So what movies feature downtown Los Angeles (either as L.A. itself or depicting it as another city)? (crime, live in)

[Chicano3000X]

Like how bladerunner was filmed in old DTLA.

Then you got other movies that make it look like NYC.

[SalParadise]

Thousands of movies have been filmed in downtown since the days of Harold Lloyd and ohter slient films.

More recently "500 Days of Summer" (2009) was almost entirely set and shot in downtown LA.

[bhcompy]

The Thirteenth Floor is one of the more interesting recent films to feature it. Set in both the 1930s and 1990s, it gives you pretty well done views of both eras(the sets might be the best part of the movie, which has a fantastic premise but isn't necessarily well executed).

[BarcelonaFan]

Michael Mann's Colateral

William Friedkin's To Die in LA

Drive with Ryan Gosling

They all give LA a noir feel. These movies make LA seem extremely photogenic.

[Vinsanity]

Literally too many to mention. It's like asking which movies have a Ford Crown Victoria in them.

[HarryKerry]

I know you've asked for specific movies, but I'll just say that LA has stood in for NYC more than even NYC has stood in for NYC, and it don't think even native New Yorkers (who've been to or live in Manhattan) can tell the difference in many instances. EVERYBODY outside NYC is COMPLETELY fooled.

2nd most is either a few villages in LA, but mostly in neighboring cites or further out suburbs have stood in for just about every small town in America. We have the desert, the sea, the suburban, and the highly dense urban backdrops that can stand in for just about anything. It is a film makers paradise just about any location in the LA area either looks or can be made to look, very inexpensively, like just about any city or town on earth.

LA subway has stood in for NYC subway more than the real thing as of late, as well as any subway in the world, but don't look for TV or film makers to cast the LA subway as itself (only a few times, so far) because it would not fit most people's notions or CUES of what city a story takes place. A shot of people using the subway would CUE NYC (Chicago is always the El, but never its subway stations), so we will always have the freeways, the Hollywood sign, and the sunshine cue for LA, and heavens, rarely downtown LA as itself as that would CUE NYC or Chicago, not the horizontal LA, and never the old iconic and architecturally significant buildings like the Eastern building, et al. as that would CUE some old northeastern city, not "modern" Los Angeles.

My favorite movie not officially set in LA is the line from Austin Powers in Goldmember as he turns to the camera and says (I paraphrase, as I can't recall the EXACT quote), "Isn't it amazing how the British country side looks a lot like the hills of southern California," as we see him drive about said hills and an entire scene plays out there. Funny.

[jaypee]

Similar post: http://www.city-data.com/forum/los-a...-la-movie.html

[BarcelonaFan]

Best LA movie: L.A. Story with Steve Martin

Next: Heat, Blade Runner, and Collateral.

Los Angeles look better on screen than NYC in my opinion. It just looks like a metropolis rather than a gotham like city.

Now one thing I do not like about movies set in LA is that the films portray Los Angeles as a crime filled dystopia, where one side is filthy rich and the other half lives in a Road Warrior like wasteland filled with gangs.

Surprisingly, most people from LA tell me that for a major city it's actually relatively safe except for a few area you just do not go into.

[subPrimeTime]

Just one scene off the top of my head, but in The Social Network, the scene where JT drops off Mark Zuckerberg (who's wearing pajamas to a business meeting, cause he can) at the bottom of downtown office building (supposed to be SF) was filmed at the steps of the Aon Building at Hope/Wilshire.

Also, Inception had a bunch of DTLA scenes with destruction on 7th St (a train driving through the street as I recall).

[subPrimeTime]

Not a movie, but every now and then filming for CSI NY will occur downtown. In the attached photo from 2010 (taken from my office at the time), CBS constructed an elaborate race track over a parking lot (at the NE corner of 8th/Grand) to simulate the “New York 400” for filming of CSI NY scenes over the course of a few days (look for the red/white checkered walls of the track).

I never actually saw the episode though, probably because I never watched the show.