Observing Los Angeles

Top L.A. movies of recent years

Los Angeles Times writers and editors chose 25 films from the past 25 years that "communicate some inherent truth about the L.A. experience." The arbitrary time period made "Chinatown" and "Blade Runner' ineligible, plus they decided to allow only one film per director. Their top 10:

1 - L.A. Confidential
2 - Boogie Nights
3 - Jackie Brown
4 - Boyz N the Hood
5 - Beverly Hills Cop
6 - The Player
7 - Clueless
8 - Repo Man
9 - Collateral
10- The Big Lebowski

That leaves "Mulholland Drive" at #11, "Swingers" at #14, "L.A. Story" at #20 and "Crash" at #25. The atrocious "Valley Girl" made the list, but not "Quinceañera" or the quirky "10 Items or Less," in which Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega roamed around South L.A. and Carson and ended up in Brentwood.


More by Kevin Roderick:
Standing up to Harvey Weinstein
The Media
LA Times gets a top editor with nothing but questions
LA Observed Notes: Harvey Weinstein stripped bare
LA Observed Notes: Photos of the homeless, photos that found homes
Recent Observing Los Angeles stories on LA Observed:
Drone view: US Bank tower yoga
Returning to LA in sticker shock
Jukebox repair man of West Pico Boulevard
Injured by sidewalk, Fox 11 reporter ready to quit Los Angeles
Another great old map from Glen Creason of LAPL
Down on the Silver Lake lakebed (gallery) *
Small, quirky fixes that might help us get around
LA's river homeless in the New Yorker


 

LA Observed on Twitter