L.A. Confidential (BFI Modern Classics)

L.A. Confidential was released in 1997 to huge critical acclaim. It went on to be nominated for nine Academy Awards and is now considered a key Hollywood movie of the 1990s. But having neither big-name stars nor a comforting moral universe, it fared poorly at the box office. At a time when audiences would soon be flocking to Titanic, this film harked back to an older, darker Hollywood.

Directed by Curtis Hanson from the best-selling novel by James Ellroy, L.A. Confidential stars Kim Basinger, Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito and two then relative unknowns, New Zealander Russell Crowe and Australian Guy Pearce. Manohla Dargis explores the careers of Hanson and Ellroy, based on interviews with both men, to dig deep into the film's obsession with the twinned, equally troubled histories of the Hollywood studio system and the city of Los Angeles.