Mulholland Falls

Mulholland Falls (1996) is an American neo-noir thriller directed by Lee Tamahori — watch online on iFILM. Set in early 1950s Los Angeles, the film follows an elite LAPD squad that keeps the city tidy through methods no rulebook would recognize: unwanted visitors get thrown off the Mulholland Drive bluffs.

Squad chief Max Hoover, played by Nick Nolte, is called to investigate the murder of a young woman. He recognizes her. That recognition turns a routine case into something far more personal — and far more dangerous — as the trail leads to a restricted military installation commanded by General Timms, a quietly sinister John Malkovich. Chazz Palminteri, Michael Madsen, and Jennifer Connelly fill out a cast that leans into the era's moral ambiguity without winking at it. Melanie Griffith plays Hoover's wife, whose role keeps growing as the secrets pile up.

Cinematographer Haskell Wexler shoots the whole thing like a lost 1940s studio picture — deep shadows, wide brims, rooms where powerful men say nothing and mean everything. The tagline calls it power versus love; the movie is really about how institutions swallow both. Stream Mulholland Falls (1996) on iFILM.