POX: New York City Movies and Why They're Fuckin' Excellent.

Better than that astringent train wreck that is After Hours. < / heresy >

11. Wait Until Dark - Audrey Hepburn plays a haplessly blind proto-waif in a fab studio on St.Luke's Place in the West Village...harassed by a surpsingly menacing, knife-weilding Alan Arkin.
12. Mean Streets - Mott Street has never looked as vicious. Vintage DeNiro.
13. Desperately Seeking Susan - Like After Hours and Downtown `81 is arguably succeeds in capturing `80s NYC. Richard Hell plays the corpse.
14. Taxi Driver - C'mon, how could this be left out? Probably the quintessential `70's NYC film.
15. Bright Lights Big City - Michael J. Fox doin' coke at the Palladium, and occupying an apartment no mere editorial fact-checker could ever afford, regardless of the decade.
16. Metropolitan - Whit Stillman's debut. A strikingly accurate portrayal of the Park Avenue richie/deb scene.
17. Highlander - Yeah, fuck it. Highlander. The duel on the roof of the Silvercup studios alone warrants its inclusion.
18. King Kong - Jessica Lang's debut, and prior to Jeff Bridges' diet. Ape straddles towers.
19. Godspell - Diffficult to watch due to overt hokeyness, but the climax of a musical number on the as-yet-complete WTC is hard to watch today.
20. Rosemary's Baby - Solidifed the Dakota as a creepy fuckin' place long before Lennon took a few in the back at its doorstep.

After Hours is brilliant, so you're obviously too stupid to recognize it.

and one I haven't seen but I think might apply...
Empire (Warhol)

Or not enough of a New Yorker to get all creamy over it.

The Out-Of-Towners -- Manhattan circa 1970, with all its grime, crime, and civic anarchy.

Fame -- a great time capsule of the way Times Square looked in 1979, not just a hub for sex sleaze but a massive of young hopefuls, rehearsal rooms, dance studios, sheet music stores, and of course, the long-gone High School of Performing Arts. I look around now and all I can see is Broadway and Disney, but back then it was ground zero for the warts-and-all of the showbiz biz.

Manhattan (obligatory Woody Allen pick. I dorkily heart this movie a lot)

Dog Day Afternoon (even more civic anarchy and crankiness)

Sweet Smell of Success (gritty bleak film noir about a Winchell-esque columnist, but the real star is the late-50s NYC night life of shady jazz clubs and criminal underworlds. unusual for the time, this was filmed on-location in NYC and not in a Hollywood soundstage)

more later

Which brings us to my single most boneheaded omission: Do the Right Thing.

Gangs of New York -- this is really a prequel to The Warriors, isn't it?

Liquid Sky -- this movie shaped a lot of my ideas about '80s New York.

Basquiat -- more '80s New York, except self-mythologized after the fact -- not a great movie, but kind of interesting

Igby Goes Down -- I'll take Kieran's New York wastrel movie over Macaulay's (Party Monster -- great material, lousy execution, no pun intended)

The Incident -- subway hostage drama, predates Pelham by about 7 or 8 years, with a very young and fiery Martin Sheen as one of the thugs.

Fort Apache the Bronx -- also shaped my ideas of New York -- it's kind of a miracle anyone visited this city in the '70s and '80s when you look at the movies that came out of it

and a couple more:
World of Henry Orient
Marathon Man
Pillow Talk
American Psycho
Last Days of Disco

More Scorsese:
Who's That Knocking on my Door
Goodfellas
King of Comedy

Avant Garde stuff:
Wavelength
Flaming Creatures
Chumlum
Chelsea Girls

Wall Street (Gordon Gekko!)
News From Home (Chantal Akerman! great time capsule of 70s NYC)
The Pick-Up Artist (Robert Downey Jr, Molly Ringwald, Dennis Hopper and Harvey Keitel!)
Die Hard With a Vengeance (ok it's cheesy, but some fun NYC chase scenes and the Federal Reserve building makes a cameo appearance)

Another unmentioned lovely: Radio Days, especially that opening shot.

Gangs of New York -- this is really a prequel to The Warriors, isn't it?

Except that where The Warriors is magical and beautiful, Gangs Of New York is brutal and kind of shit.

Most of Escape from New York was filmed in St. Louis. FACT!

nyc movies i like:
annie hall
pi
ghost dog
do the right thing
ghostbusters
american psycho
taxi driver (scorsese's only really great movie *ducks*)
does the godfather count? at least the first one?

other cities with better movies:

paris
london
tokyo
l.a.
possibly tehran area
possibly chicago

OTM!

i'll vouch for nearly all the movies on this thread. most of 'em weren't even made by nyu people!

Could it be that any movie, shot in New York has extra resonance with a New Yorker? Even in a crummy movie you get all excited and go: "Hey, there's the Odessa!"

Completely. Even shit movies can be thus redeemed.

It's the only reason why whenever I catch Stone Cold on USA Network, I have to watch it until the end to see Brian Bosworth shoot up the Arkansas State Capitol.

Granted, it ain't Woody Allen.

1. Speedy. The Harold Lloyd one with the amazing streetcar race through 1920's Manhattan. It's also got a hysterical mob scene at old Coney Island, and Babe Ruth is in it!

2. The Lost Weekend. Billy Wilder allegedly took the street shots through a hidden aperature in a panel truck. Ray Milland all sad & desperate amid the lonely crowd outside bars and pawn shops!

heh.

even vanilla sky??

Never saw it. I'm usually not keen on giving Tom Cruise any of my money.

hey new yorkers: which movie-nyc is most like the nyc you live in?

Hard to say, really. It's a hard thing to capture. Either it's portrayed as way over the top to the point of parody, or it's idealized with a coating of glossy sheen. Most of the films cited are no longer contemporary, thus they no longer really represent what NYC is currently like. I can't recall the last film I saw that was actually set in NYC (it's too expensive to shoot here, of course).

frederick wiseman's Welfare

Annie Hall & most Woody Allen: Quintessential.

The Warriors: best movie about navigating NYC, best graffiti in non-documentary.

Aaron Loves Angela & Fame: The lovely Irene Cara. Fame is shot at halcyon days of NYC grit and art.

Superfly, Across 110th Street, Gordon's War: Great imagery of Harlem in these blaxploitation flicks.

Ghostbusters: Yes! Great NYC movie. Columbia parapsychology!

Lest we forget...

Cruisin'= A NYC that is no more.

i was just going to mention this -- it's on right now. another fuckin' excellent redford/nyc movie is the hot rock.

this was a good question; too bad it didn't get more answers.

yeah, 20,000 leagues under the sea is a great new york movie!

we should make a filming location map of NYC

Jack's apartment in that was on W.12th between 5th & 6th Aves (a couple of blocks from me).

what, no Party Girl?

I'm watching Ozu's Good Morning and was reminded how much I love films that serve as snapshots/time capsules of specific eras and places, esp NYC. I came to start this thread and apparently it already exists.

I wish someone would make New York Plays Itself

going to spill a big bag of presentism right here but margaret demonstrated one of the best atmospheric uses of location in the last little while, imo

I wish someone would make New York Plays Itself

― lost ai weiwei (Stevie D(eux)), Monday, 16 January 2012 16:01 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

& yes. for the chronological changes rendered between el-trains & jazz clubs, the sweet smell of success & the gross midtown luxury of shame

I really love the ones abt hip youth in the 80's and 90's. Can someone plz recommend more?

it's not about hip kids but i watched akerman's "news from home" last night and it's probably one of the greatest examples of a film existing in a time and space. it's all filmed in nyc. akerman reads letters from her mother which is constantly being drowned out by the ebb and flow of traffic sounds and the subway.

"and is" not "which is"

i see someone mentioned it already, 7 years ago

Great thread. My favorites have already been named, but just to round it out a bit:

A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints
Wild Style
Requiem for a Dream
City Island
Andy Warhol/Paul Morrissey's "Flesh" starring Joe Dallesandro (I see "Trash" was mentioned above)

Stevie, the only hip-youth film that hasn't been listed that I can think of is Kids:)

They're nothing like the New York that I live in, but the edgy 70s films such as Panic in Needle Park or Dog Day Afternoon come closest to my conception of NYC, for some reason.

Oh yeah, Kids is eeexxxcellent as a mid90's NY snapshot!

Death Wish

Saturday Night Fever!