L.A. Confidential was released in 1997 to huge critical acclaim and it went on to be nominated for nine Academy Awards. Its reputation has since grown to the point that the film is now widely seen as a key Hollywood movie of the 1990s. But it fared poorly at the box-office, having neither big-name stars nor the sop of a comforting moral universe. With characters so bad they were irresistible, the film harked back to an older, darker Hollywood at a time when audiences would soon be flocking to "Titanic". Directed by Curtis Hanson from the best-selling novel by James Ellroy, "L.A. Confidential" stars Kim Basinger alongside Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito and, to the surprise of many industry watchers, two then relative unknowns, New Zealander Russell Crowe and Australian Guy Pearce. The film is a consummate thriller which takes in - without once losing sight of the human cost - police corruption, organized crime, the sleaze press, high-class prostitution, murder and the ways movies and life twist together. Manohla Dargis explores the careers of Hanson and Ellroy, based on interviews with both men, to dig deep into the film's obsession with the twinned, equally troubled histories of the Hollywood studio system and the city of Los Angeles. She untangles the paradox of "L.A. Confidential", a film that paints a jet black, melancholy picture of a city and an industry even as it also testifies to - and exemplifies beautifully - their seductive glamour.

A revolutionary classic of feminist cinema criticism, Molly Haskell's From Reverence to Rape remains as insightful, searing, and relevant as it was the day it was first published. Ranging across time and genres from the golden age of Hollywood to films of the late twentieth century, Haskell analyzes images of women in movies, the relationship between these images and the status of women in society, the stars who fit these images or defied them, and the attitudes of their directors. This new edition features both a new foreword by New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis and a new introduction from the author that discusses the book's reception and the evolution of her views.