New York City in the movies...

Cafe Society
1

I’m doing a little writing project on how NYC has been depicted in movies, and how the image of that city has changed over time. I want as many names of movies even partially based in NYC as I can get. My list so far (in no particular order)…

Tales Of Manhattan
New York Stories
Moonstruck
Annie Hall
Manhattan
Purple Rose Of Cairo
Alice
Husbands & Wives
Manhattan Murder Mystery
Bullets Over Broadway (and that’s enough Woody Allen flicks I think!)
Rope
A Night At The Opera
the French Connection
Midnight Cowboy
Boys In The Band
Cruising
Coming To America
Trading Places
Bright Lights, Big City
the Hunger
the Exorcist
King Kong (1932)
King Kong (1977)
Godzilla (1998)
Independence Day
Liquid Sky
the Pope Of Greenwich Village
the Godfather, parts 1 & 2
Spider-Man 1 & 2
Daredevil
the X-Men
Rosemary’s Baby
Stonewall (documentary)
Stonewall (drama)
Breakfast At Tiffany’s
Barefoot In the Park
the Fisher King
Jeffrey
Trick
And that’s just a few minutes of brainstorming. What other movies can you think of set (even partially) in NYC? I know there must be hundreds at the very least…

2

Escape from New York
Splash

3

Darker:

Serpico
Taxi Driver
The Warriors
Rumble in the Bronx
Escape from New York
Romeo is Bleeding
Goodfellas
Assault on Precint 13
Fort Apache, the Bronx
Do the Right Thing

Lighter:

Home Alone 2
Eddie
The Associate
Tadpole
Metroplitan
The Money Train
Punch Line

Period Pieces:

Gangs of New York
Once Upon a Time in America
New York, New York
American Hot Wax
Pride of the Yankees

4

Here’s a good book for you to look into.

5

Sleepless in Seatle
When Harry Met Sally
You’ve Got Mail
Wall Street
Dog Day Afternoon
Quick Change
Rosemary’s Baby
Eyes Wide Shut
Fame
Ghostbusters (I & II)
The Godfather (et al.)
Gremlins 2
Summer of Sam
Requiem for a Dream

I could go on for a long time, I suppose.

6

Are you serious? A true list would be enormous. Think of all the Bowery Boys/Dead End Kids/Little Tough Guys/etc. pictures alone.

Then there’s

Copland
Cops and Robbers
Hello Dolly
The Matchmaker
Arthur
Miracle on 34th Street
Elf
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
The Colossus of New York
Godspell

The mind boggles. You could be at this for years

7

I just did an IMDB search for movies with a filming location of Manhattan, and got over 1,100 results. I’m sure there are others where the filming location is listed as New York, New York or Brooklyn, Queens, etc. plus all the movies set in NYC but not actually filmed there. I think you need to narrow down the criteria. Perhaps just cop movies, or romances set in Manhattan skyscrapers (Sleepless in Seattle, An Affair to Remember, etc.).

8

Here are a few more:

Speedy (Harold Lloyd, 1928)
North by Northwest (1959)
Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970)
The Out-of-Towners (1970)
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1973)
The Seven-Ups (1973)

9

Dating in New York:
Sidewalks of New York
Keeping the Faith
She’s The One
Two Ninas
Whipped
Working in New York:
Wall Street
Boiler Room (sorta…the firm actually was out on Long Island IIRC)
American Psycho
Hey check out all the fucked up shit I get into at 3:00am in New York:
American Psycho
Taxi Driver
The Basketball Diaries
25th Hour
Rounders
Eyes Wide Shut
Party Monster
Ahh my sweet youth in New York - fucked up on drugs and hanging out with mobsters:
The Basketball Diaries
A Bronx Tail
Goodfellas
Kids

10

Andy Warhol’s Empire. I dare you.

11

Even better…just imdb one of those movies (say Splash) and click the location (NYC). You will get this…

“Titles with locations including
New York City, New York, USA
Here are the 5547 matching titles:” A bit too many to list here me thinks, it also includes TV shows.

12

Or you could narrow it down to only those movies the poster saw being filmed. Here are a few of my examples:

Movies that were filmed using my company’s offices as one of the locations: The Paper

Movies that I watched being filmed on W 49th Street in which Arnold Schwarzenegger walks down the street holding an umbrella in the rain: The Last Action Hero

13

Only if you count the skyline. Copland was set, and filmed, in New Jersey.

14

Well, okay I was a bit vague about the opening topic. Let me explain myself a bit more thoroughly. What I’m most interested in is how movies (and as a result movie audiences) tend to view NYC over long periods of time, and more importantly, how the view of NYC changed over time. Obviously, I can’t watch or write about every single movie about NYC ever made. But I do want to get as thorough a cross-section of films as I can to base an opinion on.

I confess that I tried to leave the topic open-ended, because I was trying a little experiment - I was hoping if enough people replied, certain trends might start to appear (ergo, if everyone sent back replies recommending gangster movies, it might suggest that the ‘Teeming Millions’ tend to view NYC as a violent, mobster town. Just as an arbitrary, obvious example.) Just a goofy experiment. it didn’t seem to work though. Oh well.

That said, I’m still interested in what movies pop to mind in conjunction with “New York.” Upon consideration, I’d prefer a list of flicks actually set in the city, rather than filmed in a “stand-in” Toronto or where-ever.

15

Hmmm? The first X-Men movie ended in New York (well, Liberty Island) but the first ninety minutes were all over the place. The second film’s major scenes took place in Washington D.C., Westchester, Boston, and Alkali Lake. Neither film has any particular “New York” feel to it.

16

I was thinking primarily of the fight at the Statue of Liberty. Maybe that should go off the list then.

17

I always thought the best NYC movie was King Vidor’s The Crowd.

Among other things, it lets you see what it was like to take ya best goil ta Coney Island in 1928. Very nifty indeed.

18

Yankee doodle dandy
West side Story
(I always loved how the gangs danced prior to a brawl when I lived in Da Bronx

19

How To Murder Your Wife. Lots of jokes about all the construction going on in Manhattan at the time, filmed on location. (1965).

Under those guidelines, you can exclude Escape From New York, filmed entirely in St. Louis.

20

Art, I strongly recommend including 25th Hour in this project, given the parameters set in the post above. Not only is it an excellent movie, but it was filmed almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks, and actually features the Ground Zero site prominently within one scene, as a visual echo of the characters’ ruminations on their own crumbling lives. Given what you’re looking for, the movie is a perfect fit, because it captures a view of New York City (and its denizens) right at transitional point in the city’s history. Check it out if you haven’t already; I think you’ll be well rewarded.