Your favorite movies starring California
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Here’s what you need to know to start your weekend:
- Readers tell us what movies capture the essence of California.
- Florida is winning the political battle with California as Trump takes office.
- No time for a “Squid Game” rewatch? Here’s a refresher before starting Season 2.
- And here’s today’s e-newspaper
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The best movies that capture the essence of California
The Essential California team this year expanded opportunities for readers to directly engage with the newsletter. Each week we ask readers to answer a question — from the best local restaurants to favorite books.
One question in particular got a lot of attention and sparked some debate: What is your favorite movie that captures the essence of California?
Below are the most mentioned movies and comments from readers about what makes these films special to California. We hope this list will help find something to watch this weekend. Enjoy!
“Chinatown”
Adelaide writes: “It doesn’t get more iconic than a film noir that tackles tremendous geopolitical issues that still affect us to this day.”
And Jim writes: “How can you talk about movies that capture the essence of California and not mention one of the greatest movies of all time, ‘Chinatown’? Today, despite the state’s beauty and glorious climate (most of the time), it is still as corrupt and morally bankrupt as it was back in the days of stealing water from the Owens Valley.”
“Sideways”
Raymond Ballesteros writes: “One of my all time favorite movies to see that truly captures the essence of California, hands down, is ‘Sideways.’
“Alexander Payne seizes the beauty and majesty of California’s Santa Barbara wine country, including a handful of wineries that encapsulates the hearts of fellow wine lovers across California and the country. Of course, not to be watched with a glass of Merlot!”
“Point Break”
Fritzi Lareau write: “I am a tour guide and when touring the Golden State I show my guests ‘Point Break’ (the original with Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze) or ‘Hollywood Homicide’ starring Harrison Ford.”
“Stand and Deliver”
Robert Reul writes: “One great film that is 100% California is ‘Stand and Deliver,’ with Edward James Olmos and an amazing cast of young actors. I have found few, if any, films that capture the absolute magic that can happen in the community of first-generation Americans, descended from hard-working Mexican immigrants.”
Honorable mentions
“Top Gun”
“The Birds”
“The Parent Trap”
“The Big Lebowski”
“Fast Times at Ridgemont High”
“La La Land”
Want to wade into the debate over which movie captures the essence of California? Feel free to email us at [email protected].
The week’s biggest stories
Florida is winning the political battle with California as Trump takes office
- Trump is stocking his cabinet with Floridians. And his plans to reverse California’s policies on the environment, crime, homelessness and education are facing far less pushback than they did during his first term.
- Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to continue the fight against Trump’s policies but without what he called “a resistance brand” that defined his earlier clashes.
- Meanwhile, healthcare is Newsom’s biggest unfinished project. Trump complicates the governor’s task.
Destructive waves keep thrashing Santa Cruz, causing millions of dollars in damage in recent years
- A large section of the city’s historic wharf collapsed this week, sending three people into the sea. All of them survived.
- This latest offensive from the ocean worries officials and locals, who wonder how common such dangerously strong and frequent waves may become in Santa Cruz.
Scientists say we are fighting H5N1 bird flu with one hand tied behind our backs
- Scientists and health officials fear we’re on the precipice of another global pandemic as the H5N1 bird flu virus steamrolls its way across the globe. But when that could come to pass is hard to predict.
- Just one mutation can make the bird flu a threat to humans, California researchers found.
- L.A. County health officials are warning pet owners to avoid raw cat food after a feline died of bird flu.
California is growing again
- The Golden State’s population grew by almost a quarter of a million residents in 2024, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, a rebound that brings California almost back to its pre-pandemic numbers.
- While California’s population gain of 232,570 people from July 1, 2023, to July 1, 2024, represents the largest numeric population increase in the nation’s West, it lagged behind Texas, which expanded its population by 562,941, and Florida, which grew by 467,347 people.
More big stories
- Newsom will keep California Highway Patrol officers in Oakland as the city remains mired in a governing crisis.
- Multiple L.A. sheriff’s deputies have been relieved of duty amid a federal investigation into the beating of a transgender teacher.
- A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after three people were found fatally stabbed multiple times in a Baldwin Park home a day after Christmas.
- Bob Iger wants to get Disney out of the culture wars.
- Here’s a look at the key figures in the “It Ends With Us” controversy.
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This week’s must reads
A California inmate recruited “wives” to spread fentanyl across Alaska, federal authorities say.
The prisoner, Heraclio Sanchez Rodriguez, oversaw a sprawling drug ring that spread death and addiction to the most remote corners of Alaska, prosecutors say.
More great reads
- Emergency room visits at this Loma Linda hospital are long — really long.
- Homes for quadriplegics lost out on a raise after Californians passed Prop. 35.
- An Oscar-winning L.A. council member? Gov. Danny Trejo? Here are columnist Gustavo Arellano’s predictions for 2025.
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected].
For your weekend
Going out
- 🥂 Need some California bubbly for your New Year celebration? Here are 10 bottles that will pop your top.
- 💸 Though Beverly Hills looms large in the pop-culture psyche as the capital of conspicuous consumption, you can explore the city without breaking the bank.
- 🎥 Here’s what “Babygirl” gets right and wrong about kink, according to a sex expert.
- 🕶️ In “A Complete Unknown,” a cryptic Bob Dylan comes into view, gifted and callous, our critic writes.
- ⚰️ Entombed in irrelevance, a new “Nosferatu” forgets to be timely — or scary, a critic writes for The Times.
Staying in
- 📺 No time for a “Squid Game” rewatch? Here’s a refresher before starting Season 2.
- 🩺 The creator of “Scrubs” says a reboot is a “no-lose” situation.
- 🧑🍳 Here’s a recipe for Christina Tosi’s cinnamon buns with brown sugar goo.
- ✏️ Get our free daily crossword puzzle, sudoku, word search and arcade games.
How well did you follow the news this week? Take our quiz.
Which creature gets top billing in the title of the Barry Jenkins–directed “Lion King” prequel that hit theaters last week? Plus nine other questions from our weekly news quiz.
Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team
Hunter Clauss, multiplatform editor
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