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Chinatown

Chinatown

Crime · Mystery · Thriller · 1974

Private eye Jake Gittes lives off of the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-World War II Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together.

Movie details

Chinatown

“You get tough. You get tender. You get close to each other. Maybe you even get close to the truth.”

1974 Crime · Mystery · Thriller 2h 10m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

7.9 / 10

Community rating

Private eye Jake Gittes lives off of the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-World War II Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over Chinatown?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Blow Out

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Body Double

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Butterfly on a Wheel

Butterfly on a Wheel

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A sociopathic kidnapper methodically pushes a desperate pair of parents to their absolute breaking point.

Wardriver

Wardriver

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He’s a Wardriver: a hacker who steals from banks, not people—until he’s noticed. Now the money turns violent, and the woman caught in it could save him or kill them both.

Cape Fear

Cape Fear

Drama · 1991

Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss.

Zodiac

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Basic Instinct

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8MM

8MM

Thriller · 1999

A small, seemingly innocuous plastic reel of film leads surveillance specialist Tom Welles down an increasingly dark and frightening path. With the help of the streetwise Max, he relentlessly follows a bizarre trail of evidence to determine the fate of a complete stranger. As his work turns into obsession, he drifts farther and farther away from his wife, family and simple life as a small-town PI.

Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Roman Polanski

Written by

Robert Towne

Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson

J.J. 'Jake' Gittes

Faye Dunaway

Faye Dunaway

Evelyn Cross Mulwray

John Huston

John Huston

Noah Cross

Perry Lopez

Perry Lopez

Lieutenant Lou Escobar

Burt Young

Burt Young

Curly

John Hillerman

John Hillerman

Russ Yelburton

Darrell Zwerling

Darrell Zwerling

Hollis I. Mulwray

Court is in session

Put Chinatown on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Big-Idea Head

“Form is the argument.”

Every composed frame and deliberate cut is evidence that control can be thrilling in its own right.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“Technique in search of a pulse.”

Immaculate construction is still construction. The film may be too busy proving its craft to feel alive.