  Thin films of the correlated transition-metal oxide LaNiO$_3$ undergo a
metal-insulator transition when their thickness is reduced to a few unit cells.
Here, we use angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to study the evolution
of the electronic structure across this transition in a series of epitaxial
LaNiO$_3$ films of thicknesses ranging from 19 to 2 u.c. grown in situ by RF
magnetron sputtering. Our data show a strong reduction of the electronic mean
free path as the thickness is reduced below 5 u.c. This prevents the system
from becoming electronically two-dimensional, as confirmed by the largely
unchanged Fermi surface seen in our experiments. In the insulating state we
observe a strong suppression of the coherent quasiparticle peak but no clear
gap. These features resemble previous observations of the insulating state of
NdNiO$_3$.
