Jack Nicholson here gives one of his best performances, playing a private eye called Jake Gittes, who pokes his nose rather too deeply into the lives of Faye Dunaway and her father, John Huston, a corrupt Los Angeles tycoon. Writer Robert Towne planned a trilogy about LA, and this first part, set in the 1930s, deals with the city's water supply and how that source of life leads to death and profit. The script - the best original work since Citizen Kane - is brilliantly organised, though the ending was changed when Roman Polanski arrived as director: Towne's story never got to Chinatown; Polanski insisted the climax was set there. The result was acrimony behind the scenes and genius on the screen in a masterpiece that repays any number of viewings.

Private eye Jake Gittes lives off of the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-World War II Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together.