L.A. Confidential/YMMV

• Acceptable Targets: Those framed for The Night Owl murders were, in the words of Exley, "because they were Negroes and because they had records."
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Sid Hudgens is despicable, especially his setting up Reynolds to blackmail Loew, but the way Dudley double-crosses and then shoots him point-blank? You can't help but feel a little bad for the guy.
• Award Snub: Often held up as one for its Best Picture loss to Titanic.
• Complete Monster: Dudley Smith, Buzz Meeks, Dick Stensland and the gang of rapists. Not that anyone else in the story is much better.
• Crowning Moment of Awesome: There's a variety to choose from.
  • In the book there's Ed's virtuoso interrogation of the Nite Owl suspects; Jack's performance at Loew's senatorial fundraiser; Inez and Ed's confrontation; and Jack, Ed, and Bud putting together the pieces of the case.
  • In the movie, there's Ed and Jack meeting Lana Turner; Bud dangling Loew out of his office window; Ed's interrogation (only slightly less impressive than the book version); and the final confrontation with Dudley at the Victory Motel.
• Ethnic Scrappy: Inez, in the movie (who is barely even given an identity other than "the Mexican girl" the Nite Owl suspects kidnapped and raped). She averts it in the book, becoming Preston Exley and Ray Dieterling's Girl Friday on her own merit.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In the book, Bud befriends a young prostitute who is murdered soon afterward. Quite a tragic and moving event, except that her name is Kathy Janeway. Needless to say, the character doesn't appear in the movie.
• Jerkass Woobie: Bud White and Ed Exley, in two completely different ways.
• Magnificent Bastard: In both the book and the movie, it's Dudley Smith, the mastermind of the Nite Owl killings, the attacks on Mickey Cohen, and the new heroin racket.
  • Ed Exley reaches it in the book, though it's not really until White Jazz, set years later when Ed is Chief of Detectives, that we see him in full Magnificent Bastard mode.
• One True Threesome: Bud/Lynn/Ed.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Jack's death, in the movie, especially the betrayed, confused look in his eyes.
  • The final line of the book, highlighting Ed's Pyrrhic Victory in six words:

Gold stars. Alone with his dead.

• The Woobie:
  • Even though most of the crap he goes through is his own damned fault, Jack Vincennes is so completely, utterly screwed up that he goes from despicable, all the way through pathetic and comes out being pitiful.
  • Matt Reynolds. Unless you think smoking a little pot should result in having your career and life destroyed, then being exploited by the very guys who did it to you, which then results in your murder.