Nobody knows what to do with LA's 1,000-acre urban oilfield |
In “L.A. Confidential,” Hollywood’s pulpy adaptation of James Ellroy’s noir novel of the same name, simmering tensions come to a head at the fictitious Victory Motel. Near the end of the 1997 film, two LAPD officers, played by Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce, meet there, only to realize they’ve been set up by the corrupt figures they’ve been investigating. The pair hide out in a dilapidated motel structure, narrowly escaping a hail of gunfire during the ambush.
The 1950s-set film — nominated for nine Academy Awards, winning just two of them, as the film went up against the behemoth “Titanic” that year — shot many consequential scenes on location throughout Los Angeles, including Crossroads of the World, a midcentury outdoor shopping center with a dark past. But in the film’s tense motel scene, viewers can catch a brief glimpse of an especially bizarre Los Angeles oddity that’s featured heavily in the city’s film history: a massive oil field. As Crowe’s character descends from his car, a lonely pumpjack swings slowly behind him, amplifying the scene’s ominous intensity.
The Inglewood Oil Field in Los Angeles on Jan. 29, 2026.
Although the pumpjack shots in “L.A. Confidential” suggest a deserted oil field, some location likely far outside a city center, the real-life Inglewood Oil Field used in the film is flanked by several densely populated residential communities deep within the Westside. Sure, pumpjacks can be found elsewhere throughout LA, including farther down near Long Beach and hiding inside some fake city buildings, but at 1,000 acres (all just a stone’s throw from LAX), Inglewood Oil Field still holds the distinction of being the largest urban outpost of its kind in the United States.
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But what the century-old oil field might become in the future is anyone’s guess.
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