Great New York Movies To Watch After You See "In the Heights"

The New York-set movie musical opens this weekend in theaters and on HBO Max

Jun 11, 2021

One of the biggest movie events of the summer has arrived this weekend. In the Heights, the new film based on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s stage musical, hits theaters and HBO Max today. Set in the Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights, In the Heights promises to be a colorful and lively portrait of New York City. With this in mind, let’s talk about some of our favorite New York movies this week. Read, subscribe, and enjoy!

Drew recommends…

Dog Day Afternoon (streaming on HBO Max)

One of the best New York movies ever made takes place almost entirely inside a bank in Brooklyn. Dog Day Afternoon opens with shots of daily life around New York City on a hot August day in 1972, and then plunges the viewer straight into an ill-conceived bank robbery gone wrong. Based on a true story, Dog Day Afternoon depicts Sonny’s (Al Pacino) desperate attempt to hold up a Brooklyn bank, which immediately turns into a hostage situation. The subsequent events that unfold between Sonny, his partner-in-crime Sal, the hostages, cops, FBI, and raucous crowd of New Yorkers outside make Dog Day Afternoon an indelible New York film.

But don’t just take it from me. When the movie was released in 1975, New York Times film critic Vincent Canby called it, “Sidney Lumet's most accurate, most flamboyant New York movie.” Lumet was one of the key New York filmmakers, albeit less famous than contemporaries like Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, and Spike Lee. He grew up in the Lower East Side, so he possessed a keen understanding of New York life, which showed up in other notable New York-set Lumet films like Serpico, The Pawnbroker, and Prince of the City.

In Dog Day Afternoon, Lumet captures the energy, heat, and spirit of New York, as well as the kind of fascinating and strange characters you could come across on almost every block of the city. The whole movie coalesces around Sonny’s anxious and distressed behavior and appearance. You could say his character bottles up a certain kind of New York vibe and releases it in an irrational criminal act. Pacino’s brilliance as an actor is that he’s so human and vulnerable that you can’t help but sympathize with Sonny’s situation. (The real-life bank heist was apparently meant to pay for Sonny’s lover’s gender reassignment surgery.) Coming off The Godfather Part II, Pacino almost turned down the Sonny character because of the heavy toll such an intense role would inflict upon him.

Dog Day Afternoon has a grounded New York realism that makes you think you may be watching the actual events, even as it simultaneously succeeds as an entertaining 70s heist film. It’s a wild true story that would’ve been further sensationalized by a lesser film, but here Lumet and Pacino play it matter-of-fact because this story doesn’t need further embellishment. We may only see a sliver of New York in Dog Day Afternoon, but over 45 years later it remains a compelling encapsulation of an unpredictable city filled with unpredictable people.

Die Hard with a Vengeance (streaming on Hulu)

Despite following the adventures of NYPD detective John McClane (Bruce Willis), neither of the first two Die Hard movies took place in New York. The much-beloved original is famously set at Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles and all the action in Die Hard 2 is at the D.C. airport. When Die Hard with a Vengeance, the third film in the franchise, finally gave us McClane on his home turf, it made for the highest grossing movie of 1995 and the rare sequel that actually matches the highs of the original.

They made three smart moves on Die Hard with a Vengeance. First, they took the action to New York City. Second, they brought back John McTiernan, the director of the first Die Hard. And finally, they added Samuel L. Jackson to the mix (never a bad idea).

Surprisingly, the script was not written for the Die Hard franchise. It was for a film titled “Simon Says,” which was purchased by Fox and repurposed as the next Die Hard entry. The story follows McClane and his unexpected partner Zeus Carver (Jackson) as they run all around New York City in an attempt to stop multiple bomb threats set in place by Simon (a villainous Jeremy Irons). Key action set pieces occur in Central Park, the subway, and the Federal Reserve. It’s just endless fun to see Bruce Willis and Sam Jackson solve Simon’s explosive riddles while they run roughshod through noticeable landmarks in Manhattan.

Only a year removed from Pulp Fiction’s smashing success, which they both starred in, Willis and Jackson make a terrific buddy action-comedy team. And, Irons is clearly enjoying the opportunity to play a smartest-guy-in-the-room villain. The first half of Die Hard with a Vengeance, which features most of the action around New York, competes with the best stretches in the original. While the second half doesn’t keep that same energy to the end, it’s still thrilling to watch the Die Hard formula transfer really well to possibly the most famous city in the world.

Billy recommends…

Cinderella Man (streaming on HBO Max)

The It’s a Wonderful Life of sports movies. None of the “look back on your own life from above,” but the character being at the top and falling into ruins because of The Great Depression mimics it perfectly. Luckily for audiences the quality of this movie is on par with It’s a Wonderful Life.

The summer season is blockbuster season and while this movie is not in full blockbuster mode it is a type of mindless-inspirational fun that I need this time of year. Cinderella Man follows once light heavyweight contender Jimmy Braddock (Russell Crowe) who tries to find shifts at the boatyard during the day and at night tries to find the quickly drifting away “big purse.” Director Ron Howard completely leans into all the movie tropes that come with looking at this era of America. That leads to scenes that are so campy it hurts. What we get through all that is a campy, but legendary sports movie performance with Paul Giamatti as Braddock’s trainer Joe Gould.

Cinderella Man differentiates itself from other sports movies from the talent involved. One wrong casting move and this movie goes bust. Plus, Ron Howard’s style fits well into this style of filmmaking. He is always going to look for a chill moment and sports movies need those. Throw this one on to remind yourself to cherish your own luxuries. Also use some capacity to ignore the moments that try to empathize with the wealthy during this time. In reality, Braddock should have punched the lot of em!

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