# Chinatown (1974 film)
**Chinatown** is a 1974 American neo-noir mystery film directed by [Roman Polanski](https://www.edgepedia.org/roman-polanski), written by [Robert Towne](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-towne), and starring [Jack Nicholson](https://www.edgepedia.org/jack-nicholson) as private detective J.J. "Jake" Gittes, who uncovers a conspiracy over Los Angeles's water supply while investigating what looks like a routine adultery case. Produced by Robert Evans for Paramount Pictures, it runs 131 minutes, is rated R, and is set in Los Angeles in 1937.[1](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/chinatown) • [2](https://www.sparknotes.com/film/chinatown/context/) The film won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and is widely regarded as among the greatest American crime movies.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/afi-top-100/28063/chinatown-1974) • [4](https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?BOparam%3A%3AWScontent%3A%3AloadArticle%3A%3Aarticle_id=0314F647-51FC-4207-BA93-C32E2AAB99BC&doWork%3A%3AWScontent%3A%3AloadArticle=Load)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | June 20, 1974, Paramount Pictures; 131 minutes, rated R[5](https://web.library.yale.edu/film/notes/fn00131) • [1](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/chinatown) |
| Principal cast | Jack Nicholson (J.J. Gittes), Faye Dunaway (Evelyn Mulwray), John Huston (Noah Cross)[1](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/chinatown) |
| Key crew | Director Roman Polanski; writer Robert Towne; producer Robert Evans; cinematographer John A. Alonzo; production designer Richard Sylbert; score Jerry Goldsmith[6](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/chinatown/cast-and-crew) • [7](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/chinatown.pdf) |
| Academy Awards | Nominated for 11 Academy Awards per TCM (one account gives 10); won Best Original Screenplay for Robert Towne[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/afi-top-100/28063/chinatown-1974) • [8](https://www.critic.co.nz/files/Critic-2012-01.pdf) |
| Historical basis | Fictionalizes the early twentieth-century conflict over land rights and the municipal water supply in which Los Angeles took water from a valley 250 miles away[9](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2024/06/chinatown-50th-anniversary-water-california/678780/) • [10](https://open.bu.edu/bitstreams/e72b1aca-92fa-405e-b58d-ae053b8a43d7/download) |
| Critical standing | 98% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (144 reviews); on Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" list[11](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/chinatown?search=chinatown) • [12](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-chinatown-1974) |
## Spoilers
### Plot and setting
Gittes, a former policeman who makes his living on adultery investigations in pre-war [Southern California](https://www.edgepedia.org/southern-california), is hired by a woman posing as Evelyn Mulwray to spy on her husband, Hollis Mulwray, chief engineer of the Los Angeles water department. When the real Evelyn Mulwray ([Faye Dunaway](https://www.edgepedia.org/faye-dunaway)) appears, Gittes realizes he was used, and Hollis Mulwray's sudden death sets him on a trail of corruption involving Evelyn's father, the tycoon Noah Cross ([John Huston](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-huston)), whose scheme centers on control of the city's water supply.[11](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/chinatown?search=chinatown) • [13](https://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/titles/4490)
The investigation widens from marital deceit into murder, stolen water rights, and incest: Evelyn admits that her daughter is also her sister, conceived with her father.[14](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/06/chinatown-1970s-movie-2020s-america/678729/) The conspiracy aims to enrich insiders by transforming an arid valley into valuable real estate and incorporating it into the City of Los Angeles.[7](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/chinatown.pdf) The title refers to more than the final scene's location. In Towne's conception, [Chinatown](https://www.edgepedia.org/chinatown) was a state of mind, symbolizing evil that well-intentioned people cannot pierce, and the closing line, "Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown," is L.A. police code for a mystery one can never solve.[14](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/06/chinatown-1970s-movie-2020s-america/678729/) • [7](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/chinatown.pdf)
## Writing and production
Towne, a Los Angeles native, set out to write a detective story in the tradition of [Raymond Chandler](https://www.edgepedia.org/raymond-chandler) about the Los Angeles of his childhood, and built the plot around the city's real history of taking water from a valley 250 miles away. He sold the screenplay to producer [Robert Evans](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-evans) in 1973 on the basis of a one-line story outline.[9](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2024/06/chinatown-50th-anniversary-water-california/678780/) • [3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/afi-top-100/28063/chinatown-1974) According to Sam Wasson's book *The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood*, Towne's draft had become tangled in subplots and needed a final pass from Polanski to refocus it on the parallel horrors of Cross's water scheme and his abuse of his daughter.[9](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2024/06/chinatown-50th-anniversary-water-california/678780/)
Towne and Polanski battled over the script and disagreed on the ending: in Towne's version the evil tycoon dies and the heroine lives, while the finished film kills Evelyn Mulwray in the final scene.[7](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/chinatown.pdf) Polanski also insisted on shooting in [Panavision](https://www.edgepedia.org/panavision) color when Evans suggested a black-and-white retro look, saying he wanted "a film about the '30s seen through the camera eye of the '70s."[7](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/chinatown.pdf) The film was shot from October 1973 to January 1974.[5](https://web.library.yale.edu/film/notes/fn00131) Polanski appears in a cameo as the knife-wielding thug who slits Gittes's nose.[14](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/06/chinatown-1970s-movie-2020s-america/678729/)
## Historical basis
The film fictionalizes the early twentieth-century conflict over land rights and the municipal water supply, the episode in which Los Angeles engineered the taking of water from a valley 250 miles away, ravaging the valley in the process.[10](https://open.bu.edu/bitstreams/e72b1aca-92fa-405e-b58d-ae053b8a43d7/download) • [9](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2024/06/chinatown-50th-anniversary-water-california/678780/) [The Atlantic](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-atlantic) identifies [William Mulholland](https://www.edgepedia.org/william-mulholland), an Irishman who came to California in 1877 as a laborer and became the city's chief water engineer, among the real figures behind the scheme that inspired the film.[9](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2024/06/chinatown-50th-anniversary-water-california/678780/) As California's water problems have deepened (the state experienced its driest period in 1,200 years between 2000 and 2021), the film has become a shorthand for the corruption that let a major city flourish next to a desert, distilling the real history into a compact myth.[9](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2024/06/chinatown-50th-anniversary-water-california/678780/)
## Style
The film works within the conventions of 1940s private-eye movies while updating their moral world. Roger Ebert, reviewing it in 1974, wrote that it accepts the genre's traditions at face value rather than satirizing them, unlike [Robert Altman](https://www.edgepedia.org/robert-altman)'s *The Long Goodbye* of the previous year.[15](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/chinatown-1974) John A. Alonzo's color cinematography, Richard Sylbert's production design recreating 1930s Los Angeles, and [Jerry Goldsmith](https://www.edgepedia.org/jerry-goldsmith)'s score are regularly cited among the film's distinguishing elements.[7](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/chinatown.pdf) • [16](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/on-the-nose-chinatown) The Library of Congress essay for the [National Film Registry](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-film-registry) describes it as "an art-house movie in American mainstream drag," merging Raymond Chandler, Franz Kafka, and Sophocles.[7](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/chinatown.pdf)
## Reception and legacy
The film opened on June 20, 1974, into a national mood of disillusionment shaped by the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal; Newsweek described it as "a Watergate with real water."[5](https://web.library.yale.edu/film/notes/fn00131) • [14](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/06/chinatown-1970s-movie-2020s-america/678729/) Most critics were enthusiastic, though Vincent Canby of *The New York Times* gave it a mixed review and Pauline Kael of *The New Yorker* called it "over-deliberate."[5](https://web.library.yale.edu/film/notes/fn00131) It was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, and won only Best Original Screenplay; it lost Best Picture to *The Godfather Part II*, released the same year.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/afi-top-100/28063/chinatown-1974) • [8](https://www.critic.co.nz/files/Critic-2012-01.pdf) • [14](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/06/chinatown-1970s-movie-2020s-america/678729/)
Its reputation has held. Ebert later added it to his "Great Movies" list, writing that Nicholson's performance and Towne's screenplay keep it from being just a genre crime picture.[12](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-chinatown-1974) The BFI's Sight and Sound, marking the fiftieth anniversary in 2024, called it a timeless, troubling Los Angeles legend whose legacy includes the racism inherent in using the title location as a metaphor for an inscrutable place where no good can happen.[17](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/magnificent-74-chinatown) The Library of Congress essay places it among the film noir masterworks it both inherits and revises, and notes that it anticipates later Los Angeles noirs such as Curtis Hanson's *L.A. Confidential* (1997).[7](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/chinatown.pdf)
## References
1. [Chinatown, Paramount Pictures](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/chinatown)
2. [Chinatown: Context, SparkNotes](https://www.sparknotes.com/film/chinatown/context/)
3. [Chinatown (1974), TCM AFI Top 100 article](https://www.tcm.com/articles/afi-top-100/28063/chinatown-1974)
4. [Chinatown, BFI](https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?BOparam%3A%3AWScontent%3A%3AloadArticle%3A%3Aarticle_id=0314F647-51FC-4207-BA93-C32E2AAB99BC&doWork%3A%3AWScontent%3A%3AloadArticle=Load)
5. [Film Notes: Chinatown, Yale University Library](https://web.library.yale.edu/film/notes/fn00131)
6. [Chinatown: Full Cast & Crew, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/chinatown/cast-and-crew)
7. [Chinatown, essay by James Verniere, National Film Preservation Board, Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/chinatown.pdf)
8. [Critic (Otago) issue on Chinatown](https://www.critic.co.nz/files/Critic-2012-01.pdf)
9. [The Lies Los Angeles Was Built Upon, The Atlantic (2024)](https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2024/06/chinatown-50th-anniversary-water-california/678780/)
10. [Chinatown chapter, Boston University open materials](https://open.bu.edu/bitstreams/e72b1aca-92fa-405e-b58d-ae053b8a43d7/download)
11. [Chinatown, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/chinatown?search=chinatown)
12. [Chinatown (1974), Roger Ebert, Great Movies](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-chinatown-1974)
13. [Watch Chinatown, TCM](https://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/titles/4490)
14. [The 1970s Movie That Explains 2020s America, The Atlantic (2024)](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/06/chinatown-1970s-movie-2020s-america/678729/)
15. [Chinatown movie review, Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times (1974)](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/chinatown-1974)
16. [On the nose: Chinatown, BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/on-the-nose-chinatown)
17. [The magnificent '74: Chinatown, Sight and Sound (2024)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/features/magnificent-74-chinatown)
---
*Topic: Encyclopedia › Society and history › Law and justice › Criminal law and penal justice › Crime, criminology, and criminal justice policy › Crime in media and culture › Crime film genre*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 17, 2026; Sep 30, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license