Chinatown

Chinatown (1974) is Roman Polanski's neo-noir detective film you can watch online on iFILM. Los Angeles, late 1930s. Private investigator Jake Gittes takes a routine adultery case and pulls a thread that ends in murder.

A woman hires Gittes (Jack Nicholson) claiming to be the wife of the city's chief water engineer. Then the real Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) shows up threatening to sue, and Gittes realizes he was set up. The engineer turns up dead. What follows is a drought, rigged land deals, forged records and a family secret that chills the blood. The deeper he digs, the clearer it gets: in this town, water is worth more than a life.

Robert Towne won the Oscar for the screenplay, the only win out of eleven nominations. Polanski directed it just before he left the United States, and he plays the thug who slits Nicholson's nose on screen. Cinematographer John Alonzo drowned every frame in harsh California sun, and the closing scene in Chinatown became a textbook lesson in how to cut a story off mid-breath. Stream Chinatown (1974) online on iFILM.