In 1977, Roman Polanski returned to the world of filmmaking with Chinatown – a Neo Noir film that follows private eye J.J. Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) when one of his regular jobs explodes into a conspiracy that has the whole of Los Angeles at stake. This dark detective movie has since become one of the genre’s irreplaceable staples, arguably influencing the genre more than the likes of The Maltese Falcon or The Big Sleep could’ve.
Decades may have gone by, but Chinatown still holds a strong grip on filmmakers and the way they tell their own detective stories. That influence is strongest in these ten films which, while not direct copies, wear the influences of Gittes’ lifestyle and case on their sleeves. So without further delay, here are the ten best films that were influenced by Chinatown.
Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood (2019)
The nihilism of Chinatown sadly has a real-world connection, as Polanski used the film as a form of catharsis for getting over the brutal murder of his wife Sharon Tate. Her death is also regarded as the end of the optimism of ‘60s-era Hollywood, which in part led to the darker output of the following decades.
Quentin Tarantino offers an alternate history where the Chinatown we know may not exist, since his love letter to New Hollywood in Once Upon A Time… In Hollywoodsaves Tate from her real-life fate. In a way, Tarantino’s ninth feature can be seen as a reaction and hopeful foil to the darkness that informed the mood of Chinatown.
The Two Jakes (1990)
Let’s be honest: any sequel to Chinatown would never live up to the original. That’s exactly what happened to The Two Jakes, which was released nearly 20 years after the fact. Set roughly a decade after Chinatown, Jack Nicholson returns as Gittes to investigate a seemingly mundane adultery case that’s actually connected to a conspiracy involving oil.
While it’s nowhere near as good as the first movie and could be seen as an almost identical beat-for-beat repeat of Chinatown, The Two Jakes is actually not half bad and has garnered a decent cult following in recent years.
Devil In A Blue Dress (1995)
Another cult favorite that owes its trappings and aesthetics to Chinatown is the Denzel Washington vehicle Devil In A Blue Dress. Washington stars as private eye Easy Rawlins, who’s hired to find a missing woman but gets caught in a web of lies and political intrigue.
It’s easy to spot Chinatown’s influences in this particular detective yarn, but its one major advantage is that it tackles the societal racism of the often romanticized post-World War II era that Chinatown only glanced at. While it scored critical acclaim, Devil In A Blue Dress failed at the box office. However, like The Two Jakes, it has since inspired a dedicated cult following.
Rango (2011)
Believe it or not, that one animated movie starring a talking chameleon owes a lot to the Chinatown. What’s even stranger is that Rango is generally a pastiche and homage to Westerns - which is the furthest thing possible from the world of hard-boiled detectives and femme fatales. And yet, the conspiracy and commentary at the heart of Rango are almost word-for-word copies of Chinatown’s.
Without giving away too much, Rango centers on seemingly disparate cases of land grabbing, murder, a town’s missing water supply, and political corruption. Heck, the final villain is just Noah Cross but in animated anthropomorphic form! Amidst all this, Rango bumbles his way from misadventure to self-discovery to cracking the case of a lifetime.
Brick (2005)
Chinatown was such a great Neo Noir movie that it all but killed the genre; after Chinatown, where do you go? Apparently, the answer was to take a post-modern approach and mess with the genre rather than make more of the same thing… which leads us to Brick.
On paper, Rian Johnson’s directorial debut could be mistaken for any hard boiled yarn influenced by Chinatown except for the fact that it takes place in a modern-day high school. The cast talks like they came out of a pulp novel, but they’re still teenagers who roam a suburb where a grisly murder took place. Novelties aside, Brick is a smart re-contextualization of Chinatown’s aesthetics and core elements that needs to be seen.
The Big Lebowski (1998)
When it comes to parodies or comedic homages to the likes of Chinatown, none can surpass The Big Lebowski. Heavily inspired by Raymond Chandler’s detective books, the crux of The Dude’s misadventures through LA is that he, an aimless slacker, finds himself caught in a vast conspiracy as sprawling as that of Chinatown’s. The catch? Whatever lies at the center of it all is utterly pointless.
Like Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, The Big Lebowski deconstructs the foundations of works like Chinatown for a laugh, but replaces the fourth-wall breaking commentary with an airtight comedy of errors starring an unforgettable roster of screwball characters. There’s a reason why this is considered by many to be The Coen Brothers’ comedic magnum opus.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Imagine Chinatown but Jack Nicholson embodied the wisecracking novelist Melvin from As Good As It Gets instead of Gittes’s world-weariness… that’s literally what Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is. Following the trend mentioned above, Shane Black’s detective tale takes the darkness and angst of Chinatown and turns it on its head to have a laugh at the genre’s expense.
Here, “private eye” Harry Lockhart is really just an actor hired to portray a private eye. Through his snarky narration, it’s evident that he has a lot of bones to pick when he finds himself in an actual detective yarn. While Black’s smug tongue-in-cheek tone may annoy some, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is still one of the smartest and most self-aware takes on the detective story ever made.
Drive (2011)
Honest to goodness Neo Noir movies are a dime a dozen these days, and Ryan Gosling’s Drive is arguably one of the genre’s best examples in recent years. Once again set in the grimy side of LA and starring its shady residents, Drive focuses on the stoic Driver as he grows close to some unlikely friends before tragedy strikes.
While this ambient and reflective movie lacks the hard boiled dialogue and verbal brawls of Chinatown, it carries the same nihilism and unavoidable sense of foreboding that dominated Gittes’ city. Chinatown showed that the dark cities and barren landscapes of LA could make for a good Noir backdrop, and Drive takes this up to a logical, modern extreme.
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Of all the movies in this list, L.A. Confidential is quite possibly the most blatant follower of Chinatown’s footsteps. For all intents and purposes, this movie could be seen as the unlicensed 1997 remake of Chinatown, and it’s great.
From the seedy underbelly of glamorous LA to grizzled but well-meaning detectives who stumble on a vast conspiracy involving corruption in the highest places, L.A. Confidential isn’t just one of the best Chinatown devotees out there but it’s also one of the best straightforward Neo-Noirs ever made.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
If L.A. Confidential paid tribute to Chinatown through imitation and flattery, Who Framed Roger Rabbit did that and more. By adding cartoon characters, Roger Rabbit doesn’t just make the Neo Noir accessible to a wider audience but it incorporates racism, political corruption, and more in ways that a conventional private eye movie couldn’t (or wouldn’t).
Don’t let the colorful characters fool you; Who Framed Roger Rabbit is one of the darkest movies to follow in Chinatown’s wake. The combination of animation and live-action only allows the filmmakers to surpass the genre’s conventions and limitations to offer a truly original take on a familiar story.
It’s worth nothing that the basic plot of Roger Rabbit - which involves a corrupt legal system and public transport under threat - was rumored to be the plot of a second Chinatown sequel that never came to be after The Two Jakes bombed. The corrupt company that endangered Toontown, Cloverleaf Industries, borrows its name from the supposed title for Gittes’ last case: Cloverleaf.
