The American Film Institute released a ranking of the 10 greatest mystery films ever made. ChinatownThe 1974 noir film, starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway, came in at No. 2 on the list.
Only vertigo In High Place, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 thriller about a detective who is obsessed with a woman he believes is dead.
The top five included three more classics. rear window Hitchcock’s tense study of a photographer spying on his neighbors.
lauraFrom 1944, it follows a police lieutenant’s obsession with a dead woman. third man is a post-war thriller set in occupied Vienna.
Chinatown The only film of the 1970s that was successful AFI’s Mystery Top 10.
what makes Chinatown One of cinema’s greatest mysteries
Chinatown Follows private investigator Jake Gittes, played by Nicholson. A routine affair of infidelity draws him into a conspiracy involving Los Angeles’ water supply.
Dunaway co-stars as Evelyn Mulwray, a woman whose secrets run deeper than Gittes understands. Director Roman Polanski and screenwriter Robert Towne have built the film around slow-burn scares.
The film earned 11 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and nominations for both Nicholson and Dunaway. It won only one award, Best Original Screenplay.
Its closing line, “Forget it, Jake, this is Chinatown,” has become one of the most quoted endings in film history.
This phrase reflects one of the central ideas of the film: some corruption is too deep to reach justice. Chinatown It also appears in several other AFI rankings, including the institute’s list of the 100 Greatest American Films.
Decades after its release, it is still considered one of the greatest mystery films of all time. The ending offers no resolution, only the truth that Gittes never intended to discover.
RELATED: The 1975 Jack Nicholson classic, which he called one of his favorites, won all 5 major Oscars
