The 25 Most Iconic New York Scenes in Movie History

Filmmakers love using Manhattan's harried streets as the backdrop for their films. Maybe it's that every corner boasts a landmark, or that there are as many picturesque facades as there are trains leaving the station. Maybe it's that New Yorkers are unperturbed by film sets, rarely having the time or the interest to indulge in rubbernecking.

Regardless, the city's visage appears in countless classics; it's as if the landmarks themselves lend to our considering a movie or scene iconic. Played over and over again throughout the decades, these images have buried themselves in our collective consciousness. Can we even separate the view of the Queensboro bridge from Woody Allen's Manhattan? Or is the film itself part of what makes the view so arresting?

These are the scenes that inspire pilgrimages, and are to blame, at least partially, for inflating NYC's population to an all-time high: The 25 Most Iconic New York Scenes in Movie History.

RELATED: Cinematic Atlas: A Guide to Martin Scorsese's New York
RELATED: Cinematic Atlas: A Guide to Spike Lee's New York

Director: Gordon Parks, Jr.
Areas Featured: Carl Schurz Park

On the surface, Super Fly may appear like many in the blaxploitation genre, but it's in this poignant scene that the film escapes the familiar constructs and solidifies itself as something greater. Youngblood Priest (Ron O'Neal) is a cocaine dealer, yes. But in a surreal scene taking with Georgia (Sheila Frazier) in the Upper East Side's Carl Schurz Park, he emerges as a real character, not a caricature. His lover urges him to quit the drug game: "I could be happy with a plain life, a poor one if only you were." Ambition may be the name of the game, but it's different than happiness, and Priest acknowledges that inconvenient truth in this surprisingly relatable scene.-SC

Director: Oliver Stone
Areas Featured: Central Park

The final confrontation in Oliver Stone's mighty '80s tale of greed, fathers and sons, and capitalism, takes place in Central Park. A gorgeous extreme long shot captures the expanse of green cropped by the gray buildings and some low-hanging mist. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) and Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) approach each other for one last talk. Only Fox is wearing a wire, intent on taking down Gekko for his corrupt business practices. The park typically functions as a place of reprieve. Before Stone's camera, it becomes the site of a duel.-RS

Director: Walter Hill
Areas Featured: Coney Island Boardwalk

Walter Hill's powerful 1979 cult classic pits the titular gang against the Rogues in a unforgettable battle set against the cheerful background of Coney Island's amusements. Maybe it's the unexpected outcome of the stand-off, or how we're left with the rival gang being swathed in sunshine as if there sins have been washed clean, but something about the scene is transcendent. -SC

Director: George Seaton
Areas Featured: Macy's storefront

For New Yorkers and Jersey folks alike, the massive, one-stop-shop Macy's located in midtown Manhattan, on 34th Street, isn't exactly a magical place come December. Once the building gets overrun by eager, at times physically forceful Christmas shoppers, the retail destination turns ugly. Hundreds of dollars are lost into cash registers, thousands of elbows get thrown into already disgruntled patrons, and long lines elicit just as many "Bah humbug!" sounds as they do "Cha-ching!" noises.

Fortunately, we'll always have the holiday movie staple Miracle on 34th Streetto remind us that said Macy's doesn't have to be a misery hub. In the uplifting, family-friendly flick, Kris Kringle (Edwund Gwenn) greets little boys and girls with a huge smile, joviality, and promises of bringing them whatever toys they want—that's because, as he claims, he's the real-deal Santa Claus.

And Miracle on 34th Street, with all of its thematic happiness and heartwarming innocence, is the genuine article when it comes to film as a medium for making dreams come true—even as wallets deplete. -MB

Director: Gordon Parks
Areas Featured: Times Square

Gordon Park's successful blaxpolitation film not only captures the racial tension of the time, but has the tenacity to unapologetically embrace racial humor as well. Long before Dave Chappelle hit the scene, detective Shaft was pushing the envelope. In the film's opening scene, we see Shaft walking through a 1970's era Times Square. As he confidently dodging whizzing cabs and navigating traffic, clad in a knee-length brown leather jacket, we hear that funky theme song for the first time. It captures the spirit of the '70's both in image and sound. Iconic? Damn right!-SC

Director: Frank Oz
Areas Featured: Sardi's

Manhattan emboldens even the meek to become a aggressively ambitious, even when the individual in question is a Muppet. When Jim Henson's small town crew decide to take their big dreams to a city big enough to hold them, hijinks inevitably ensue. In their attempt to become influential enough to land Manhattan Melodies on Broadway, Kermit takes his thirst for fame to a level Ms. Piggy would undoubtedly admire.

Kermie descends upon Sardi's, the theatre district institution known for its caricature-covered walls, with rats in tow and in a bold attempt to be seen as a #influencer, he replaces Liz Minelli's caricature with his own. It's ain't easy being green, especially for an amphibian in a big city, and Kermit and his ragtag crew of rats learn that the hard way when they're punted onto the cold, hard streets.-SC.

Director: Nora Ephron
Areas Featured: Empire State Building

As a nod to An Affair to Remember, a would-be couple agrees to meet on the observation deck of the Empire State Building on Valentine's Day. Which is crazy romantic, except for the fact that they've never met before. Sam's son basically hooked them up, and he was, like, nine.

It may sound more creepy than sentimental, but ignore our cynicism. Thanks in part to the film being backed by America's sweethearts, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, the fateful meeting atop one of NYC's greatest landmarks has become one of the most recognizable scenes in movie history, cementing the skyscraper's status as one of the most enchanted places in Manhattan.-TA

Director: Hype Williams
Areas Featured: The Tunnel

Because Hype Williams is a music video director, it makes sense that the opening of Belly, his first feature, is a music video. Nas and DMX exist a large automobile to enter resplendent Peter Gatien's famous nightclub The Tunnel, a hip-hop church and city icon in the '90s. An a capella version of "Back to Life" by Soul II Soul scores the action, which is doused in black light and unfolds in slow motion, because, of course. The famous coed bathrooms of the most important club in rap are on full display; X stares at woman smoking a blunt with confident stillness. Men in masks enter. And then the fight begins.-RS

Director: John Badham
Areas Featured: Verrazano Narrows Bridge on the waterfront in Red Hook

As iconic as Travolta's white suit, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge has been a key element of New York, connecting Staten Island to Brooklyn and Manhattan since 1964. In one of the most memorable scenes of Saturday Night Fever, and we're not saying the disco dancing isn't memorable, John Travolta's Tony tells Stephanie (Karen Lynn Gorney) how he knows everything about the bridge-how much concrete went into it, how long it is, how workers died on it, and how, allegedly, a guy is buried in one of the cement support beams (something that is likely true of every structure in NYC). The NYC bridge is more than an easy way to get to the discos to Tony; it represents his disillusionment with his friends and his life in Brooklyn.-TA

Director: Chris Columbus
Areas Featured: The Plaza Hotel

Forget its view of Central Park, its Grand Ballroom, and the pesky little girl Eloise, the only reason we're interested in the Plaza is to check into suite 411 a la Kevin McAllister during a memorable scene in Home Alone 2. There was something so satisfying about watching a kid undermine the staff of one of the ritzy places in NYC, pull off credit fraud with his dad's Visa, and basically embark in every overprotected kid's fantasy of freely venturing around a big city. Unfortunately, the check in area of the movie is now the residents-only area, and closed off to us poor beggars who try to experience something in the movies.-TA

Director: Darren Aronofsky
Areas Featured: Coney Island Boardwalk

The contrast is unforgettable. Surrounded by games for kids, restaurants for families, and a beach for relaxation, the Coney Island Boardwalk has long represented a nostalgia-inducing funland for New Yorkers. And for Harry Goldfarb (Jared Leto), one of the four drug-addicted characters in Darren Aronofsky's devastating Requiem for a Dream, it embodies everything that his life isn't, but that he wishes it to be, if only through his dreams.

Requiem for a Dream qualifies as one of the most depressing movies ever made, of course, so it's only fitting that Coney Island's fantasy vibe quickly gives way to sadness. Harry, walking toward the boardwalk's edge, hoping to reach his salvation, falls off of it and deeper into his own personal hell. -MB

Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Areas Featured: Feast of San Gennaro

What, people would actually expect a young Vito Corleone (Robert De Niro) to put the gangster life on hold just to celebrate New York City's Feast of San Gennaro? Just because the religious, outdoor observance of the Patron Saint of Naples is a holy event, that doesn't mean Vito is about to let his guard downMDASHKKin fact, his guard (read: gun) is all the way up.

As Catholics crowd the streets of Little Italy to honor San Gennaro, Vito follows extortionist Don Fanucci (Gastone Moschin) into his apartment that overlooks the feast. Outside, it's all prayers, joyousness, and spiritual uplift; indoors, it's all bullets and flat-lines.

Vito runs across rooftops in order to beat Fanucci to his apartment; once there, Corleone patiently waits in a darkened entranceway for the unaware chief. Along the way, one of the many classic pieces of Godfathermusic plays, a score later sampled for Nas and Jay-Z's "Black Republican" (a fun fact for all you rap heads out there). Once Fanucci arrives, Vito blasts him three times using a handgun wrapped in a towel (to silence the discharges).

No, San Gennaro wouldn't approve. -MB

Director: John Schlesinger
Areas Featured: Times Square

Midnight Cowboy may be infamous for becoming the only X rated film to win an Oscar in any category and showcasing the talents of a young John Voight and Dustin Hoffman, but it's the movie's smallest moments that give it a sense of place and an aching reality that's missing from most modern Hollywood character dramas.

Joe Buck (Voight) plays a stereotypical Texan hoping for a little wealth and glamour in the world of New York's pre-Craigslist male prostitution scene. Dressed up like a Halloween costume cowboy and shit quickly through the bowels of New York's sleazy Times Square, he desperately latches on to the limping con artist and petty thief, Ratzo Rizzo, and together they freefall into an off-kilter partnership that is doomed from the start.

While the majority of the film was shot in the Times Square that most people get misty for (as if they miss the muggings, stabbings and cum on the theater seats) it's a quick scene shot on 58th street and Sixth Avenue that is quintessentially New York. Rizzo is frantically explaining the game of hustling and dealing with the "social register" gals, while Buck listens on. Both oblivious as they're crossing the street, a cabbie comes within in an inch of turning them into street meat.

Rizzo screams "I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here! Up yours you son of a bitch!" and a cigarette flys from his mouth as he slaps the cab's hood. The cab speeds off and he keeps walking as if nothing happened, noting "Actually that ain't a bad way to pick up insurance."

You can't get more New York than that.-JL

Director: Ivan Reitman
Areas Featured: New York Public Library

Sometimes, the first scare is the most memorable. At the beginning of the supernatural comedy classic Ghostbusters, the three O.G. spirit-chasers—Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), and Peter Venkman (Bill Murray)—begin their road to meeting the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man by investigating a haunting inside the New York Public Library.

In the building's lower level they encounter a dead yet still uptight woman who, even from beyond the grave, won't tolerate any noise inside her place of reading. With little more than her pointer finger before her mouth, giving the universal "Shush!" hand sign, the first-ever Ghostbusters specter gives Big Apple residents yet another reason to leave books alone. -MB

Director: Brian De Palma
Areas Featured: Grand Central Terminal

Grand Central Terminal turned 100 this year, and to celebrate the centennial, New York's gorgeous hub of transport is hosting art and history events to document the building's illustrious past. Twenty years ago, in 1993, Grand Central hosted an epic gun battle in Brian De Palma's underrated Carlito's Way, the filmmakers best gangster film. It's the kind of surreal and beautiful and terrible thing that, once seen, will have you experiencing the space in an entirely different way.-RS

Director: Barry Sonenfeld
Areas Featured: Queens World Fair

The fairgrounds at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park haven't been that popular since the 1964 World Fair, unless you're a skateboarder. Teen skaters have since claimed the turf as a skate spot, and don't face dangers of being abducted or having their minds erased.

The former New York State Pavilion's observation towers are better remembered as the ships the first aliens used to visit Earth in Men in Black. If you failed to notice that, it's probably because you were too concerned with alien captives escaping during the climax of the film. And, just like it was destroyed by a flying saucer in the movie, the unofficial symbol of Queens, which hasn't aged well, is up to be demolished in real life. -TA

Director: Spike Lee
Areas Featured: Stuyvesant Ave in Brooklyn

There's a parking lot on Stuyvesant Avenue, between Lexington and Quincy in Bed-Stuy, where Sal's Famous stood during the shoot of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. You'll find no trace of the shoot, though there are still folks living on the block who remember when the camera crews came. The entire block is part of film history now, but the most iconic location is the fictional pizza place. the site of the race riot that is the film's bracing climax.-RS

Director: Blake Edwards
Areas Featured: Tiffany's

For many girls fantasizing about the city that never sleeps, there is no scene more iconic than Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, enjoying her simple breakfast of a French pastry and a street-cart coffee in front of Tiffany's window, as if to peer into an enchanted life she came to the city to achieve. In her little black dress from the night before, her hair tied up, her sunglasses, and her pearls, Hepburn completely embodied the mysterious and free-spirited drifter first introduced to us in Truman Capote's novella of the same name. Essentially, Golighty in this scene represents a truth about the exclusivity of upper-crust Manhattan, and the restless ambition to break into it that characterizes every dreamer who moves to the big city.-TA

Director: Woody Allen
Areas Featured: Sutton Place, Below the Queensboro Bridge

Sutton Place Park would be a nearly undisclosed romantic location if it weren't for Woody Allen's Manhattan. This tiny, hard-to-find alcove, bookended by a private street and pricey townhouses, is unlike many on this list. It's not a landmark in and of itself, nor is it particularly remarkable in its own right. In the opening scene of the movie, Allen's character Isaac admits he "adored New York City...idolized it all out of proportion." And maybe that's why Allen choose the subtly stunning Sutton Place to film one of the movie's pivotal scenes.

After spending the day ambling around Manhattan with Mary (Diane Keaton), the pair end up beneath the Queensboro bridge at sunrise. The dialogue is succinct, albeit laden with intimations of how the film will end. But the hazy, almost dream-like quality of the bridge, draped in a string of tiny lights, has a sort of surreal beauty that sticks with the viewer. Maybe it's because it was actually filmed at 5 a.m. Or maybe Isaac himself captures the sentiment best: "This is really a great city. I don't care what anyone says. It's really a knockout, you know?" Yes, we know.-SC

Director: Martin Scorsese
Areas Featured: Times Square Adult Film Theatre

Considering that he eventually shaves his head and goes on a killing spree, it's not surprise that Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) is romantically dysfunctional. Well, actually, that's putting it lightly—dude's dating skills are downright creepy.

Near the beginning of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, disturbed NYC cabbie Bickle develops a strong crush on Betsy (Cybil Shepherd), a political campaign volunteer who, bless her soul, lets Bickle take her out on a date, to the place of his choosing, no less. So where does Bickle pick for their first evening out together? A seedy skin flick den in Times Square.

And, believe it or not, Betsy isn't having it. Some women just can't be charmed. -MB

Director: Larry Clark
Areas Featured: Washington Square Park

L'enfant terrible Harmony Korine was 22 when he penned the screenplay for Kids at the behest of photographer-turned-filmmaker Larry Clark, whose work has always fixated on youth in the raw. They met in Washington Square Park, where Korine was skating. The park appears in the film, when Telly and Casper, the main male characters, wander through for drugs, skateboarding, and a fight. The violence in the park is one of many early indications that the Apple has gone rotten, the the core will not hold.-RS

Director: Rob Reiner
Areas Featured: Katz's Deli

We've had the coleslaw at Katz's Delicatessen, and not once have we witnessed someone spontaneously burst into an orgasm, fake or otherwise. But for over two decades Sally's (Meg Ryan) over-the-top display of faux-pleasure, which prompted the classic line "I'll have what she's having," has spawned pilgrimages to the famed Jewish deli.

Surprisingly, the famously witty words that come out of the mouth of the awestruck older woman (Rob Reiner's mother) were actually penned by Billy Crystal. -SC

Director: Penny Marshall
Areas Featured: The walking piano at FAO Schwarz

No scene has spurred more childhood fantasies than when man-child (literally) Josh (Tom Hanks) impresses the boss with his fancy footwork on an over-sized floor piano. The memorable scene, which was filmed on location at FAO Schwarz, features Josh and his initially reluctant boss leaping to and fro, hammering out the notes of "Chopsticks" and "Heart and Soul" with only their feet.

It's Josh's unreserved joy that lands him the job as the official toy tester of MacMillan, and it's the dough he earns doing the job that allows him to fill his spacious New York City loft with a Pepsi machine, a trampoline, and a pinball machine, inflaming the jealousy of every 10-year-old human alive. When we network, we leave with business cards and sympathy. Clearly, we're doing it wrong. -SC

Director: William Friedkin
Areas Featured: Bensonhurst, Brooklyn Elevated through Stillwell line from Bay 50th St. Station ending at 62nd st. station

If some enterprising filmmaker tried to remake one of the cinema's most illegal and frantic car chases in modern day Bensonhurst, Brooklyn it would be an exercise in futility, as the sheer amount of baby strollers wouldn't allow you to top 5 MPH on any given block. For the film French Connection, director William Friedkin mounted a camera on the front of a 1971 Pontiac LeMans. Operating another camera from the backseat, they barreled through the streets in pursuit of a hijacked elevated train, creating one of the most intense and realistic car chases committed to celluloid.

Shot over two weeks, with speeds up to 96mph for 26 blocks and no film permits (!), no one accustomed to New York traffic could ever fathom such a chase being real. Except it was.

This classic scene takes place at a pivotal moment when undercover detective James "Popeye" Doyle (played by Gene Hackman) gives chase to his supposed assassin, an operative in a heroin smuggling ring from France to New York. Get the "connection"?

Fun Fact: Friedkin questioned the real train conductor's request of $40,000 and a one way ticket to Jamaica to let them complete the scene from the parallel vantage point of the elevated subway car. He told the producers the money and plane ticket would be security for when he lost his job. Friedkin accepted, the conductor lost his job, and we can only hope that he is enjoying his time on ganja mountain. The rest is film history.-JL

Director: Billy Wilder
Areas Featured: 52nd St. and Lexington Ave.

Among the many beautiful, sometimes haunting images we have of Marilyn Monroe, perhaps the most memorable comes from this memorable scene. Marilyn with nary a hint of hurt in her eyes, is bright, ebullient even, as her white dress is whipped up while she stands over the subway grates. As Marilyn's married neighbor (Tom Ewell) looks on, his desire for her is heightened, along with the rest of America's. Never is Marilyn more gleefully exhibitionist, reveling in the camera's lens as much as we revel in the revealing glimpse (at least, for the time) of her white panties.-SC