New York movies: The 100 best films set in New York City

From King Kong's spire down to the scummiest subway tunnel, TONY ranks the definitive list of the 100 best New York movies: crime dramas, romantic comedies, documentaries and more.

By David Fear, Stephen Garrett, Joshua Rothkopf, Keith Uhlich and Alison Willmore Tue Jul 3 2012

New York movies: Click to the next image to see our 100 best films set in New York City
New York movies: C.H.U.D. (1984)
New York movies: Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! (2006)
New York movies: Black and White (1999)
New York movies: Hi, Mom! (1970)
New York movies: God Told Me To (1976)
New York movies: Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
New York movies: Wolfen (1981)
New York movies: Man Push Cart (2005)
New York movies: Hamlet (2000)
New York movies: Three Days of the Condor (1975)

New York movies: Click to the next image to see our 100 best films set in New York City

Paradise and prison, bustling metropolis and the loneliest place on earth: New York City has a cinematic identity that infuses all walks of life. Even as we write our own narratives in this most famous of locations, we walk alongside fictional characters (and sometimes real ones, too, if we’re lucky).

In selecting the 100 most essential New York movies, we kept the city’s boldness in mind. TONY Film staffers David Fear, Joshua Rothkopf and Keith Uhlich teamed up with movie experts Stephen Garrett and Alison Willmore to gather titles from all genres and eras—the widely known and the obscure—in pursuit of a complete picture of NYC on film.

Our only parameter: The movie had to be set in New York City, not Metropolis (sorry, Superman fans), Oz (ditto, you Wiz diehards), nor anywhere else. Dive in, jostle politely, find your seat or ride standing: Please tell us what we’ve missed. It’s a big town.—Joshua Rothkopf, senior Film writer

100

C.H.U.D. (1984)

More funny than scary, this schlock-horror Z flick articulates a primal NYC fear harbored by anyone who’s ever peered down a sewer grate: Who (or what) is living below? Not the homeless, not alligators, but cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers. As the poster of a shimmering Manhattan skyline warned, “They’re not staying down there, anymore!”—Joshua Rothkopf

Watch now on iTunes Watch now at Amazon Instant Video

Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That! (2006)

An essential New York band plays a landmark NYC venue (MSG) as 50 fans capture the event for posterity; only the Beastie Boys could turn a crowdsourced concert movie into a time capsule, a tour of the city’s musical styles (hip-hop, punk, Latin funk) and a tribute to the power of Gotham’s DIY spirit. RIP, MCA.—David Fear

Buy on Amazon

Black and White (1999)

James Toback’s giddy ensemble drama transforms the city into an urban playground where rich white kids play-act ghetto fabulousness, criminals consort with moguls and Brooke Shields sports dreadlocks. It’s a bold think piece on the malleability of class and race in NYC, spiced with the single most sizzling sex scene ever set in Central Park.—David Fear

Watch now on iTunes Watch now at Amazon Instant Video

Hi, Mom! (1970)

Brian De Palma’s darker-than-dark comedy stars Robert De Niro as a XXX-rated filmmaker wanna-be who peeps on his neighbors. The no-budget film captures porn-theater-era New York at its seediest; it also features an astonishing sequence satirizing downtown experimental theater, in which a white-bread audience is viciously humiliated (and they love it).—Keith Uhlich

Buy on Amazon

God Told Me To (1976)

Larry Cohen’s sci-fi chiller about a detective investigating murderers who claim to be carrying out God’s will is the surreal B-side to Taxi Driver: a nightmare vision of the city’s repressed rage that starts with cameoing Andy Kaufman gunning down the St. Patrick’s Day parade and ends with our hero becoming what he was trying to stop.—Alison Willmore

Watch now at Amazon Instant Video

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Stanley Kubrick’s polarizing swan song takes place in a Manhattan of the mind, specifically the sexually frustrated brain stem of Tom Cruise’s upper-crust physician. The film’s fantasy Greenwich Village, populated by taunting fratboys, a hard-sell hooker and a Lolita-like teen is especially weird—and disquieting.—Keith Uhlich

Watch now on iTunes Watch now at Amazon Instant Video

Wolfen (1981)

Long before it was cool to go green, Woodstock director Michael Wadleigh helmed this environmentally conscious (though still pretty damned scary) werewolf movie. The South Bronx provides some memorably decayed, practically postapocalyptic terrain, and a number of vertigo-inducing scenes are shot atop the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges.—Keith Uhlich

Watch now on iTunes Watch now at Amazon Instant Video

Man Push Cart (2005)

Indie filmmaker Ramin Bahrani provides an eloquent, empathetic backstory to a pushcart vendor so street-corner standard, he’s all but invisible to passersby. Bahrani explores the fictional man’s past as a Pakistani rock star and his lonely, lowly present in a New York that’s both beautiful and coolly indifferent to his Sisyphean struggle.—Alison Willmore

Watch now on iTunes Buy on Amazon

Hamlet (2000)

Michael Almereyda transposes William Shakespeare’s seminal tragedy to the world of high finance as Ethan Hawke’s brooding prince goes up against his slick CEO stepfather. The modern-day setting—moving from grungy streets to antiseptic boardrooms and even that cylindrical mousetrap the Guggenheim—adds thematic heft to the greatest of all plays.—Keith Uhlich

Watch now on iTunes Watch now at Amazon Instant Video

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Filmed at the peak of Hollywood’s political paranoia, this CIA thriller captures a tense, spy-saturated NYC that would reappear in The Bourne Ultimatum. Choice local touches include Robert Redford’s clandestine office on 77th Street at Madison, a quiet Brooklyn Heights getaway (occupied by sultry Faye Dunaway) and a WTC window overlooking the intrigue.—Joshua Rothkopf

Watch now on iTunes Watch now at Amazon Instant Video

« previous
next »

Your rating
Name *
Email *
Comment *
* mandatory fields

Comments & ratings

(31 ratings)

I completely agree with CyCC, "Moonstruck" should go without saying... And what about "Working Girl"? That movie should definitely have cracked the top 100.

Adam Fri Sep 14 2012
Rated as: 3/5
Report
1. Name *
2. Email *
3. Reason *
Several of these movies could have been located in some other city without much change. But Prince of the City couldn't have been made in, or about, any other city. How can it not make the list?

Igor Thu Sep 13 2012
Report
1. Name *
2. Email *
3. Reason *
"Juice" if it hasn't been mentioned is deserving of a mention. "Party Monster" really has to be able to crack the Top 100 at least. Club kids? Limelight? That's as 'New York' as New York got in the late 80s/early 90s.

Bocephus Wed Sep 12 2012
Report
1. Name *
2. Email *
3. Reason *
"Street Scene" 1931 directed by King Vidor.....a one block stretch in the NYC, from dawn to night.."Dead End" 1936...shows life in NYC during the Depression and what it took to survive....Bogart is in this as a supporting role, he plsys a gangster who comes back to the neighborhood and finds his girl friend a hooker, hard to make clear in 1936 film censorship.....he is finally killed by Joel Mcrea, an other neighborhood kid who came back trying to make is as an architect

denjski Mon Sep 10 2012
Report
1. Name *
2. Email *
3. Reason *
and btw, Taxi Driver may be a brilliant film but it does not summarize or even remotely encapsulate a particularly NY experience. This film is really about any city that exists the periphery of a normal city. These people and these situations come out at night, when it's dark, when everyone has gone home. And it happens everywhere. Even in the so called "nicer" cities. And btw, even if you ARE a 12 year old hooker, there aren't very many vets/cab drivers who are looking to liberate you. What you have in Taxi Driver is a story that's an extraordinary AMERICAN story about a wartorn, disoriented, displaced vet in need of such an extreme episode of such outrageous vengeance and violence, it gives him a justifiable and bloodsoaked gateway back to the living, to the norm.

CyCC Sun Sep 9 2012
Rated as: 1/5
Report
1. Name *
2. Email *
3. Reason *
How can you have a list about NY movies and not even list Moonstruck?

CyCC Sun Sep 9 2012
Rated as: 4/5
Report
1. Name *
2. Email *
3. Reason *
I watched "Saturday Night Fever" last night on DVD. I first saw the film when I was in college and in my 20s. I am now 53 and still love this film. It has aged well and I saw it through much diferent eyes at age 53 than I did in college. A terrific story with a terrfic John Travolta.

Alan Sun Aug 19 2012
Rated as: 4/5
Report
1. Name *
2. Email *
3. Reason *
Serpico? Pope of Greenwich Village? Basketball Diaries? Marathon Man? A Bronx Story? Get outta here!

Mike Fri Aug 17 2012
Report
1. Name *
2. Email *
3. Reason *
No Die Hard 3????

Blake Thu Aug 16 2012
Report
1. Name *
2. Email *
3. Reason *
Awesome list but my only complaint is that Rent isn't included. Even though it was mainly shot in San Francisco the movie captures New York and especially Alphabet city in a unique way. Also Nick and Nora's infinite playlist captures NY city nightlife extremely well

Jim Tue Aug 14 2012
Rated as: 5/5
Report
1. Name *
2. Email *
3. Reason *