Filming was able to take place on location, and Hanson had it shot in a modern style. While anachronisms were kept to a minimum, the director was confident that, with the 1950s indicators out of focus in favour of the performances, it would avoid feeling like a parody or a parade of "remember this?" Jerry Goldsmith (who worked on Chinatown) completed the score nevertheless, but its plain romanticism departed from the minimalism he often used on Roman Polanski's film.

The finished film made over three times its budget when it opened and received extensive critical praise. Its cast found their careers born, strengthened and revived. The film’s lucky streak only came to an end when it entered the same awards season as Titanic; even then, Hanson and Helgeland’s adapted script still won that Oscar.

Perhaps the problem was that many of the worthy categories for it to win didn’t exist. Few other films have such an incredible ensemble cast. It would be sufficient to have got great performances from Spacey and Basinger but everyone else also turned out with their A-game, from the “Australians” to one-scene characters. The switches in focus and the way that semi-familiar characters enter and exit the plotlines show everyone as if in their own movie (and Jack Vincennes’s TV consulting seems almost self-aware), acting as if a spin-off movie or TV show depended on it.