Not ‘Vertigo’ or ‘The Godfather’: You’ll never guess which late-90s film was named “Best Movie of All Time” by Rotten Tomatoes
Ahead of films more frequently deemed the greatest ever, a 1997 crime drama tops the review-aggregation website’s all-time chart.
A 1997 neo-noir thriller trumps other, more frequent chart-toppers as the greatest film ever made, according to a ranking by Rotten Tomatoes.
A review-aggregation website that curates the opinions of both critics and audiences, Rotten Tomatoes names Curtis Hanson’s crime drama L.A. Confidential at the top of its list of the “300 best movies of all time”.
L.A. Confidential pushes 1972’s gangster epic The Godfather into second, with the 1942 romantic drama Casablanca completing the podium.
What is L.A. Confidential about?
Based on James Ellroy’s 1990 novel of the same name, L.A. Confidential is described by distributor Warner Bros. as “a hard-boiled tale of crime and corruption”, in which “a cast of gritty, colorful characters on both sides of the law intersect in a web of corruption and deceit”.
Set in 1953, the film features an all-star line-up of actors including Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, Kim Basinger and Danny DeVito.
“Acted to perfection”
Following the film’s release in September 1997, Roger Ebert, the legendary Chicago Sun-Times critic, lauded L.A. Confidential as “so good”, defining the film as “seductive and beautiful, cynical and twisted”.
The movie is “acted to perfection with more twists than you can shake a stick at”, Empire magazine’s Bob McCabe said, while Variety’s Todd McCarthy summed it up as “an irresistible treat”.
Basinger’s performance as Lynn Bracken - a character described as “a Veronica Lake look-alike in a stable of prostitutes who have been surgically altered to resemble the top female stars of the early 1950s” - earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
L.A. Confidential’s total of nine Oscar nods also led it to scoop the statuette for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Watch the official trailer for L.A. Confidential:
How is Rotten Tomatoes’ movie ranking put together?
Rotten Tomatoes, a website run by a team of expert film-review curators, says it compiles its ranking of history’s “highest-rated best movies” using its “recommendation formula”.
This formula, the site says, takes into account several factors, chiefly: the response of critics and audience members to a given picture, and the number of reviews it has received.
“An editorial pass is reserved to finesse the final list,” Rotten Tomatoes adds.
Rotten Tomatoes all-time ranking: the top 5
1. L.A. Confidential (1997)
2. The Godfather (1972)
3. Casablanca (1942)
4. Seven Samurai (1954)
5. Parasite (2019)
Where is L.A. Confidential in other all-time movie rankings?
Although L.A. Confidential garnered Oscar wins and critical acclaim, the movie appears to have a far more modest impact on all-time charts other than Rotten Tomatoes’.
That goes for rankings chosen by any combination of journalists, filmmakers and audiences.
The picture does not feature at all on the American Film Institute’s 2008 list of the 100 best movies ever made, which were selected by a panel of jurors made up of “film artists, critics and historians”.
And critics surveyed by Sight and Sound magazine, for a poll published periodically by the British Film Institute, find no place for Hanson’s picture among their 250 greatest movies.
L.A. Confidential does make it into a top 100 picked by journalists at Empire this month - it takes 80th place - but the film missed out on a spot on a list selected by writers at Variety in 2022.
By way of comparison, The Godfather and Casablanca are included in all of the above rankings, as are other classics such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958) and Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941).
Meanwhile, the IMDb movie database, whose all-time top 250 chart solely comes down to votes cast by film fans, places L.A. Confidential at 174th.
Get your game on! Whether you’re into NFL touchdowns, NBA buzzer-beaters, world-class soccer goals, or MLB home runs, our app has it all.
Dive into live coverage, expert insights, breaking news, exclusive videos, and more – plus, stay updated on the latest in current affairs and entertainment. Download now for all-access coverage, right at your fingertips – anytime, anywhere.
Complete your personal details to comment
Your opinion will be published with first and last names