← All Movies
Nightcrawler
At a Los Angeles rail yard, petty thief Louis "Lou" Bloom attacks a guard, taking his watch and stealing manhole covers, fencing, and other materials. While trying to sell the stolen materials at a scrap yard, Lou asks the foreman for a job. The foreman, knowing everything is stolen, refuses to hire a thief. While driving home, Lou spots a car crash and pulls over. Stringers —freelance photojournalists —arrive and record the burning wreckage and police response. One stringer, Joe Loder, explains to Lou how they sell film footage to local news stations. Joe declines Lou's request for a job.
Lou steals an expensive bicycle and pawns it for a camcorder and a police radio scanner. After two unsuccessful attempts at recording incidents, Lou records the aftermath of a fatal carjacking and sells the footage to KWLA 6. The morning news director, Nina Romina, says the station is especially interested in "graphic" footage of accidents and violent crime in affluent, predominantly white areas. Lou hires Rick, a young homeless man desperate for money, as his assistant. To create more dramatic film footage, Lou tampers with crime scenes, in one case moving a body for a better camera angle. As Lou's work gains traction, he buys better equipment and a faster car.
Lou is a quick learner and establishes a working relationship with Nina at KWLA6. Knowing Nina's two-year contract is nearly up and that she needs higher ratings to keep her job, he threatens to sell his footage to other stations unless she agrees to a sexual relationship, higher payment, and on-air credit for his footage. Recognizing Lou as a competitor, Joe offers to hire him as his second van to cover the whole LA area, but Lou declines. Joe beats him to an important plane crash story and gloats to Lou. Nina berates Lou, demanding he get better footage to keep their bargain. In the daytime, Lou drives to Joe's house and tampers with his van which is parked outside. Joe is later severely injured in a car crash, and Lou records the aftermath.
Lou and Rick arrive before the police at the site of a triple-homicide home invasion in Granada Hills. Lou films the gunmen leaving in a Cadillac Escalade as well as the victims in the house. He presents the footage to the station after editing out the perpetrators. The news staff frets over the ethics of using the footage, but Nina is eager to break the story. In exchange, Lou demands public credit, more money, and that Nina unhesitatingly meet his sexual demands. Police detective Frontieri questions Lou regarding his connection to the home invasion. Lou gives her edited footage of the incident that omits the gunmen.
That night, Lou and Rick track one gunman to his house, staking it out. Uneasy, Rick negotiates a raise and promotion, which helps salve his worry. Lou delays calling the police, wanting a more public area for recording the arrest, predicting it will be violent. Alarmed at possible innocents being hurt, Rick reopens negotiation, irritating Lou. He demands half the $50,000 reward money for locating the gunman and threatens to tell the police about Lou withholding evidence. Under duress, Lou is forced to acquiesce.
The gunman then leaves and picks up his partner. Lou and Rick follow them to a crowded diner, where Lou calls the police, warning them the suspects are armed. The police arrive, where they shoot and kill one of the gunmen after a police officer is shot, and the other escapes in the Escalade. Lou and Rick follow close behind the pursuing police, filming it, which culminates in a long multiple-car collision. Lou approaches the gunman's crashed vehicle and peers inside, then instructs Rick to film the aftermath, claiming the gunman is dead. Lou sets up for a wide shot. As Rick peers inside the car, he is shot by the gunman. The gunman attempts to flee on foot but is shot dead by arriving police. As Rick lies dying, he accuses Lou of knowing the gunman was alive. Lou, filming Rick, says he cannot work with an untrustworthy employee.
Nina is awed by the chase footage and expresses devotion to Lou. The news team discovers that the home invasion was actually the criminals breaking in to steal the homeowner's cocaine stash. Nina holds the story until the following night's news to maximize the story's dramatic impact. Police try to confiscate Lou's footage as evidence, but Nina defends her legal right to withhold it and immediately airs it. Lou voluntarily speaks with Detective Frontieri and fabricates a story about the men in the Escalade following him. Frontieri accuses Lou of lying but lacks evidence. Later, Lou now has two vans (as Joe had) and hires a team of interns to expand his film business, telling them that he will not ask them to do anything he is unwilling to do himself.