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Is it any wonder there are so many iconic New York movies? At the best of times, life in the city that never sleeps can be disarmingly cinematic—whether you’re walking through Central Park, huddled under a Fifth Avenue awning in the rain, or sipping a martini at a gorgeous, old bar. If you’re especially lucky, you may even experience a real-life, movie-worthy moment: a meet-cute while riding the Q train over the East River, say, or a stolen kiss while strolling hand-in-hand down a brownstone-lined street in the West Village. The hum and thrum of the city is simply filled with grace notes—which is why, for decades and decades, its boroughs have been the backdrop for some of film’s most hilarious, romantic, and deeply moving moments.
Whatever your go-to genre—musicals, thrillers, crime dramas, romantic comedies—here’s a roundup of the best New York movies to remind you why there’s simply no place like the Big Apple.
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
One of the most enduring Manhattan images ever? That of Marilyn Monroe poised over a subway grate, her white dress billowing about her. That iconic scene—which took place on the corner of 52nd and Lex—is from Billy Wilder’s 1955 comedy The Seven Year Itch, about a restless husband (Tom Ewell) ensorcelled by a neighboring blond (Monroe, of course).
West Side Story (1961)
From its artful prologue (complete with color-blocked Saul Bass graphics, striking bird’s-eye views, and that utterly irresistible Leonard Bernstein score!) to its lacerating finale, West Side Story set a high watermark for New York movies. Under the direction of Robert Wise and director-choreographer Jerome Robbins (who also commandeered the original stage production), the playgrounds and fire escapes of the Upper West Side framed an epic—and enduringly compelling—urban love story.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
Based on the eponymous 1958 novella by Truman Capote, Blake Edwards’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s takes its name from protagonist Holly Golightly’s fondness for window-shopping at Tiffany & Co. with a danish in hand. A trip to the famed Fifth Avenue jeweler is her go-to whenever she feels the “mean reds” coming on (different from the blues). Why? “The quietness and the proud look of it,” Golightly (a Givenchy-clad Audrey Hepburn) explains. “Nothing very bad could happen to you there.”
The Group (1966)
Born in Philadelphia but raised in Manhattan, director Sidney Lumet made nearly all his films—from 1957’s 12 Angry Men to 2007’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead—in New York. An especially fun one is The Group, his soapy adaptation of the 1963 novel by Mary McCarthy, in which wedding guests lunch at the elegant old Brevoort Hotel before trailing the happy couple to the subway (and throwing rice down the stairs after them). Budgeted at $2.6 million and calling for “thirty-five locations, more than fifty sets on sound stages, and more than a thousand costumes,” according to Maura Spiegel’s Sidney Lumet: A Life, it was, at the time, one of the grandest films ever shot in New York.
The Way We Were (1973)
Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford light up the screen—and row across the lake in Central Park!—in this classic weepie from Sydney Pollack, with an Oscar-winning score from native New Yorker Marvin Hamlisch. Though The Way We Were doesn’t take place entirely in the city (there are stops in Malibu and Schenectady along the way), its Manhattan set pieces offer an unflinchingly romantic view of New York in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. Don’t believe us? Just see its iconic final scene in front of the Plaza Hotel. (NB: Program your own “Robert Redford Takes New York!” triple feature with 1967’s Barefoot in the Park, co-starring Jane Fonda, and 1975’s Three Days of the Condor, co-starring Faye Dunaway.)
An Unmarried Woman (1978)
There’s an interesting uptown/downtown dichotomy at work in Paul Mazursky’s An Unmarried Woman, which sees a well-to-do woman (Jill Clayburgh) get together with an artist (Alan Bates) when her white-collar husband (Michael Murphy) moves out. From ice-skating in Rockefeller Center to sneaking in a make-out on an empty SoHo side street, Clayburgh’s character, Erica, slowly carves out a life in a Manhattan of her own—one that exists quite apart from her glassy, East-60s aerie.
Manhattan (1979)
So many of Woody Allen’s films capture New York City at its most evocative, romantic, and madcap—Crimes and Misdemeanors, Hannah and Her Sisters, and, of course, Annie Hall among them. But Manhattan, which stars Mariel Hemingway, Diane Keaton, and Meryl Streep, is perhaps the most whimsically affectionate and viscerally stirring. Shot in black and white—and opening with George Gershwin’s rousing Rhapsody in Blue—it’s all sweeping skylines, lonely benches, and moody views.
Moonstruck (1987)
Moonstruck, directed by Norman Jewison (Fiddler on the Roof) has everything you’d want from a New York movie: a large Italian family in Brooklyn Heights; Cher, playing the bookkeeper for a funeral home; Nicolas Cage without a hand; dogs howling at the moon over the East River; an emotional night at the opera; a lovely dinner between Olympia Dukakis and John Mahoney; and lots of crying, slapping, and unsentimental wisdom (“When you love them, they drive you crazy because they know they can”).
Crossing Delancey (1988)
In Joan Micklin Silver’s Crossing Delancey, based on the play by Susan Sandler, Amy Irving is Isabelle “Izzy” Grossman, a single woman in love with a dashing European author (Jeroen Krabbé)—but being nudged toward the owner of a local pickle shop (Peter Riegert) by her meddling grandmother. One of the rare (explicitly) Jewish rom-coms of the period, it followed Claudia Weill’s small but significant Girlfriends by a decade, and anticipated Charles Herman-Wurmfeld’s wonderful Kissing Jessica Stein, from 2001.
Working Girl (1988)
Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, and Sigourney Weaver star in this quintessential workplace comedy about a secretary making her way up the corporate ladder. Come for Griffith’s iconic transformation from Staten Island naif to Manhattan man-eater (“I have a head for business and a bod for sin. Is there anything wrong with that?”); stay for the outrageous, proto-Balenciaga padded-shoulder jackets. Also: its fab opening credits!
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Spike Lee directed and starred in this iconic Brooklyn film, shot entirely on Stuyvesant Avenue between Quincy Street and Lexington Avenue in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood. Set over the course of a sweltering summer day, it chronicles the long-simmering racial tensions in the area with humor and heart.
When Harry Met Sally (1989)
As a chronicler of city life, Nora Ephron had a flair for both the comically specific and the sweepingly romantic—her screenplay for When Harry Met Sally being the most obvious example. A Manhattan movie par excellence, it made Katz’s Deli into a veritable pilgrimage site, besides also playing up the almost shocking beauty of autumn in New York. (A year and a half before her death, in June 2012, Ephron compiled a list of the things she’d miss most, among them “fall,” “a walk in the park,” “the idea of a walk in the park,” and “the park.”)
Goodfellas (1990)
From Mean Streets and Taxi Driver to The Age of Innocence and The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese’s best-loved films have seldom strayed far from the New York metropolitan area. Among them is Goodfellas, that canonical crime drama starring Joe Pesci, Robert DeNiro, Lorraine Bracco, and Ray Liotta (“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster...”). Focused on a mobster and his vast web of family and friends, much of the film was shot in Astoria, Queens. (Scorsese himself was born in Flushing.)
Metropolitan (1990)
Whit Stillman’s wryly funny indie—set “not so long ago,” according to a title card—centers on a set of wealthy, New York City coeds (and one red-headed, Upper West Side outsider) during debutante ball season, over their winter break. What could easily be a send-up of the insular uptown rich, however, turns out to be a very charming study of identity politics, teenage angst, strip poker, and love across the aisle on snow-dusted Park Avenue. (NB: For a somewhat grittier follow-up, watch The Last Days of Disco—Stillman’s paean to the downtown club scene and its hapless adherents—from 1998, starring Chloë Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale.)
The Prince of Tides (1991)
It helps that in The Prince of Tides, adapted from Pat Conroy’s popular 1986 novel, the protagonist—Nick Nolte’s ornery, South Carolina–born Tom Wingo—arrives in New York determined to hate it. But as he falls in love with his sister’s psychiatrist, Dr. Susan Lowenstein (Barbra Streisand, who also directs), so too does he fall for her loud, unfriendly city. In no time, we see Wingo playing football in the park, strolling past the Corner Bookstore on 93rd and Madison, bidding a fond farewell in bustling Grand Central Station, and slow-dancing in the Rainbow Room.
Crooklyn (1994)
Another Spike Lee joint, Crooklyn was a deeply personal and bittersweet project for the director, inspired by his own Brooklyn childhood (and co-written by his sister, Joie, and brother Cinqué). Set in the early 1970s, the film follows Troy (Zelda Harris), a young girl growing up in colorful do-or-die Bed-Stuy with her parents (Alfre Woodard and Delroy Lindo) and four brothers.
Vanya on 42nd Street (1994)
It was a delightful concept: Over several years in the early ’90s, a group of actors including Julianne Moore, Wallace Shawn, and Lynn Cohen met for periodic rehearsals of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, overseen by director André Gregory, without intending to actually stage it. (L’art pour l’art, indeed.) Then, when this pseudo-production was opened to tiny pockets of friends and family, Gregory had the idea to record the action, eventually getting the filmmaker Louis Malle (who had directed Shawn and Gregory in another Manhattan masterpiece, 1981’s My Dinner With Andre) onboard. Malle would capture the players at work at the grand but crumbling New Amsterdam Theatre on West 42nd Street, sans costumes or any real set—a perfect confluence of art and life.
Uptown Girls (2003)
Among the many charming New York sights in Uptown Girls, starring Dakota Fanning and Brittany Murphy, are the old Bendel’s storefront, Christie’s, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Cooper Hewitt Museum (masquerading, in this case, as a girls’ school); Sheep’s Meadow and Bow Bridge in Central Park; and the Tea Party ride on Coney Island.
Saving Face (2004)
In Saving Face, software engineer turned filmmaker Alice Wu’s feature-length debut, Michelle Krusiec plays Wilhelmina “Wil” Pang, a New York City surgeon negotiating two challenging relationships: one with her conservative mother (Joan Chen), who becomes pregnant out of wedlock and moves in with her; the other with her girlfriend, Vivian (Lynn Chen), whom she’s afraid to kiss in public. Filmed on location in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, the film offers an affecting look at the queer Chinese-American experience—not to mention lots of lovely streetscapes.
The Squid and The Whale (2005)
Written by Noah Baumbach, produced by Wes Anderson, and featuring memorable performances from Laura Linney, Jeff Daniels, Jesse Eisenberg, and Owen Kline, this semi-autobiographical indie darling is a love letter to 1980s New York. While the film’s name pays tribute to the iconic giant squid and sperm whale diorama at the American Museum of Natural History, its lens lingers longest in the picturesque neighborhood of Park Slope, Brooklyn, where two boys reckon with the turmoil of their parents’ divorce.
Rent (2005)
Adapted from a Broadway musical based on Puccini’s La Bohème, Rent joyfully (and tragically) spotlights a ragtag group of artists, vagabonds, heroin addicts, and people living with HIV/AIDS in Alphabet City at the “end of the millennium.” If songs like “Seasons of Love” and “Take Me or Leave Me” feel like fairly standard musical-theater fare now, there remains something distinctly New York about the film, which reunited much of the stage production’s original cast.
Sex and the City (2008)
New York is often described as the fifth star of Sex and the City, and the show’s first film spin-off embraces that truism completely. To wit: Carrie’s dream wedding-turned-broken bride moment at the New York Public Library; Miranda and Steve’s reunion at the halfway point of the Brooklyn Bridge; Carrie and Louise’s cocktail outing at the Carlyle Hotel’s Bemelmans Bar; and, of course, the fairytale-worthy happy ending at City Hall.
Frances Ha (2013)
Shot in gleaming black and white, Noah Baumbach’s endlessly endearing com-dram, starring and co-written by Greta Gerwig, renders the city with all of the intimacy, romance, and mystery that comes with finding your way in it after college.
Ocean’s Eight (2018)
2018’s all-female Ocean’s revamp unfolds at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where a sophisticated band of thieves attempts an elaborate heist at the annual Met Gala. (Not to toot our own horn, but let’s just say that Vogue had a little something to do with ensuring the party felt authentic.)
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
From Moonlight director Barry Jenkins, If Beale Street Could Talk—based on James Baldwin’s eponymous 1974 novel, and starring Stephan James, Kiki Layne, Brian Tyree Henry, and Regina King (in an Oscar-winning turn)—paints midcentury Harlem in lush, painterly colors.
On the Rocks (2020)
For On the Rocks, director Sofia Coppola reunited with Bill Murray for a father-daughter com-dram set in some of Manhattan’s most beautiful hangouts: The Carlyle’s Bemelmans Bar, Indochine, 21 Club…the list goes on. (Released in the fall of 2020, when indoor dining was still verboten due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film seemed, for a time, as romantic and remote as a period drama.) Rashida Jones stars as Laura Keane, a blocked novelist who, suspecting her husband (Marlon Wayans) may be having an affair, gets swept into a reconnaissance mission spearheaded by her caddish father (Murray).
In the Heights (2021)
Adapted from Lin-Manuel Miranda and playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes’s Tony-winning musical, In the Heights pays loving tribute to the largely Dominican enclave of Washington Heights in upper Manhattan. As such, its filming locations include spots like J. Hood Wright Park, Highbridge Pool, the corner of 175th Street and Audubon Avenue, and the 191st Street subway station.
Anora (2024)
In a rag-to-riches story that makes the premise of Pretty Woman look tame, a Brooklyn stripper and sex worker (Mikey Madison) falls for the son of a Russian oligarch (Mark Eydelshteyn). It’s a wild ride filled with sex, drugs, and exorbitant amounts of money—until everything inevitably comes crashing down. With its Brighton Beach, Coney Island, and Sheepshead Bay filming locations, however, it’s also a fascinating peek into a side of New York that isn’t often featured in films and TV.