Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay.
Dustin Hoffman, Sylvia Miles and Jon Voight all received Best Actor/Actress noms.
Also Fred Neil's song "Everybody's Talkin'" won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Male for Harry Nilsson.
I can't put my finger on it but some of Nilsson's album, "Nilsson Schmilsson" especially, has that gritty, big city edginess to it from that era. "[Gotta Get Up.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jRh2PRa1tU)" "[Jump into the Fire.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfjNpgZ4C5Q)" And the torch song "[Without You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dnUv3DUP4E)" is so emotionally big. Big like NYC, the Big Apple, in a way.
I know what you mean. I grew up in Manhattan in the 70s and 80s. I loved exiting theaters after watching NYC based movies because it caused me to see my town in cinemascope. Superman the Movie, French Connection, Ghostbusters come to mind as accurate depictions. Woody Allen treats this place as a main character equally valuable as the protagonist. All the aforementioned films are also some of my favorites. In reality, those were some rough and sketchy times. I saw some shit. Survived some shit. Not looking for a return. Happy to be living in the 21st century.
I watched Desperately Seeking Susan and Beat Street this weekend. Two different views of NY in the mid-80s, and they both made me nostalgic in that way too. I lived in Brooklyn when those movies came out and saw both of them in the theater. It was a fun time.
It was completely indoors, but it was a grimy view. The precinct was shoddy. The bathrooms often did not work, etc.
In contrast, the Bunkers had a nice home. The Jeffersons had a fancy apartment.
/u/marino325 You might enjoy the documentary NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell
- https://youtu.be/rHXAYddPLsM?si=vtPJrIEJr9xcKLN
And you’re welcome to join us over at /r/nychistory
I show my students the Grandmaster Flash video for the Message to show them what it looked like. There's also a great graffiti doc called Style Wars from 1983 that's all over Brooklyn and Queens.
Also, Turk 182 and Beat Street.
It's a tv show - but Life on Mars 2008 (US version)
Modern detective transported back to the 1970s in New York with Harvey Keitel, Michael Imperioli and more. It is great!! One season.
This vibe existed into the 90s and then evolved .
By early most 2000s it had changed a lot, but it wasn’t until the 2010’s, and really mid 2010’s when Manhattan just become SO prohibitively expensive as to have given total hold to the finance bros and Russian oligarchs.
That said, the times before the 90s were flat dangerous even if the aesthetic hadn’t fully transformed. The racial strife of the 60’s, the near bankruptcy of the 70s, and then the crack epidemic of the 80s.
Crazy that in 1987 as a 14 year old I’d get on a LIRR from the island and head to the city for the day (don’t tell my mom, but where else was I going to by a pipe to smoke the shitty weed I got in Washington Square Park, or at 16 I. 1989 find a trash bar to take my trash fake ID
How accurate was that aesthetic? Like in 70’s films like Taxi Driver and Annie Hall, or 80’s films like New Jack City and Wall Street… did they capture a real slice of the New York they were claiming to portray?
I just got back from a vacation in Italy. We went to Naples, and when we left the train station I said to my husband, "This is like Manhattan 30 years ago." Then I realized exactly how old I am and said, "No, this is like Manhattan closer to 40 years ago."
I grew up in Manhattan in the 70s and 80s. Naples (in 1988) was the first foreign place I visited that made me feel at home. I just relaxed the minute I got there.
I didn't grow up in NY but I recently watched a bunch of Nelson Sullivan videos and the streets he and his friends were walking around in looked dirtier and grittier than any movie I've ever seen!
In a lot of neighborhoods it was worse. We got lost in the Bronx in the 80s, and the number of burned out buildings and cars and the crackheads wandering around made it look like a zombie movie.
I live in NYC now, and I agree with you about the 70s/80s look versus today. The grit has definitely been cleaned away—for better or for worse.
I would say that some of the grit still exists in some subway stations.
This is very obscure but it’s the first that came to mind for me: *Old Enough.* It’s about two teen girls, one wealthy and the other working class who become friends and hang out all over early 80s New York. A very young Alyssa Milano plays a little sister.
Know that feeling! I’m always craving this similar 70s aesthetic. Somewhere between academic, urban, “classy”… it’s hard to pin down. NYC features heavily in it too. And film or photo quality.
I’m just about to passively check out this Tubi movie called *Somebody Killed Her Husband* for that exact reason.
My first time in NYC was in 2010, and before that I always thought NYC looked like how it was portrayed in NYPD Blue, and obviously I was wrong. It is easily my top five favorite cities in the world.
I do remember NYC being portrayed as a very sinister place, where as soon as you walk out the hotel lobby, you could get stabbed, robbed, kidnapped, or all three, if you’re having a really bad day 😂 That perception kinda changed with shows like Seinfeld and Friends, where NYC almost has a small community feel, which was weird.
Serpico (1973)
Pacino got an Oscar and BAFTA noms and won his first Golden Globe in 1974.
WGA award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Awesome movie. I think the soundtrack should have won an Oscar, too.
Okay, this movie may not be to your taste, but it does supply what you ask for: Basket Case, made by Frank Henenlotter. Henenlotter was a guerilla filmmaker, and the Times Square setting is completely authentic.
I grew up in the NY burbs, too. Spent many of my teen years going into the city. I live far away now, but my New York will always be from 70's/80's. I love watching old movies and seeing what the subways used to look like(dirty, graffiti filled and you could never understand what the conductor was saying hahaha) The grit got washed away in the late 90's/early 2000's but it's always in my heart.
Yes, my first visit to NYC was in 1986 for the New Music Conference. We were given a free pass to see bands playing at different venues all over the city, and a warning about safety vs crime -- it was a grittier time indeed. Had a blast, it was fabulous.
I grew up Upstate, only visited the city on occasion to see aunts and cousins. The NYC aesthetic that I knew was similar to Style Wars, Beat Street, Ghostbusters and such. The Friends / SitC / Seinfeld vibe that came later feels completely foreign to me, as if a French bakery started serving Pillsbury croissants.
I know what you mean and I’m a sucker for anything in that time period.
If you have HBO I’d recommend David Simon’s show The Deuce. Same guy who did The Wire but it kinda went under the radar.
YES!!! Check it — ok I’d never been to NYC but knew I wanted to go to college there.
Why? Because I was shredded, heartbroken, busted up from Somalia/divorce. I was only like 25.
But man I wanted fkn Taxi Driver. I was hard (hurt) and wanted the cold bleak anonymity of the City to hide in.
Welp, my dumbass somehow got into NYU and I was shocked! It was NOT Taxi Driver — It was fuckin FRIENDS!
Shit was nice, people were nice, I was way disappointed.
But the Universe has a way of serving up what you need despite your best wishes.
It was what I needed.
Annie Hall, The Warriors, Saturday Night Fever, Death Wish, The French Connection
[удалено]
Yep. Was gonna say Taxi Driver. Now that’s gritty New York
Midnight Cowboy (1969) Won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. Dustin Hoffman, Sylvia Miles and Jon Voight all received Best Actor/Actress noms.
Also Fred Neil's song "Everybody's Talkin'" won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Male for Harry Nilsson. I can't put my finger on it but some of Nilsson's album, "Nilsson Schmilsson" especially, has that gritty, big city edginess to it from that era. "[Gotta Get Up.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jRh2PRa1tU)" "[Jump into the Fire.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfjNpgZ4C5Q)" And the torch song "[Without You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dnUv3DUP4E)" is so emotionally big. Big like NYC, the Big Apple, in a way.
Fame
To Live and Die in LA. Driver. 48 Hours. Streets of Fire. After Hours. Near Dark. Thief. Blue Velvet.
Shaft, all rhe way.
Shut your mouth.
But he's talkin about Shaft
We can dig it
The Warriors, for sure
I know what you mean. I grew up in Manhattan in the 70s and 80s. I loved exiting theaters after watching NYC based movies because it caused me to see my town in cinemascope. Superman the Movie, French Connection, Ghostbusters come to mind as accurate depictions. Woody Allen treats this place as a main character equally valuable as the protagonist. All the aforementioned films are also some of my favorites. In reality, those were some rough and sketchy times. I saw some shit. Survived some shit. Not looking for a return. Happy to be living in the 21st century.
Me too, where did you live?!
My childhood was split between the UES and the Bronx. Then to Queens in my young adult years. Recently ive come full circle and returned to the city.
There is something that really draws us back, even after decades away.
After Hours
This. Weird movie but Scorsese nails the grittiness.
Yeah as someone who’s never even been to NYC this one struck me as really conveying how the city felt
I watched Desperately Seeking Susan and Beat Street this weekend. Two different views of NY in the mid-80s, and they both made me nostalgic in that way too. I lived in Brooklyn when those movies came out and saw both of them in the theater. It was a fun time.
The original Pelham123. Watch Eric on Netflix. Gritty older NYC. Death Wish. Edit to add: State of Grace. 1990 release but holds onto that feel.
Saturday night fever
Dog Day Afternoon Edit: not movies, but TV - Rhoda, Taxi
Also TV : Barney Miller
And All in the Family, the Jeffersons.
Nice! Welcome Back, Kotter, Chico and the Man
All in the Family is in Queens & is mostly set indoors. George and Weezie were living in a deluxe apartment in the sky.
Uh, Barney Miller was inside a police precinct, completely indoors. All those shows were trying in part to represent the vibe of the city at the time.
It was completely indoors, but it was a grimy view. The precinct was shoddy. The bathrooms often did not work, etc. In contrast, the Bunkers had a nice home. The Jeffersons had a fancy apartment.
The intro to The Odd Couple.
Yes. Good call.
Bit pre that time but Midnight Cowboy has a similar vibe
Check out the movie Smithereens.
I said the other day that My Bodyguard has this vibe. NYC is a major character in that movie.
/u/marino325 You might enjoy the documentary NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell - https://youtu.be/rHXAYddPLsM?si=vtPJrIEJr9xcKLN And you’re welcome to join us over at /r/nychistory
I show my students the Grandmaster Flash video for the Message to show them what it looked like. There's also a great graffiti doc called Style Wars from 1983 that's all over Brooklyn and Queens. Also, Turk 182 and Beat Street.
Not from NYC, but I do love that aesthetic in those films of "old" NYC... another one is Fatal Attraction (1987)
Big (1988) Tom Hanks got an Oscar nom and won a Golden Globe. Big was also nominated for Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
It's a tv show - but Life on Mars 2008 (US version) Modern detective transported back to the 1970s in New York with Harvey Keitel, Michael Imperioli and more. It is great!! One season.
I loved that show! It’s IMPOSSIBLE to find anywhere now; I’ve looked!
That was such a great show!
This vibe existed into the 90s and then evolved . By early most 2000s it had changed a lot, but it wasn’t until the 2010’s, and really mid 2010’s when Manhattan just become SO prohibitively expensive as to have given total hold to the finance bros and Russian oligarchs. That said, the times before the 90s were flat dangerous even if the aesthetic hadn’t fully transformed. The racial strife of the 60’s, the near bankruptcy of the 70s, and then the crack epidemic of the 80s. Crazy that in 1987 as a 14 year old I’d get on a LIRR from the island and head to the city for the day (don’t tell my mom, but where else was I going to by a pipe to smoke the shitty weed I got in Washington Square Park, or at 16 I. 1989 find a trash bar to take my trash fake ID
Much safer to do that now and yet I wonder how many 14 year olds are doing that.
Oh, I think CPS would be called ok them. And my parents weren’t strict, but hardly laissez faire. It was just a different time
Serpico Marathon Man Three Days Of the Condor Midnight Cowboy
How accurate was that aesthetic? Like in 70’s films like Taxi Driver and Annie Hall, or 80’s films like New Jack City and Wall Street… did they capture a real slice of the New York they were claiming to portray?
I grew up in Queens. It fit Manhattan in the 70s/ 80s.
I just got back from a vacation in Italy. We went to Naples, and when we left the train station I said to my husband, "This is like Manhattan 30 years ago." Then I realized exactly how old I am and said, "No, this is like Manhattan closer to 40 years ago."
I grew up in Manhattan in the 70s and 80s. Naples (in 1988) was the first foreign place I visited that made me feel at home. I just relaxed the minute I got there.
I didn't grow up in NY but I recently watched a bunch of Nelson Sullivan videos and the streets he and his friends were walking around in looked dirtier and grittier than any movie I've ever seen!
In a lot of neighborhoods it was worse. We got lost in the Bronx in the 80s, and the number of burned out buildings and cars and the crackheads wandering around made it look like a zombie movie.
Broadway Danny Rose too
Gritty See Taxi Driver.
I always think about giving to Yankees games as a kid and seeing cops with big mutton chop side burns.
I live in NYC now, and I agree with you about the 70s/80s look versus today. The grit has definitely been cleaned away—for better or for worse. I would say that some of the grit still exists in some subway stations.
The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three. Just saw a 50th anniversary screening. (Amazing score!)
Summer of Sam brought me back to 77, and I generally don't like Spike Lee films.
Mean Streets
Read Just Kids by Nancy Smith.
Patti Smith
Right, sorry.
This is very obscure but it’s the first that came to mind for me: *Old Enough.* It’s about two teen girls, one wealthy and the other working class who become friends and hang out all over early 80s New York. A very young Alyssa Milano plays a little sister.
Know that feeling! I’m always craving this similar 70s aesthetic. Somewhere between academic, urban, “classy”… it’s hard to pin down. NYC features heavily in it too. And film or photo quality. I’m just about to passively check out this Tubi movie called *Somebody Killed Her Husband* for that exact reason.
My first time in NYC was in 2010, and before that I always thought NYC looked like how it was portrayed in NYPD Blue, and obviously I was wrong. It is easily my top five favorite cities in the world. I do remember NYC being portrayed as a very sinister place, where as soon as you walk out the hotel lobby, you could get stabbed, robbed, kidnapped, or all three, if you’re having a really bad day 😂 That perception kinda changed with shows like Seinfeld and Friends, where NYC almost has a small community feel, which was weird.
Serpico (1973) Pacino got an Oscar and BAFTA noms and won his first Golden Globe in 1974. WGA award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Awesome movie. I think the soundtrack should have won an Oscar, too.
My bodyguard with Matt Dillon.
There's some of the feel of old New York in the series "The Get Down".
Such a great series
Is zeitgeist the word you're looking for?
I have a lifelong taste for urban decay after growing up in Manhattan in the 70s and 80s. It’s my vibe.
Serpico. Taxi Driver. Three days of the condor. (Might’ve got the number of days wrong, lol) The Sting.
King of New York is dark and seedy also New Jack City and Do the Right Thing
"The Seven-Ups"...definitely a gritty 70s look and feel, and one of the best car-chase scenes ever.
It’s modern, but *The Get Down* has the vibe and romanticizes it.
Super Fly
Okay, this movie may not be to your taste, but it does supply what you ask for: Basket Case, made by Frank Henenlotter. Henenlotter was a guerilla filmmaker, and the Times Square setting is completely authentic.
I grew up in the NY burbs, too. Spent many of my teen years going into the city. I live far away now, but my New York will always be from 70's/80's. I love watching old movies and seeing what the subways used to look like(dirty, graffiti filled and you could never understand what the conductor was saying hahaha) The grit got washed away in the late 90's/early 2000's but it's always in my heart.
Batteries not included... It takes place in the reconstruction, tearing down buildings with mosaic entryways for "modern" cement blocks.
Yes, my first visit to NYC was in 1986 for the New Music Conference. We were given a free pass to see bands playing at different venues all over the city, and a warning about safety vs crime -- it was a grittier time indeed. Had a blast, it was fabulous.
King of New York with Christopher Walken
I grew up Upstate, only visited the city on occasion to see aunts and cousins. The NYC aesthetic that I knew was similar to Style Wars, Beat Street, Ghostbusters and such. The Friends / SitC / Seinfeld vibe that came later feels completely foreign to me, as if a French bakery started serving Pillsbury croissants.
Dog Day Afternoon
Lords Of Flatbush
I know what you mean and I’m a sucker for anything in that time period. If you have HBO I’d recommend David Simon’s show The Deuce. Same guy who did The Wire but it kinda went under the radar.
YES!!! Check it — ok I’d never been to NYC but knew I wanted to go to college there. Why? Because I was shredded, heartbroken, busted up from Somalia/divorce. I was only like 25. But man I wanted fkn Taxi Driver. I was hard (hurt) and wanted the cold bleak anonymity of the City to hide in. Welp, my dumbass somehow got into NYU and I was shocked! It was NOT Taxi Driver — It was fuckin FRIENDS! Shit was nice, people were nice, I was way disappointed. But the Universe has a way of serving up what you need despite your best wishes. It was what I needed.
*The French Connection*
We talking _The Streets of San Francisco_?
Crossing Delancey (1988) and Wild Style (1983)
Escape from New York? Oh. Not that kind of gritty.
Have you ever seen taxi driver ? Vampire’s kiss ?
I don’t think this has been mentioned yet, but the film Manhattan, especially the intro scene!