The 25 best L.A. films of the last 25 years

“LOS ANGELES isn’t a real city,” people have said, “it just plays one on camera.” It was a clever line once upon a time, but all that has changed. Los Angeles is the most complicated community in America – make no mistake, it is a community – and over the last 25 years, it has been both celebrated and savaged on the big screen with amazing efficacy.

Damaged souls and flawless weather, canyon love and beach city menace, homeboys and credit card girls, freeways and fedoras, power lines and palm trees … again and again, moviegoers all over the world have sat in the dark and stared up at our Los Angeles, even if it was one populated by corrupt cops or a jabbering cartoon rabbit.

A few weeks ago, a group of Los Angeles Times writers and editors sat down to celebrate our celluloid city by selecting the 25 films from the last 25 years that best speak to the essential DNA of the Southland. We started with two simple ground rules: The movie had to communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience, and only one film per director was allowed on the list, a guideline that kept City of Angels specialists such as Michael Mann, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Altman and Paul Thomas Anderson from dominating.

There was passionate debate and not-so-polite outrage (“Do you really believe ‘Jackie Brown’ is better than ‘Pulp Fiction’?” “Look, I’ll say this slowly: ‘Fletch’ is not a good film”) and provocative results (the only film here that won the Oscar for best picture is at No. 25). There was also some pain; the beloved “Blade Runner” and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” were released 26 years ago, just missing our cut-off date. After all the politicking, we ended up with a list of crowd-pleasing popcorn fare, art-house standouts, modern farce and flicks with a disturbing amount of gunplay. Welcome to Los Angeles.

–

Geoff Boucher

FOR A LOOK AT THE CITY IN CINEMA, SEE PAGE 4