Top 10 Films About Los Angeles, According to IMDb

When is a movie about a place? Not merely set in it, but about it? Does the film’s plot address the setting directly? Is the setting a “character,” to borrow a cliche? Or is it simply a film that could not have happened anywhere else?

Los Angeles is the movie capital of the world, therefore, there are a lot of movies about Los Angeles. Thom Anderson’s 2003 documentary/proto-video essay Los Angeles Plays Itself discusses the role of Los Angeles in film over three hours. It uses clips from nearly 350 films! But which films about Los Angeles are the best? Here are the 10 best films about Los Angeles, according to IMDb.

10 Mulholland Drive – 8.0

David Lynch has a few films that could be considered his magnum opus, but foremost is his 2001 film Mulholland Drive. The film stars Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring as two women who traverse Los Angeles to discover the latter’s identity after a car accident.

Various characters come into contact with the pair throughout the film — vignettes focusing on these characters help form the film’s confusing, surreal plot. Everything about Mulholland Drive is open to interpretation and the film’s performances and style make it one David Lynch’s most rewatchable films.

9 La La Land – 8.0

Damien Chazelle’s 2016 film La La Land is perhaps best known as the antagonist to Moonlight in that year’s Oscar race. This is a shame because it belittles both films. La La Land is fundamentally about dreams, whether we deserve to achieve them and how we get there.

It wears its influences on its sleeve — traces of the MGM musicals of the 1950s and Jacques Demy’s musicals of the 1960s are apparent. This could be seen as a knock against most films, but La La Land is so well executed it doesn’t matter. It all leads up to what is arguably one of the greatest film endings ever.

8 The Big Lebowski – 8.1

The Coen brothers’ seminal stoner comedy is their first film to tackle the City of Angels. The film follows Jeff Bridges’ Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski after he’s mistaken for another man of the same name and two goons assault him and deface his rug.

The film has a lackadaisical style and sense of place that immediately lent itself to cult status, despite middling reviews and box office returns at the time of release. Lebowski is endlessly funny and has some great performances from its actors, particularly Bridges and John Goodman as Walter Sobchak.

7 LA 92 – 8.2

LA 92 is a documentary about the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The riots were the result of a “not guilty” verdict handed down to four white police officers in connection to the beating of Rodney King. Directors T.J. Martin and Daniel Lindsay use archival footage to plot out the societal pressures and events that lead to the riots.

In less than two hours, the pair (alongside editor Scott Stevenson) draw a direct line from the 1965 Watts riots to the shooting of Latasha Harlins and the King beating. It’s a thrilling, sobering piece of work that is well worth anyone’s time.

6 Chinatown – 8.2

Chinatown takes its plot directly from Los Angeles’ history. The film takes inspiration from the California Water Wars, a period in the early 20th century defined by the conflict between Los Angeles and ranchers in California’s Owens Valley. Chinatown’s fictionalized account sees Jack Nicholson’s Jake Gittes investigating a conspiracy at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to dry up land and buy it at a reduced price.

It sounds boring, but Robert Towne’s script (sometimes considered the greatest ever written) turns the noir into a thrilling mystery.

5 L.A. Confidential – 8.2

L.A. Confidential is an adaptation of James Ellroy’s 1990 novel of the same name. The film follows a group of 1950s LAPD officers embroiled in a conspiracy surrounding corruption in the department.

The film stars Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey and Guy Pearce as three cops at the center of the story, who work together to solve a murder at a diner and uncover the corrupt cops in the department with links to gangster Mickey Cohen.

4 Heat – 8.2

Michael Mann’s 1995 heist thriller Heat is a remake of a TV pilot Mann made in the 1980s. In Heat, Robert De Niro plays McCauley, a career criminal who hunts down one of his hired men when a heist goes wrong. Al Pacino plays an LAPD detective conducting surveillance on McCauley.

The film investigates the symbiotic tension between police and criminals, as well as that of Pacino and de Niro’s characters. Heat was praised for being an intelligent crime thriller with fully-realized characters and spectacular action scenes.

3 Double Indemnity – 8.3

Double Indemnity is one of Billy Wilder’s many films that pushed the boundaries of what was “acceptable” subject material in Hollywood. Its story of an insurance salesman who conspires with a woman to murder her husband and reap the insurance money was radical when the film was released.

Double Indemnity also helped to lay out many of the tropes and visual choices that would define the noir genre. Even as an early noir, it remains among the genre’s finest.

2 Sunset Boulevard – 8.4

Sunset Boulevard is one of the greatest films ever made about Hollywood. Gloria Swanson’s performance as Norma Desmond is one of the defining female villains in Hollywood, offering up a terrifying character with whom audiences can easily sympathize. Performances by William Holden and Nancy Olson also offer sympathetic characters.

Billy Wilder’s script takes several well-earned swipes at Hollywood for the way it treats people. Boulevard remains one of the best film noirs and many of its turns of phrase and visual styles became hallmarks not just of the genre, but of film as a whole.

1 Pulp Fiction – 8.9

Is Pulp Fiction a movie about Los Angeles? Maybe not, but the film is so inextricably linked to the city that any list like this can’t ignore it. Its filming locations became such huge landmarks that it’s impossible to imagine the film taking place anywhere else.

Pulp is far from Tarantino’s most “Los Angeles” movie — Jackie Brown and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood fight for that honor. However, Pulp Fiction’s characters ooze Los Angeles sensibility and style and the script’s non-linear narrative mirrors the city itself.

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