Awesome / L.A. Confidential (1997)

• "...Rollo... Tomasi…"
  • More specifically, Jack Vincennes realizes that he's dying so he uses his final words to trick Dudley into incriminating himself to Exley, which ultimately brings about Dudley's downfall.
• After spending the whole movie at each other’s throats it is unbelievably goddamn awesome to see Ed and Bud put aside their differences and work together as Bash Brothers after realising they were being duped into almost killing each other by Dudley. As a duo they take on a whole army of corrupt cops doing The Siege and win. Of course being played by Awesome Aussies Russel Crow and Guy Pierce only helps the badassery.
• Bud White's epic smackdown of D.A. Ellis Lowe, culminating in dangling him by his ankles from his office balcony while Exley looks on nonchalantly.
  • "Now, I know you think you're the A-number one hotshot. Well, here's the juice: if I take you out, there'll be ten more lawyers to take your place tomorrow. They just won't come on the bus, that's all!"
    • Capped by Ed's "That the way you ran Good Cop/Bad Cop?"
• The Victory Motel shootout. Bud and Exley methodically picking off Dudley’s men with only a shotgun and two pistols.
  • Exley: ”All I wanted to do was measure up to my father.”
  • Bud: “Nows your chance, he died in the line of duty didn’t he?”
• The moment during the film's climax when Exley shoots Dudley In the Back: both because the audience knows it's a well-deserved death to a villain who was about to talk himself out of justice, but also because Dudley just taught Exley one final lesson (hold up your police badge when other cops show up at your shootout). In a way, it's Exley showing he no longer needs Dudley as a mentor.
• The film itself. It manages to take a 500 page, unfilmable novel and turn it into a fantastic 2-hour movie and makes it work. There is a lot of Adaptation Distillation, but this film makes it work, so much so that James Ellroy himself loved it.
• "Just one hero?"
  • Also stunning the interrogating officers, who can't understand how Exley heard them through the sound-proof walls.