Published Oct 28, 2026, 3:55 PM EDT
Richard Craig is a Senior Author at Screen Rant covering film and TV. Richard has also written extensively about horror and film soundtracks, contributing a chapter to the first major academic collection on the folk horror genre, The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror. Richard is also a performing musician and holds an MA in Music and Sound Art.
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The movie that Rotten Tomatoes deemed the greatest of all time will be leaving Prime Video this weekend. This particular thriller earned nine Academy Award nominations, won two Oscars, and once topped Rotten Tomatoes' list of the best movies of all time.
Streaming services make it easier than ever to revisit cinema classics, but licensing agreements mean even award-winning films can vanish from a platform with little notice. Rotten Tomatoes offers a useful starting point for finding movies worth watching, bringing together critical reviews and audience approval. Its all-time rankings are not definitive measures of cinematic greatness, but they can highlight films whose reputations have endured long after their theatrical releases.
One movie has sat comfortably at the top of Rotten Tomatoes movie rankings through its complex assessment: L.A. Confidential. Curtis Hanson's 1997 neo-noir masterpiece was a critical and commercial triumph. Audiences have just a few days left to watch the acclaimed crime thriller.
L.A. Confidential Is A Crime Thriller Masterpiece
L.A. Confidential adapts James Ellroy's 1990 novel into a labyrinthine crime thriller set in early-1950s Los Angeles. It depicts three police officers whose investigations expose a web of murder, corruption, and exploitation beneath Hollywood's glamorous public image. Its period setting is essential to the story, but the movie's most compelling subject is the struggle between the justice its characters claim to represent and the compromises they make to get ahead.
Guy Pearce plays Lieutenant Ed Exley, an ambitious officer determined to follow procedure and establish himself as a principled detective. Russell Crowe's Bud White is his volatile opposite, a physically intimidating police officer whose violent temper is matched by a fierce intolerance of men who abuse women. Kevin Spacey's Jack Vincennes occupies another morally complicated corner of the department, exploiting his police position to help tabloid journalist Sid Hudgens, played by Danny DeVito, manufacture celebrity scandals.
The murder of several people at an all-night coffee shop draws these three very different officers into an increasingly complicated investigation. What initially seems to be a straightforward case expands into a conspiracy involving organized crime, police corruption, and powerful figures who have every reason to keep the truth buried. The screenplay makes its dense plotting surprisingly easy to follow because each revelation emerges from the characters' competing ambitions and conflicting principles.
L.A. Confidential also understands that film noir requires more than trench coats, shadows, and morally compromised detectives. Dante Spinotti's cinematography captures both the seductive glamour and the seedy underside of 1950s Los Angeles, while the careful production design makes the period feel surprisingly immersive.
L.A. Confidential received nine nominations at the Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and won two Oscars: Best Supporting Actress for Kim Basinger and Best Adapted Screenplay.
L.A. Confidential Was Named The Best Movie Of All Time
L.A. Confidential's critical reputation extends well beyond its Oscar success. Rotten Tomatoes currently gives L.A. Confidential a 99% Tomatometer score from 165 critic reviews, alongside a 94% Popcornmeter score from more than 100,000 audience ratings. Its Rotten Tomatoes movie page highlights the combination of tightly controlled pacing, dense writing, and strong performances.
However, its claim to being the best movie of all time comes from a specific ranking rather than its critics' score alone. In 2024, L.A. Confidential reached No. 1 on Rotten Tomatoes' 300 Best Movies of All Time list, a placement that surprised some movie fans, particularly those who might instinctively place The Godfather, Casablanca, or Seven Samurai above a crime thriller from the late 1990s.
Rotten Tomatoes' methodology helps explain how that result was possible. According to the site's official explanation, its recommendation formula incorporates critics' scores and audience approval, alongside the number of reviews, the number of audience votes, and the film's release year. An editorial review also helps shape the final selection and ranking.
It's worth noting that Rotten Tomatoes' list was updated on December 15, 2025, and L.A. Confidential now sits at No. 5, behind The Godfather, Seven Samurai, Casablanca, and Rear Window.
The L.A. Confidential Sequel That Never Happened
Given the original film's success, an L.A. Confidential follow-up might seem like an obvious proposition. James Ellroy's other novels have continued the story and provided plenty of material for further stories.
Guy Pearce discussed one possibility with Variety in December 2024, recalling that Hanson had spoken with Ellroy about a follow-up set in 1963. Hanson reportedly insisted that the same creative team needed to be involved, explaining the director's reluctance to revisit the material without the people who had made the original work.
In 2021, L.A. Confidential’s screenwriter Brian Helgeland revealed that he and James Ellroy had developed a follow-up that Warner Bros. ultimately rejected. This version would have been set in the 1970s, with Crowe and Pearce returning and Chadwick Boseman attached to play a young police officer. Helgeland explained that they had worked out the project, only for the studio to pass (via Deadline).
The central challenge was not a lack of material or interest from the original cast. Rather, the filmmakers needed a story that justified revisiting the characters without simply repeating the original's achievements. With Hanson now deceased and Warner Bros. declining Helgeland's proposal, the acclaimed crime thriller will seemingly remain a standalone film.
L.A. Confidential Is Confirmed To Be Leaving Prime Video
For subscribers in the United States, L.A. Confidential is scheduled to leave Prime Video on November 1, 2026, making Saturday, October 31, the final day to watch it through the service's subscription catalog. The timing gives viewers only a short window to revisit Hanson's film or experience it for the first time. At approximately 138 minutes, it requires a little more than two hours, but its intricate conspiracy and three lead performances reward the attention.
L.A. Confidential is not a disposable thriller whose appeal rests solely on an unexpected twist. Its layered character work, atmospheric recreation of postwar Los Angeles, and critique of institutional corruption are still compelling long after its original release.
Although Rotten Tomatoes no longer places L.A. Confidential at the very top of its all-time list, its 99% Tomatometer score, two Academy Awards, and continued critical reputation make L.A. Confidential an especially worthwhile title to fit into the final weekend before it leaves Prime Video.
Release Date September 19, 1997
Runtime 138 Minutes
Director Curtis Hanson
Writers Brian Helgeland, Curtis Hanson
English (US) ·