In 2015, the Library of Congress selected L.A.
Confidential for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant'. In 1953 Los Angeles, LAPD Sergeant Edmund Exley is determined to live up to the reputation of his father, famed detective Preston Exley, who was killed by an unknown assailant whom Exley secretly nicknamed 'Rollo Tomasi', his prototype of 'the guy who gets away with it.' He volunteers to testify against corrupt police officers involved in the ' Bloody Christmas' case in exchange for promotion to Detective Lieutenant, against the advice of precinct captain Dudley Smith. Plainclothes Officer Wendell 'Bud' White is obsessed with punishing men who abuse women, his own mother having been beaten to death by his father. White hates Exley because his partner, Dick Stensland, was fired thanks to Exley's testimony. With gangster Mickey Cohen imprisoned for tax evasion, Smith recruits White to torture and frighten away out-of-town criminals trying to gain a foothold in Los Angeles. While at a liquor store, White also encounters Lynn Bracken, a prostitute resembling Veronica Lake, and former cop Leland 'Buzz' Meeks. Both work for Pierce Patchett, whose Fleur-de-Lis service runs high-end prostitutes altered by plastic surgery to resemble film stars. Sergeant Jack Vincennes is a narcotics detective who moonlights as a technical advisor on Badge of Honor, a TV police drama series.
