Best Manhattan, new york city Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of manhattan, new york city cinema — measured across 1,573 indexed frames from 17 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Manhattan, new york city films over-index on police officer, books and sunglasses — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
You've Got Mail (1998)
Nora EphronDP John LindleyIMDb 6.7TMDB 6.7See in full on FrameThrower →
This sweet romantic comedy reunites Sleepless In Seattle stars Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. He's the owner of a bookstore chain; she's the woman he falls for online. Both are unaware that she runs the little shop his company is trying to shut down.
- 2
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Roman PolanskiDP William A. FrakerIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.8See in full on FrameThrower →
Desiring to start their family, young Catholic homemaker Rosemary Woodhouse and her struggling-actor husband Guy move into The Bramford: New York City's iconic building that brims with unpleasant stories of obscure dwellers and ghastly occurrences. The young couple is soon befriended by their eccentric next-door neighbors, Roman and Minnie and Castevet; shortly afterward, Rosemary gets pregnant. However, little by little--as the inexperienced mother becomes systematically cut off from her circle of friends--alarming hints of a sinister, well-planned conspiracy start to emerge, enfolding timid Rosemary in a shroud of suspicion and mental agony. Why is everyone so conveniently eager to help? And why is Guy allowing it?
- 3
Maid in Manhattan (2002)
Wayne WangDP Karl Walter LindenlaubIMDb 5.4TMDB 6.1See in full on FrameThrower →
Jennifer Lopezas Marisa Ventura
Ralph Fiennesas Christopher Marshall
Natasha Richardsonas Caroline Lane
Marisa Ventura is a single mother born and bred in the boroughs of New York City, who works as a maid in a first-class Manhattan hotel. By a twist of fate and mistaken identity, Marisa meets Christopher Marshall, a handsome heir to a political dynasty, who believes that she is a guest at the hotel. Fate steps in and throws the unlikely pair together for one night. When Marisa's true identity is revealed, the two find that they are worlds apart, even though the distance separating them is just a subway ride between Manhattan and the Bronx.
- 4
Noah BaumbachDP Robbie RyanIMDb 6.9TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →
An estranged family gathers together in New York City for an event celebrating the artistic work of their father.
- 5
Inside Man (2006)
Spike LeeDP Matthew LibatiqueIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.4See in full on FrameThrower →
Composed and meticulous, the soft-spoken and ingenious bank robber, Dalton Russell, has orchestrated the perfect heist--shortly, the Manhattan bank at the corner of Wall Street and Broadway along with dozens of hostages will be his to command. Try as he might, the rough hostage negotiator, Keith Frazier, is always one step behind the criminal mastermind--and what is more disheartening--the institution's silver-haired founder, Arthur Case, recruits the intelligent problem-fixer, Madeline White, to retrieve something of paramount importance. However, the thieves seem to procrastinate intentionally, when they should be rushing into action. Will Arthur and Madeline get what they want this time?
- 6
Manhattan (1979)
Woody AllenDP Gordon WillisIMDb 7.8TMDB 7.7See in full on FrameThrower →
Forty-two year old Isaac Davis has a romanticized view of his hometown, New York City, most specifically Manhattan, as channeled through the lead character in the first book he is writing, despite his own Manhattan-based life being more of a tragicomedy. He has just quit his job as a hack writer for a bad television comedy, he, beyond the ten second rush of endorphins during the actual act of quitting, now regretting the decision, especially as he isn't sure he can live off his book writing career. He is paying two alimonies, his second ex-wife, Jill Davis, a lesbian, who is writing her own tell-all book of their acrimonious split. The one somewhat positive aspect of his life is that he is dating a young woman named Tracy, although she is only seventeen and still in high school. Largely because of their differences a big part of which is due to their ages, he does not see a long term future with her. His life has the potential to be even more tragicomical when he meets journalist Mary Wilkie, the mistress of his best friend, college professor Yale Pollack. Although Isaac's first impression of Mary is that she is a pretentious intellectual, he falls for her. They do become friends with the potential of becoming more than just friends as she knows that being the "other woman" in Yale's life is not a long term role that she wants. An Isaac/Mary coupling may complicate matters even more with Yale being mutually in their lives. Regardless, Isaac may be able to rationalize events after they happen, no matter what those events are.
- 7
Taxi Driver (1976)
Martin ScorseseDP Michael ChapmanIMDb 8.2TMDB 8.1See in full on FrameThrower →
Travis Bickle is an ex-Marine and Vietnam War veteran living in New York City. As he suffers from insomnia, he spends his time working as a taxi driver at night, watching porn movies at seedy cinemas during the day, or thinking about how the world, New York in particular, has deteriorated into a cesspool. He's a loner who has strong opinions about what is right and wrong with mankind. For him, the one bright spot in humanity is Betsy, a worker on the presidential nomination campaign of Senator Charles Palantine. After an incident, he believes he has to do whatever he needs to make the world a better place.
- 8
Sex and the City 2 (2010)
Michael Patrick KingDP John ThomasIMDb 4.5TMDB 6.0See in full on FrameThrower →
Two years have passed since Carrie Bradshaw finally bagged John "Mr. Big" Preston, the man she was always meant to be with. Just as her friend Charlotte must deal with her young daughter's "terrible two's", Carrie must deal with her relationship taking a turn for the worse - Big likes to watch old black-and-white movies on TV and eat take-out food, which prevents Carrie from feeling like the free-wheeling party girl she used to be. Meanwhile, Miranda copes with a new boss that can't handle an intelligent, powerful woman, and Samantha works a public relations angle that gets the fashionable foursome an all-expense-paid trip to Abu Dhabi.
- 9
Madame Web (2024)
SJ ClarksonDP Mauro FioreIMDb 4.1TMDB 5.3See in full on FrameThrower →
Forced to confront her past, Cassandra Webb, a Manhattan paramedic that may have clairvoyant abilities, forms a relationship with three young women destined for powerful futures, if they can survive their threatening present.
- 10
Mimic (1997)
Guillermo del ToroDP Dan LaustsenIMDb 6.0TMDB 6.1See in full on FrameThrower →
A disease carried by common cockroaches is killing Manhattan children. In an effort to stop the epidemic an entomologist, Susan Tyler, creates a mutant breed of insect that secretes a fluid to kill the roaches. This mutant breed was engineered to die after one generation, but three years later Susan finds out that the species has survived and evolved into a large, gruesome monster that can mimic human form.
What manhattan, new york city films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a manhattan, new york city frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — police officer is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- police officer4.5×
- books4.0×
- sunglasses3.0×
- bookshelf2.7×
- table lamp2.4×
- earrings2.2×
- potted plant2.1×
- child1.8×
How manhattan, new york city films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate manhattan, new york city from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 20%high keyvs 12% baseline
- 15%closeupvs 21% baseline
- 14%widevs 20% baseline
- 90%eye levelvs 69% baseline
- 60%mediumvs 48% baseline
What breaks the pattern
Before We Go (2014) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,573 frames from 17 films carrying the manhattan, new york city label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/manhattan-new-york-city
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