Pearce.
04/27/07
Representing the best of Classic Hollywood Cinema, this noir policier is marked by densely-plotted narrative, psychological depth, moral ambiguity, emotional complxity, and great acting, mostly by non-Americans, such as Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce.
08/26/06
As the emotional nexus, a Veronica Lake lookalike trapped in a web of male desires, Basinger is arguably the pick of a perfect cast. Subtle, shocking, compelling and immensely assured.
06/24/06
You could call it a huge epic, but it's also a scrappy movie, full of energy as well as style.
05/26/06
I dug it big-time, baby!
05/06/06
In doing away with manners, Hanson's hardboiled detective stories craft a more hard-hitting picture of the time than any filmmaker who worked in the 1950s could have dreamed
08/19/05
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