Manhattan

Through their view of the city on the Hudson, the big names of the American author's movie have shaped the picture of New York that generations of viewers worldwide hold stored in their memories. Their stories, however, have also become a true school of urban sensibility. In their films, the anonymity of the big city is not a threat but a promise of good fortune – the prospect of random encounters, the possibility of alternative life-paths.

Manhattan

D: Woody Allen, USA 1979, 96 min, OV

Woody Allen's homage to his physical and spiritual home helped define a particular image of the city: the New York of painters, poets and punks at the end of the 1970s. A neurotic TV comedy screenwriter, George Gershwin, Central Park, zeitgeist, brilliant dialogues – Allen at his best.