{"id":517772,"date":"2026-01-15T11:13:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T11:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/517772\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T11:13:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T11:13:14","slug":"the-101-best-los-angeles-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/517772\/","title":{"rendered":"The 101 best Los Angeles movies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img class=\"image\" alt=\"W1_Dropcap_RGB.png\"  width=\"82\" height=\"115\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768475593_621_.png\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>     <\/p>\n<p data-has-dropcap-image=\"\">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<p>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, the ones you carry with you. \u2014 Joshua Rothkopf, film editor<\/p>\n<p>              <img class=\"image\" alt=\"\"  width=\"400\" height=\"29\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1768475594_725_.png\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"\/>        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What makes a perfect L.A. movie? Some kind of alchemy of curdled glamour, palm trees, ocean spray, conspiracies&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":517773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[230852,1582,276,49747,230849,46537,1020,230850,73654,230845,3195,2961,224,2444,5337,230853,230851,81274,10069,77443],"class_list":["post-517772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-alchemy","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-critic","tag-curdled-glamour","tag-fantasy","tag-film","tag-film-writer","tag-freelancer","tag-good-los-angeles-movie","tag-industry","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-losangeles","tag-nighttime-driver","tag-ocean-spray","tag-palm-tree","tag-possibility","tag-staffer"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115898824275570961","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}