The Rewatchables – ‘L.A. Confidential’ (1997)

With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Andy Greenwald – The Ringer

Released: March 31, 2026

Episode Overview

The Rewatchables roundtable (Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, Andy Greenwald) celebrates the close of "CR Month" with a deep dive into L.A. Confidential (1997). The crew explores why the film—an intricate neo-noir about corruption and dreams in 1950s Los Angeles—has earned its spot in the Rewatchable canon and remains one of the crowning achievements of 90s Hollywood. The conversation covers the film’s landmark adaptation, themes of city myth versus reality, its memorable casting, and what makes it endure almost 30 years after its release.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Place of ‘L.A. Confidential’ in 1997 and Hollywood Canon

• Oscar History and 1997's Movie Landscape

  • [05:12] Bill Simmons: Lists 1997 “rooted” American classics: Titanic, Boogie Nights, Good Will Hunting, L.A. Confidential, Jackie Brown.
  • The group discusses the long-standing sentiment that L.A. Confidential “should’ve beaten Titanic” for Best Picture.
  • [06:01] Andy Greenwald: “It was definitely the critics’ pick… We all felt very smug for loving this movie and keeping up for it, but I don’t think there was ever a moment when it seemed like it was like... It was never gonna win against a juggernaut like Titanic.”

• A Sumptuous, Harmonious Studio Film

  • [06:52] Chris Ryan: “This is a five-tool movie… acting, writing, cinematography, direction, and music are all, like, completely in sync, completely in harmony. There’s not a bum scene, really, in this movie.”

• ‘We Used To Make Things in This Country’

  • The hosts repeatedly reference how such films—ambitious, adult, mid-budget, layered—feel almost impossible to get made today, contrasting studio risk-taking then and now.

2. Adaptation: From Ellroy’s Book to the Screen

• Radical Streamlining of the Source

  • [16:32] Chris Ryan highlights the difficulty of adapting James Ellroy’s sprawling, “Byzantine” crime epic: “It’s an incredibly brave adaptation… two guys, [Brian] Helgeland and [Curtis] Hanson, sitting down and just drilling like, what is this movie going to be about? And every scene needs to be about one of the three cops…"
  • [18:30] Andy Greenwald: Praises the adaptation for making a film “respected on both sides”—by book fans and fresh audiences.
  • [21:34] Chris Ryan: The film boils Ellroy’s 500-page novel down to a brisk, “ruthlessly efficient” 2 hour, 18 minute movie.
  • [21:58] Bill Simmons: “It’s a structurally almost perfect movie… this is like a big-ass bone-in filet. Like, no fat at all. Just zooming through it.”

• Ellroy’s Complicated Relationship with the Adaptation

  • [95:41] Bill Simmons: “James Ellroy’s relationship to the film is all over the map... 1997, he said it was a work of art… in 2016 he said it was problematic. In 2023 he said it was turkey of the highest form and that Crow and Basinger are impotent...”
    Chris Ryan: “And then when Curtis Hanson died, he was like, it’s a pretty good movie.”

3. Themes: Corruption, Dreams, and L.A. Mythology

• L.A. as Character and Mirage

  • [12:43] Bill Simmons: “L.A. is a beautiful, seductive, fucked up place that’s really here to break your dreams and steal.”
  • [13:32] Chris Ryan: Links the nostalgia of 90s period pieces like Boogie Nights and L.A. Confidential to vanished bones of “old” L.A., lamenting the loss of its historic look.

• The Underbelly—City of Angels, City of Devils

  • [15:35] Bill Simmons: Quotes from the film: “Life is good in Los Angeles. It’s paradise on earth. That’s what they tell you”; “How can organized crime exist in a city with the best police force in the world?”
  • [27:21] Bill Simmons: Themes: “tabloid culture, police brutality, racism, good and evil, seductive L.A. that’s here to steal your soul.”
  • [28:21] Sean Fennessey: “It’s a really good movie about the real and the fake and how they coexist in this city very comfortably… there’s a lot of crime and a lot of sadness and poverty and terrible things… and they all are just kind of coexisting.”

4. Casting: Then-Unknowns, Breakouts & The Best Performers

• Crowe vs. Pearce vs. Spacey

  • [08:32] Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey: Crowe and Pearce as true unknowns—Crowe pegged for stardom, but Pearce’s “weirdness” serving him in surprising ways.
  • [41:49] Sean Fennessey: “They’re making this movie in ’07, it’s clearly Bale as Exley—2005 range. Because you gotta admit intelligence for sure...”
  • [42:28] Bill Simmons: Recites Spacey’s ‘95-’99 run: Usual Suspects, Seven, Outbreak, A Time to Kill, L.A. Confidential, American Beauty. “He’s really good in this movie. And now it’s like ‘Kevin Spacey, problematic to say the least.’”

• Spacey’s Performance—Masks and Layers

  • [44:22] Sean Fennessey quoting Ellroy: “Spacey is so deft, is so controlled, is so subtle. Is so good at suggesting a character’s inner life with a minimal of outward action.”
  • [43:16] Bill Simmons: “Classic Spacey performance where it’s like, is this guy straight or gay? Is this guy a good guy or a bad guy?... He’s playing it, always, where you’re trying to figure out what he’s up to.”

• Kim Basinger’s Oscar—A Bizarre Win

  • [48:47] Sean Fennessey: “Among the more bizarre wins in recent Oscar history. I don’t think she’s bad… but the Oscar is just like, she has four scenes.”
  • [50:44] Bill Simmons: Recaps her competitors (“What the fuck are we doing? ... should just put a thousand people in a movie theater, show Boogie Nights and L.A. Confidential, and be like: guess who won Supporting Actor. It’s just insane.”)

• Danny DeVito as Sid—The Weak Link

  • [91:12 onwards] Multiple panelists pick DeVito as the film’s “weak link” – his Danny-ness and showiness take them out of the movie.

5. Memorable Scenes, Motifs, and Moments

• The Interrogation Scene

  • [64:24] Bill Simmons: “This scene’s a fucking banger.”
  • [70:16] All agree the “multi-room interrogation” is the film’s most rewatchable and electric scene—a “masterpiece” of pacing, acting, and tension.
  • [70:31] Chris Ryan: “Bud with the chair, Dudley and Jack, the sort of deep focus shots. It’s just… all the reflective stuff that they’re doing. It’s so awesome.”

• Rollo Tomasi and Stealth Plot Twists

  • [31:24] Bill Simmons: “Rollo Tomasi… one of the great stealth plot ideas of all time—it reveals itself in a small way, but you’re like, oh, it’s way up there.”

• Montage Aftermath, Victory Motel Shootout, and Dresser Parties

  • [73:27] Chris Ryan: “What’s really great is the post-Exley shootout montage… That works.”
  • [67:28] Chris Ryan: The climactic shootout at the Victory Motel is praised for spatial clarity and controlled mayhem.

6. Legacy, Rewatch Value, and Attempts at Imitation

• Adaptation Difficulty—Many Imitators, Few Successes

  • [143:41] Bill Simmons: “A lot of people have tried and failed to make movies like this… There’s only a couple that have actually made it.”
  • [128:01] Andy Greenwald: Two failed attempts to make L.A. Confidential as a TV series, with Walton Goggins and Kiefer Sutherland separately attached as Jack Vincennes.

• Why It Endures

  • [21:38] Andy Greenwald: “It just rolls almost to the point of you just get lost in it. And I stop taking notes both times, watching it.”

• CR’s Hot Take, Film as Modern Noir

  • [100:25] Chris Ryan: “It feels really true to life… all of it looks like the 50s, but it feels like a 90s movie… It’s cut like a modern film, the acting style is decidedly modern… the perfect balance.”

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• “This is the only thing I wanted was this quartet. This is my LA quartet, actually.”
  — Chris Ryan, [03:03]

• “This is a five-tool movie… There’s not a bum scene, really, in this movie.”
  — Chris Ryan, [06:52]

• “The movie’s amazing plate of chicken parmesan—you cut in and you look at the layers… there’s a lot going on here.”
  — Sean Fennessey, [08:11]

• “I love LA. I love that it’s a shithole. I love that it’s full of people doing terrible things to each other every day. I think that’s fascinating.”
  — Sean Fennessey, [12:56]

• “City of Angels is full of devils, right?”
  — Andy Greenwald, [27:10]

• “The stealth plot idea—Rollo Tomasi—is up there with Kaiser Soze and ‘What’s in the box?’”
  — Bill Simmons, [31:24]

• “Classic Spacey performance—Is this guy a good guy or a bad guy?”
  — Bill Simmons, [43:16]

• “What are her five best performances? You know, she’s Vicki Vale. She was a Bond girl. She’s in Nine and a Half Weeks… but the Oscar is just like, she has four scenes.”
  — Sean Fennessey, [50:03]

• “Danny DeVito is just Danny DeVito. Takes me out of the movie a little. His Danny DeVito-ness is just too omnipresent.”
  — Bill Simmons, [93:02]

• “There are a couple opportunities to discuss food and drink in this movie. …I feel like movies set in an era when there are no choices in liquor stores. You walk in and you say, give me a box. And in that box I want gin, scotch and vodka. And the guy’s like, okay.”
  — Andy Greenwald, [111:09]

• “This is the rare actor-actor for Pierce and Crowe—like two best actors.”
  — Sean Fennessey, [58:27]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [05:12] 1997: A legendary movie year; Oscar talk
• [06:52] Five-tool filmmaking—why the movie is “perfect Hollywood”
• [14:57] L.A. as the city of dreams and broken hopes
• [16:32] Adapting Ellroy’s dense, dark novel
• [21:34] Film’s ruthless efficiency—the adaptation challenge
• [28:21] Real and fake in L.A.: city mythology, coexisting darkness
• [31:24] The Rollo Tomasi twist; stealth plot inventions
• [41:49] Guy Pearce as proto-Bale; casting context
• [43:16] Kevin Spacey’s multilayered ambiguity and performance style
• [48:47] Kim Basinger and the “bizarre” Supporting Actress Oscar win
• [64:24] "The Interrogation Scene"—peak movie moment
• [73:27] Victory Motel shootout and montage analysis
• [91:12] The Danny DeVito debate: weak link and alternate castings
• [100:25] Hot take: why this is the perfect “modern period film”
• [128:01] Failed TV pilots, TV vs. Movie format discussions

Memorable Debate, Trivia & Flex Moments

• Cromwell as Dudley Smith: The Ultimate Heel Turn

  • [55:00] Panel discusses how Cromwell’s “nice” typecasting made his twist so shocking.
  • [56:03] “It’s like a heel turn.”

• House Porn: Movie Real Estate

  • [85:42] The Amanda Dobbins Real Estate award: Panel discusses the distinctive Hancock Park house, its recent sale, and the famed Lovell House.

• Iconic Background Players

  • [105:52] “Craigs” (that guys): shouts to David Strathairn, Matt McCoy, Thomas Arana, and others—the “deep bench” that supports the leads.

• Line of the Night

  • [83:22] Sean Fennessey: “Multiple split diopter shots in the movie… it just jumps out at you.”
  • [91:00] Chris Ryan: “Best line reading was when Jack says to Exley, ‘Why in the world do you want to go digging any deeper into the Night Owl killings, Lieutenant?’”

Panel’s Personal Takeaways & Legacy

• [141:00ff] For the hosts, L.A. Confidential is not just a film that endures—it is a pivot point between classic and modern Hollywood; one of the last studio prestige pictures successfully blending genre and substance.
• [141:00] Bill Simmons: “Crowe wins the movie because it sets up 10 years of Russell Crowe being one of the biggest stars we have.”

Final “Who Won the Movie?” Verdict

“Crowe is the answer. Crowe wins the movie because it sets up 10 years of Russell Crowe being one of the biggest stars we have and a few. It has to start with this.”
— Bill Simmons, [141:00]

For First-Time Viewers / Key Recommendations

• Start with the Interrogation Scene: [64:24–70:43]
• Focus on the City as a Living Character
• If You Love the Movie, Try “In a Lonely Place,” “Touch of Evil,” “Chinatown,” and “The Blue Dahlia”
• Watch Twice: Several panelists suggest the movie improves notably on rewatch as the intricate details and character arcs unfold.

The Rewatchables’ L.A. Confidential episode closes "CR Month" by affirming the film’s status as a quintessential, grown-up neo-noir, fondly revisiting its blend of nostalgia, cynicism, and movie-movie craftsmanship, and relishing its complicated, utterly Los Angeles soul.

Notable “Rewatchable” and “Most ’97” Moments

• Spacey’s ambiguous “star” performance
• Crowe’s muscle and rage
• The unforgettable interrogation sequence
• A Basinger Oscar that no one can understand—even 30 years later

To hear more: Find the full archive of Rewatchables films at The Ringer.