Skip to main content

The Manual may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site.

Catch this neo-noir classic before it leaves HBO Max

Chinatown is one of the best movies of the 1970s, and it's set to leave HBO Max at the end of January

The history of movies is littered with iconic lines, but few match the incredible power of “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.” The line is iconic not just for its poetry, but also because its placed at the conclusion of one of the great neo-noir stories ever told. Chinatown‘s legacy is complex, to put it mildly, but the 1974 film, which was released amidst a revolution in Hollywood, remains an important update to the noir genre that is still influencing moviemaking to this day, and it’s one of the great Oscar winners of all time.

Chinatown, which is set to leave HBO Max on January 31, is set in the Los Angeles of the 1930s. Against that backdrop, the film tells the story of Jake Gittes, a private detective who is initially hired by a woman named Evelyn Mulwray to investigate whether her husband is cheating on her. So far, so conventional. What Gittes quickly discovers, though, is that the reality of this investigation is exceedingly slippery. He can’t trust anyone, not even his client. He learns that the real Evelyn is someone else entirely, and Evelyn’s husband winds up dead. From there, Jake uncovers a conspiracy designed to suck huge swaths of land dry in order to buy them cheaply and meets Noah Cross, Evelyn’s father.

Without spoiling the film’s twists and turns, suffice it to say that Chinatown is really about the systems of power and corruption that cannot be unlodged simply by discovering them. The vast and insidious conspiracy that Jake uncovers is not something he can do anything to prevent. Chinatown, then, becomes an exercise in cynicism. It’s about knowing the world is unjust and broken, and feeling powerless to do anything about it.

Read more: The best thriller movies ever made

It’s a movie that is very much of the era when it was released. Although it’s set decades earlier, Chinatown feels like an encapsulation of what it must have felt like to live through Watergate. Those in power act to serve their own ends, and they can usually get away with it. It’s the flip side to something like All the President’s Men, which came three years later. If All the President’s Men suggested that those in power could be held to account, Chinatown suggests that finding the truth and saving the day aren’t always one and the same. Some secrets, as dark as they might be, are better off buried, because resurfacing them only makes the people who tried to hide them more desperate to do so.

The movie’s general distrust of power, and the overwhelming feeling of powerlessness that Jake feels by the movie’s end don’t just parallel American history, though. They’re also a crystallization of a moment in Hollywood when movies had become more violent, more confrontational, and less wholesome than they had generally been throughout their long history.

Influenced in part by European directors who were finding innovative ways to tell stories on screen, the New Hollywood movement really launched in 1967 when Bonnie & Clyde and The Graduate both hit theaters. Those movies, with their edgier subject matter and morally ambiguous central characters, helped to redefine what movies could be, and ultimately ushered in an era where Hollywood studios could no longer exert as much control over the movies they had once produced so regularly.

Read more: The best movies on Netflix

Jack Nicholson was one of the definitive stars of this era, and Chinatown is one of a roster of great performances that he gave in the early 1970s. The genius of Chinatown, specifically, is the way the movie’s cynicism seems to supersede even Jake’s belief that he has seen at all. In most noir stories, the detective at the center of the case is unrattled by whatever he discovers, and he usually manages to earn a pyrrhic victory, even if good does not definitively triumph over evil.

Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway in Chinatown.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

In Chinatown, though, Jake is shaken by what he sees, and by how little his knowledge of the truth seems to matter in the end. That’s why “Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown” is such a memorable line. Jake emerges from this story battered and bruised, and the only thing he can possibly do is try to forget and move on with his life. He lost, the house won, and all he can do is walk away with his head in his hands.

Chinatown‘s legacy in the decades since it was released is immeasurable, but it’s complicated by its director. Roman Polanski has been charged with committing unforgivable crimes against young girls, and those crimes are such that it’s impossible to watch his movies without thinking about the crimes he’s committed.

And so, we come up against the problem of evaluating the art of a man who was later convicted of a serious crime. Anyone who wants to toss Chinatown in the trash bin of history and forget about it completely has a good case for doing just that.

Even if you don’t want to watch Chinatown for understandable reasons, though, it’s impossible to deny the movie’s influence on everything that came after it. Setting aside the numerous parodies and jokes written about Chinatown over the decades, the movie itself is a cynical, angry political document that has been referenced in everything from Blade Runner to basically every movie David Fincher has ever made. As is so often the case, it’s impossible to ignore that legacy, even if you want to.

Chinatown is now streaming on HBO Max, and will be available until January 31.

Editors' Recommendations

Joe Allen
Contributor
Joe Allen is a freelance culture writer based in upstate New York. His work has been published in The Washington Post, The…
The 11 Robert Redford movies every fan should watch
Is your favorite Redford film on the list?
Robert Redford in All the President's Men answering the telephone.

Robert Redford is one of those classic movie stars who disarmed you with his incredible looks, and then mesmerized you with his on-screen talent. He's not an actor's actor like Robert De Niro, but he's shown for decades what type of performer he is. Redford's charm and natural charisma have made him compelling in a wide variety of roles, and they've also occasionally been weaponized against his audience.
Not every role in Redford's decades-long career has been a roaring success. For every All the President's Men there's a stinker like Havana. In general, though, Redford has built a remarkable body of work, and if he never acts in front of a camera again, he can be proud of what he's accomplished.

The Sting (1973)

Read more
Star Wars drinking game rules you can use for all the movies
These drinking game rules will ensure that the Force of intoxication is with you, whether it's May the Fourth or not.
star wars drinking game rules cocktails death feature image

May the Fourth may come just once a year, but celebrating everything that Star Wars has given us shouldn't be confined to a single day. You should feel free to rewatch your favorite Star Wars films whenever you want, especially since they're so conveniently located on Disney Plus.

As fun as lounging and binge-watching is in and of itself, you might find that adding alcohol to the equation really spices things up. This is why movie drinking games are a great way to take any film you've already seen and add a whole new level of entertainment on top of it. With 11 different movies to choose from, we thought it best to create one list of Star Wars drinking game rules to rule them all. So whether you're starting with the original trilogy or jumping ahead to The Force Awakens, here are some drinking guidelines to try to stick to throughout.

Read more
The 11 best Amazon original movies you can stream anytime
From a Borat sequel to Catherine Called Birdy, these are the best Amazon original movies you can watch right now
best amazon prime original movies report

If you know anything about Amazon (and let's be honest, who doesn't), you probably know it as one of the biggest retailers in the world. As that retail business continues to grow, though, Amazon has also gotten into the streaming game in a major way. There are lots of movies on Amazon Prime movies as well as plenty of shows, but this list is focusing on the streaming films that have been produced by Amazon as a studio. These Amazon original movies clearly prove they want to be a dominant player in Hollywood, in addition to the dominance it already has in the world of retail, and based on this list, it's well on its way.

Because Amazon is such a new studio, all of the movies on this list are quite recent. Hopefully, that means that they feel vibrant and relevant, and will continue to hold up for years to come.

Read more