Average Rating: 9.3/10
Reviews Counted: 50
Fresh: 50 | Rotten: 0
As bruised and cynical as the decade that produced it, this noir classic benefits from Robert Towne's brilliant screenplay, director Roman Polanski's steady hand, and wonderful performances from Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.
Average Rating: 8.8/10
Critic Reviews: 6
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 0
As bruised and cynical as the decade that produced it, this noir classic benefits from Robert Towne's brilliant screenplay, director Roman Polanski's steady hand, and wonderful performances from Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.
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"You may think you know what you're dealing with, but believe me, you don't," warns water baron Noah Cross (John Huston), when smooth cop-turned-private eye J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson) starts nosing around Cross's water diversion scheme. That proves to be the ominous lesson of Chinatown, Roman Polanski's critically lauded 1974 revision of 1940s film noir detective movies. In 1930s Los Angeles, "matrimonial work" specialist Gittes is hired by Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) to tail her
Jan 1, 1974 Wide
Nov 23, 1999
Paramount Pictures
All Critics (50) | Top Critics (6) | Fresh (57) | Rotten (0) | DVD (35)
Roman Polanski's American made film, first since Rosemary's Baby shows him again in total command of talent and physical filmmaking elements.
Polanski's film suggests that the rules of the game are written in some strange, untranslatable language, and that everyone's an alien and, ultimately, a victim.
In 1974 a director, a screenwriter, and a producer (Robert Evans, who for once deserves a few of the plaudits he's apportioned himself) could decide to beat a genre senseless and then dump it in the wilds of Greek tragedy.
A new private-eye melodrama that celebrates not only a time and a place (Los Angeles) but also a kind of criminality that to us jaded souls today appears to be nothing worse than an eccentric form of legitimate private enterprise.
It takes a Herculean effort to transform this type into a character and to replace the formula with a story, and Chinatown's success in both of these regards is one of the reasons it is universally viewed as a classic.
[Nicholson's] performance is key in keeping Chinatown from becoming just a genre crime picture--that, and a Robert Towne screenplay that evokes an older Los Angeles.
one of the great masterworks of '70s American cinema and an apex of the decade's obsession with genre revisionism
Forgetting Chinatown will be exceedingly difficult with this stunning new Blu-ray transfer from Paramount, brimming over with a tidal pool of extras, even if they aren't necessarily new to this edition.
Intrigue and suspense are the order of the day, and nothing is as it appears. Inscrutable, to be sure, and a wonderfully entertaining motion picture.
Great hardboiled detective film. Not for kids.
A landmark blend of acting, directing, structure and design. Chinatown is the greatest detective movie ever made.
Like "Casablanca," "Chinatown" represents a perfect storm of enormous cinema talent coming together under an intoxicating noir setting.
The greatest film of 1970s cinema's golden era (that wasn't made by Martin Scorsese).
This is a never-bettered noir masterpiece.
Is Chinatown the best private eye film ever? It may well be. Nearing its thirty-fifth anniversary, it deserves a reconsideration and a celebration.
Beyond all the "masterpiece" rhetoric, this is actually a great movie.
Simply put, Chinatown is one of the great films of the 1970s.
You know what to expect: it's Chinatown.
The exhaustive, labyrinthine narrative is built up like a fortress around this film's bitter heart.
A film that truly defines the term classic.
Jack Nicholson's small-time detective Jake Gittes, like other noir heroes, suffers from a shadowy past and fears: For him, Chinatown is not just a place, but a spiritual landscape and a melancholy, fatalistic state of mind.
When I first saw this film, roughly 5-6 years ago or so, I was a film buff, but I wasn't yet at the level I am today. I could appreciate this film, but looking back, I remember not really paying attention, plus, I watched it on TV, so there were commerical breaks and some censorship issues. Even though I didn't give it
April 19, 2008Super Reviewer
Jake Gittes: But, Mrs. Mulwray, I goddamn near lost my nose. And I like it. I like breathing through it. And I still think you're hiding something. Chinatown is a must watch film if you consider yourself a film buff. It is one of those classics that deserves all the praise it has gotten. Everything that makes a film
December 29, 2011
Super Reviewer
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