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Best Decade For NYC Movies: 1970s

By

Jacob Dobkin

Published Oct 12, 2005

Modified Mar 7, 2008

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By

Jacob Dobkin

Published Oct 12, 2005

Modified Mar 7, 2008

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After all the comments on yesterday's post about books set in NYC, we got to thinking, has anyone bothered to come up with a list of all the movies set in the city? The answer, of course, is yes-- at Wikipedia, of course. What an amazing site-- it's like having a genie who's only job is to distract us with useless NYC trivia! They've probably missed a couple of movies here and there, but the list looks fairly comprehensive. Absolute, undisputable fact: the 1970s was far and away the most interesting time for NYC movies-- check these out:

• Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) * The Out-of-Towners (1970) * The French Connection (1971) * Klute (1971) * The Panic in Needle Park (1971) * Plaza Suite (1971) * Shaft (1971) * The Godfather (1972) * The Hot Rock (1972) * Godspell (1973) * From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1973) * Live and Let Die (1973) * Mean Streets (1973) * Serpico (1973) * The Seven-Ups (1973) * Soylent Green (1973) * The Godfather: Part II (1974) * Death Wish (1974) * Harry and Tonto (1974) * The Lords of Flatbush (1974) * The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) * Three Days of the Condor (1975) * Dog Day Afternoon (1975) * The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975) * Deadly Hero (1976) * King Kong (1976) * Network (1976) * Next Stop Greenwich Village (1976) * Taxi Driver (1976) * Annie Hall (1977) * The Goodbye Girl (1977) * New York, New York (1977) * Saturday Night Fever (1977) * All That Jazz (1979) * Hair (1979) * Manhattan (1979) * The Warriors (1979)

We're not entirely sure why people even bother making movies anymore-- because there is no way they are going to top Manhattan, The Warriors, or Taxi Driver. Hell, even bad movies in the 1970s rocked-- they had Beneath the Planet of the Apes, and we get The Dukes of Hazzard? We are really living in the wrong decade, man.

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Jacob Dobkin

Jake Dobkin co-founded Gothamist with Jen Chung. In 2019, Jake released Ask a Native New Yorker, a book based on his Gothamist advice column.

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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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