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The Usual Suspects

Directed by Bryan Singer, The Usual Suspects (1995) is a labyrinthine crime thriller built around one of cinema's most celebrated plot twists. Five criminals are brought together in a police line-up in New York, and the subsequent investigation — narrated in flashback by the apparently unreliable Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) — traces their involvement with the mysterious, possibly mythical criminal mastermind Keyser Söze. Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, and Kevin Pollak co-star, with Pete Postlethwaite as the sinister lawyer Kobayashi.

Despite being set in both New York and Los Angeles, the film was made almost entirely on the west coast, with Los Angeles locations doubling for the New York settings.

Location(s)

The Usual Suspects was filmed in and around Los Angeles, California, with a small amount of work in New York for establishing shots.

Hollywood Athletic Club, Hollywood

The pivotal pool room where the shadowy Kobayashi (Pete Postlethwaite) first approaches the five criminals on behalf of Keyser Söze is the Hollywood Athletic Club on Sunset Boulevard. Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino once kept suites in this storied building. The club later provided the "London" boxing venue in Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby. Map Location

San Pedro Harbour, Los Angeles

The catastrophic shipboard fire that wipes out most of the gang — the event at the centre of the film's mystery — was filmed in Los Angeles Harbour at San Pedro. The Southwest Marine building visible in the background would later appear as the "InGen" dock in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Map Location

Los Angeles Herald Examiner Building (former), 1111 South Broadway, Los Angeles

The newspaper office where Verbal's interrogation takes place — transformed into the police interview room — is the former Los Angeles Herald Examiner Building, an extraordinary Mission Revival structure designed by Julia Morgan. The building has appeared in Strange Days, The Cable Guy, and Insidious. Map Location

Flatiron Building, Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, New York

The exterior of the "law office" in the film's New York sequences is the iconic Flatiron Building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, providing one of the film's few genuinely New York location shots. Map Location

Director

Bryan Singer

Cast

Kevin Spacey

Gabriel Byrne

Chazz Palminteri

Pete Postlethwaite

Kevin Pollak

Benicio del Toro

Full Cast

IMDB

View the official IMDB page

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