...with great skill telling several interwoven narratives that expose corruption, venality, and murder with compelling twists and turns that will leave the audience riveted until its closing frame.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jul 6, 2025

L.A. Confidential‘s representation of a long-gone era in Los Angeles is exemplary, and the 1950s are enlivened on screen in an accurate and opulent manner.

Full Review | Nov 28, 2023

The flawless ensemble..., the masterfully written story, the vibrant yet gritty vision of 1950s LA - most everything clicks in this fittingly cynical and undeniably seductive period crime thriller that still maintains its style and sizzle.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Mar 8, 2023

The best and richest crime-cop drama in decades... This is an instant classic.

Full Review | Original Score: A+ | Jan 10, 2023

One of the best cop films, L.A. films, and 1950s-set films. It’s also the best movie most of its cast and crew have ever been associated with. (25th anniversary)

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 30, 2022

Darker than piping hot coffee and more hard-boiled than a picnic egg, here's a colourfully brutal, thriller which might have been hewn from Hollywoods golden heyday.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 8, 2022

A masterfully smart and soulful film that bows low before genre even as it betrays it.

Full Review | Oct 20, 2021

Danny DeVito plays vile Sid for more laughs than such a sleazy type deserves, while Kim Basinger portrays a woman disappointed by life but still hopeful for salvation.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 20, 2021

The ensemble cast is flawless, anchored by two intense young Aussies, Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Oct 20, 2021

Adapted from a novel said to be unadaptable and set in a genre that has seemed increasingly played out, it brings clarity and life to its art and to life. That's a pretty good definition of a masterpiece, isn't it?

Full Review | Original Score: A+ | Oct 20, 2021

One of the toughest, freshest movies of the year.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 20, 2021

All the cops are corrupt in different ways. But as the murk and muck of the story deepens and thickens, three of them rouse themselves out of their moral torpor and rediscover their vocation, if not exactly their honor.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 20, 2021

One of the things the film conveys, in addition to institutionalized corruption, is the energy and excitement of a city that knows it's on the move. L.A. Confidential is juicy dynamite.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 20, 2021

Director Curtis Hanson, who adapted the novel with Brian Helgeland, has created a film that delivers in every way.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 20, 2021

Directed with vibrant panache by Hanson, L.A. Confidential is a terrific thriller, lean, taut and deeply involving, and rich in moral complexity.

Full Review | Oct 20, 2021

With the relish of brazen headlines splashed across the top of a Police Gazette-type scandal sheet, L.A. Confidential peers seductively into the dark heart of the city and conjures up a grand piece of hard-boiled entertainment.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 20, 2021

I loved this movie and respected its just-right blend of art and entertainment. Its lack of ironic self-consciousness and its insistence that its heroes be imperfect men of imperfect justice make this an exquisite noir experience.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Oct 20, 2021

Dante Spinotti's widescreen camerawork and Jeannine Oppewall`s production design brilliantly recreate the somewhat tawdry world of a glamorous city which is starting to lose its glamour.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Oct 19, 2021

Hollywood has always been fascinated with the seamier side of Los Angeles. The lure of movie-star glamour has always drawn the strivers, schemers, seducers and swindlers. All are in abundance in LA Confidential.

Full Review | Oct 19, 2021

What makes it so compelling is the scope and richness of its design. One leaves it with the sense of satisfaction one feels after snapping into place the last piece of a brain-teasing jigsaw puzzle.

Full Review | Oct 19, 2021