The 2025 Wildfires: Los Angeles’ Cinematic Afterlife
Post-fires, post-fantasy, Los Angeles on film has always flirted with the end of the world. This is a city that burns with ambition and, due to its geography and weather, often burns from wildfire. In the wake of the devastating 2025 wildfires that ripped through the Pacific Palisades and Altadena, Los Angeles– both the city and the dream– has had to reckon once again with destruction and rebirth.
Yet long before flames consumed hillside mansions and studio backlots, LA cinema has been imagining its own end From ‘Chinatown’ to ‘Heat,’ ‘Sunset Boulevard’ to ‘Drive,’ ‘Under the Silver Lake’ to ‘Mulholland Drive,’ Los Angeles on film has always glinted with a dangerous allure: the glamour and the rot, the dream and the nightmare. This is a love letter to that city. A city that plays itself.
The “HOLLYWOODLAND” sign was first raised in 1923, as more of a real estate pitch than an icon. The myth had already begun to take shape. Fleeing the Edison monopoly and drawn by the California sun, East Coast filmmakers arrived in the early 1900s and never left. The Golden Age of Hollywood– from the 1930s to the 190s– erected a glittering dream machine. Studios churned out films that spanned from the time of Christ to Parisian cabarets and New York apartments. Rarely, if ever, was Los Angeles allowed to appear as herself.
But in the decades that followed, as the studio system crumbled and auteurism surged, filmmakers turned the camera inward. LA stopped being a backdrop and became a character. The expansive, winding freeways, implanted palm trees, stucco duplexes, and endless sprawl began to shape the films themselves. And as the city changed, so too did its cinematic identity.
Los Angeles has always been a palace where love feels both heightened and illusory, perhaps because it is a city built on performance. In ‘La La Land,’ Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling fall in and out of love, framed against Griffith Park and a studio backlot. Their romance is musical, cinematic, and doomed. In ‘Marriage Story,’ Noah Baumbach dismantles a relationship between a theater director, Charlie (Adam Driver), and actress Nicole (Scarlett Johansson); the sunny Los Angeles disrupts the fast-paced industry of New York, yet it brings a swath of pain to the artists at its center.
In ‘Pretty Woman,’ Julia Roberts’ character was remade by Rodeo Drive, and in ‘Her,’ Joaquin Phoenix fell for a voice while wandering through the antiseptic downtown towers of a near-future LA. These are not just romances, they’re deeply rooted elegies for connection in a place that constantly demands reinvention. Yet, love persists in Los Angeles. Through smog and traffic and unrelenting reinvention, the roots still find their way.
To love LA is to love its contradictions. No genre understands this better than crime. Noir was born here for a reason. In Billy Wilder’s ‘Double Indemnity’ (1944), the city’s sunlight is deceptive; every blonde bombshell could be hiding something, and behind any business could lie corruption. ‘Chinatown’ takes it further, revealing a Los Angeles built not on dreams, but stolen water, manipulated markets, and systemic abuse. In ‘L.A. Confidential,’ that myth is cracked open again, its tabloid sheen rubbed raw by racism, police brutality, and politics.
Later films like Michael Mann’s ‘Heat’ and ‘Collateral’ show the city as an endless chessboard, crisscrossed by freeways, humming with violence. Mann’s LA is sleek and lonely, a digital shadowland where crime and justice circle on another like dancers. One has to just look up into the 5th-story window to witness a crime. ‘Drive’ turns LA into a fairy tale soaked in neon and blood. These films understand that LA is as much about isolation as connection. You can vanish in this city, even in broad daylight. Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Jackie Brown’ sees the South Bay pulse with rhythm and danger, led by a fierce Pam Greer. In Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Inherent Vice,’ paranoia thickens in the salt air of a 1970s fog.
Los Angeles is not just a crime scene; it’s an accomplice.
When the dream turns, LA becomes a waking nightmare. In ‘Mulholland Drive,’ David Lynch turns Sunset Boulevard into a Möbius strip, where memory, identity, and desire disintegrate. His trilogy of LA disillusionment—‘Mulholland Drive,’ ‘Lost Highway,’ ‘Inland Empire’—explores how women are consumed by the Hollywood machine. This is a city that promises everything and delivers distortion.
In ‘Boogie Nights,’ Paul Thomas Anderson exposes the dark underbelly of the San Fernando Valley’s porn industry. ‘Under the Silver Lake’ chases conspiracies through Echo Park, revealing a city obsessed with hidden codes. ‘Sunset Boulevard,’ the original love-hate letter to LA, immortalized a washed-up actress who couldn’t bear to be forgotten. In ‘The Player,’ Robert Altman skewered the entire business with biting precision. And even back in ‘Rebel Without a Cause,’ Los Angeles was a place where the young came to rage and the lonely came to die.
In these films, the city is a mirage. You think you’ve reached the center, but it keeps slipping further away.
It would be a disservice to tell LA’s story without its neighborhoods, its people, its polyphony. While early films erased the city’s diversity, recent decades have seen filmmakers fight to reclaim it.
‘Boyz n the Hood,’ ‘Friday,’ and ‘Training Day’ confront the violence and inequities of South LA with empathy and urgency. ‘Jackie Brown’ and ‘Devil in a Blue Dress’ highlight Black agency in pulp narratives. ‘Dope’ reimagines the teen movie through Inglewood cool. ‘Tangerine’—shot on an iPhone—finds trans joy and resilience on the sidewalks of Santa Monica and Highland. ‘White Men Can’t Jump’ celebrates culture and hustle on the courts of Venice Beach. These are not side characters in someone else’s story. They are the soul of Los Angeles.
After the Smoke: The 2025 Fires and Hollywood’s Reckoning
In January 2025, two blazes tore through the heart and hills of Los Angeles. The Palisades Fire leveled elite enclaves, while the Eaton Fire decimated historic Altadena. In total, over 16,000 structures were lost. At least 28 lives. Damages surged past $160 billion.
The entertainment industry staggered. Outdoor shoots halted. Production schedules crumbled under rolling blackouts. Sound stages from Burbank to Culver City dimmed as smoke thickened in the air. Actors were displaced. Crew members lost their homes. Post-production houses sat quiet, powerless. And as with every disaster, the most vulnerable were hit hardest.
But the city did what it always does: it filmed. Relief efforts swelled, not just from nonprofits but from studios, showrunners, and even rival streaming giants. A24 held benefit screenings. Amazon and Netflix funneled emergency funds into aid for displaced workers. Directors pledged to incorporate the climate crisis into their stories.
New production protocols now include green set practices, climate insurance, and emergency evacuation plans. Fire no longer simply lights the frame. It shapes the frame.
Los Angeles Plays Itself: The City Reimagined
As Thom Andersen (the filmmaker behind ‘Los Angeles Plays Itself’) once said, Los Angeles is the most photographed city in the world—and yet, rarely has it played itself. But perhaps, in the aftermath, that is changing.
Recent films like ‘Ambulance,’ ‘Licorice Pizza,’ ‘500 Days of Summer,’ ‘Tangerine,’ and ‘Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood’ let the city breathe. These are stories grounded in neighborhoods, side streets, and everyday rhythms. They’re as much about waiting in line at the DMV or eating a donut in K-Town as they are about movie stars. Even Michael Bay’s ‘Ambulance’—bombastic as it is—acknowledges the city’s geography, its pulse. ‘Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood’ is Tarantino’s most romantic work, not because it believes in a happier past, but because it loves the details: neon signs, drive-in theaters, the whir of the California desert. In all of these films, Los Angeles is not a metaphor. It’s a place. A home.
After the smoke clears, we are left with ruin and possibility. Los Angeles is still standing, yes. But more than that, it is evolving. The fires, like the riots before them, the floods, the quakes, the recessions, and the rebirths, are part of its story. The entertainment industry, too, is waking up—not just to the climate crisis, but to the need for inclusion, sustainability, and care.
Film remains the city’s truest mirror. It reflects our ambitions and failures, our heartbreak and resilience. And if Los Angeles has taught us anything, it’s this: the dream doesn’t die. It changes shape. In cinema, as in life, LA burns. Then it rebuilds. A little older. A little wiser. Always ready for its close-up.
Click here to read The Hollywood Insider’s CEO Pritan Ambroase’s love letter to Cinema, TV and Media. An excerpt from the love letter:The Hollywood Insider’sCEO/editor-in-chiefPritan Ambroase affirms, “We have the space and time for all your stories, no matter who/what/where you are. Media/Cinema/TV have a responsibility to better the world and The Hollywood Insider will continue to do so. Talent, diversity and authenticity matter in Cinema/TV, media and storytelling. In fact, I reckon that we should announce “talent-diversity-authenticity-storytelling-Cinema-Oscars-Academy-Awards” as synonyms of each other. We show respect to talent and stories regardless of their skin color, race, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, etc., thus allowing authenticity into this system just by something as simple as accepting and showing respect to the human species’ factual diversity. We become greater just by respecting and appreciating talent in all its shapes, sizes, and forms. Award winners, which includes nominees, must be chosen on the greatness of their talent ALONE.
I am sure I am speaking for a multitude of Cinema lovers all over the world when I speak of the following sentiments that this medium of art has blessed me with. Cinema taught me about our world, at times in English and at times through the beautiful one-inch bar of subtitles. I learned from the stories in the global movies that we are all alike across all borders. Remember that one of the best symbols of many great civilizations and their prosperity has been the art they have left behind. This art can be in the form of paintings, sculptures, architecture, writings, inventions, etc. For our modern society, Cinema happens to be one of them. Cinema is more than just a form of entertainment, it is an integral part of society. I love the world uniting, be it for Cinema, TV, media, art, fashion, sport, etc. Please keep this going full speed.”
Limited Time Offer: Join for FREE today and get unlimited
The Hollywood Insider is against gossip and scandal, fully focused on substance & meaningful entertainment.
We choose quality over quantity, compassion over oppression, wisdom over intelligence.
Newsletter Subscription
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok
