{"id":134625,"date":"2026-01-15T12:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T12:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/134625\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T12:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T12:42:08","slug":"the-101-best-los-angeles-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/134625\/","title":{"rendered":"The 101 best Los Angeles movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What makes a perfect L.A. movie? Some kind of alchemy of curdled glamour, palm trees, ocean spray, conspiracies big and small \u2014 and more than a pinch of vanity. From hard-bitten \u201940s noirs and vertiginous Hollywood rises (and falls) to the real-life poetry of neighborhood dreamers and nighttime drivers, Los Angeles is always ready for its close-up. The city has long occupied a cinematic place, straddling its gauzy past and a dark, rainy future. Go west, they said, and we came here, a site of fantasy, industry, possibility and obsession.<\/p>\n

We asked 17 film writers \u2014 staffers, freelancers, critics and reporters \u2014 to rank their top 20 movies set in L.A. (not as easy as you think) using a balloting process that blended their painstaking choices to develop this list. Angelenos live among the actual locations in these films; we\u2019ve noted those specific details in each write-up, so you can go out exploring. Of course we didn\u2019t have room for every title. Let us know your favorites<\/a>, the ones you carry with you. \u2014 Joshua Rothkopf, film editor<\/p>\n

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