Chinatown (1974)
Directed by Roman Polanski · Cinematography by John A. Alonzo
R130 min62 frames
CrimeDramaMysteryThriller
You get tough. You get tender. You get close to each other. Maybe you even get close to the truth.
Stills, screencaps & shots from Chinatown
16 of 62 frames — the full set is searchable by lighting, lens, shot size, color and mood with a free account.
Chinatown — official trailer
What is Chinatown about?
Private eye Jake Gittes lives off of the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-World War II Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite to investigate her husband's extra-marital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together.
Where can you watch Chinatown?
MGM Plus Roku Premium ChannelStream
MGM PlusStream
KanopyFree
HooplaFree
JustWatch TVRent
Amazon VideoRent
Apple TV StoreRent
Google Play MoviesRent
US availability for Chinatown (1974). Data by JustWatch, listings on TMDB. Availability changes — check the provider for current listings.
Who stars in Chinatown?
Who made Chinatown?
What does the cinematography of Chinatown look like?
Sampled across 62 frames, the coverage of Chinatown leans heavily on medium shots (60% of the sample). Cinematographer John A. Alonzo keeps 48% of it in soft, low-key light. Night and dusk account for 45% of the frames. Anamorphic glass shapes the frame. Focus stays shallow in 74% of the frames, isolating subjects from their surroundings. The production design places the film in the 1940s.
What is the color palette of Chinatown?
The dominant colors across the sampled frames of Chinatown (1974) are #35302a, #151310, #584e47, #514738, #8c7a6a, #d6c9b1 — measured from the per-frame color data FrameThrower extracts for every film.
#35302a#151310#584e47#514738#8c7a6a#d6c9b1
See the full Chinatown colour palette — every hex with its share, plus warmth, saturation and luminance.
Chinatown ranks in
A reference database for filmmakers
FrameThrower is a fully machine-searchable film database and visual reference library — all 62 frames of Chinatown (1974), and 5,000+ films besides, indexed frame by frame and readable by AI. Search it in plain language, from a reference image, or by colour; call it from an API, an MCP server or an SDK. It's the reference layer for making the next movie.
Techniques in this film
More films by Roman Polanski
More Crime films
Cast, trailer and streaming data from TMDB. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB.