(Continued)

7. "Saturday Night Fever"
Not every great New York movie takes place in Manhattan. In director John Badham's 1977 film, Brooklyn boy Tony Manero (John Travolta) and his pals escape their dead-end jobs and lives every weekend by dancing at the local discotheque. The movie put disco, the Bee Gees and Bay Ridge club 2001 Odyssey on the map. For Tony, Manhattan might as well be Mars -- a dream land of opportunity that's just a bridge too far for many in the outer boroughs.

See also: "A Bronx Tale," "Queens Logic"

6. "King Kong"
Yes, only the last 20 or so minutes of the original 1933 "King Kong" take place in New York, but the movie's third act is still the gold standard for a giant beast rampaging through the city streets. Aside from an apocalyptic tidal wave film called "Deluge" released the same year, "Kong" was the first in a long line of movies that featured destruction in the streets of New York as a plot point. The final images of Kong climbing the Empire State Building, both haunting and beautiful, elevated the building's iconic stature.

See also: "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms," "Q -- The Winged Serpent"

5. "When Harry Met Sally ..."
Enough with the crime already! Sure, New York is tough, but it's also got a streak of romance as wide as the Hudson River. To paraphrase the Beatles, I don't know where all the lonely people come from, but a lot of them end up in the Big Apple. Two of them found their way into this 1989 Rob Reiner comedy in the form of Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, both at the top of their games. For modern love among neurotic New Yorkers, this one's hard to beat. And New York diners were never the same after the famous "I'll have what she's having" scene.

See also: "An Affair to Remember," "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "The Goodbye Girl"

4. "The Godfather" and "The Godfather: Part II"
The first movie is, of course, a classic look at New York mob life in the 1950s and its infiltration into every aspect of the city, from its wealthiest to its most working-class environs. The second film, with its flashbacks to Don Vito Corleone's early days in Little Italy, is a still-stunning re-creation of the immigrant experience in the United States during the early part of the 20th century. There had been great gangster films before and there were some after, but until "The Godfather" came along, there was no such thing as a gangster epic.

See also: "Once Upon a Time in America," "King of New York," "The Pope of Greenwich Village"

3. "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three"
This funky, edgy, cynical saga of a subway hijacking is another great slice of New York life in the 1970s, embodied by cranky Transit Authority cop Walter Matthau, whose daily routine is shot to hell when four men take over a Lexington Avenue train and demand $1 million in ransom. Matthau is dead perfect, and New York's hustle and bustle is effectively captured in Joseph Sargent's no-nonsense direction and David Shire's groovy score. New York's subways have never seemed so ominous, and the city's ongoing dance with crime never so pervasive.

See also: "The French Connection," "Dog Day Afternoon," "The Warriors"

2. "Taxi Driver" / "Mean Streets"
These are two of Martin Scorsese's earliest and best, which set the template for so much that came afterward. "Mean Streets" (1973) was a perfect snapshot of life in Little Italy and the low-level hoodlums trying to make a name there, while "Taxi Driver" caught the alienation, loneliness and danger of New York life in the 1970s. It doesn't get any grittier than these.

See also: "Goodfellas," "After Hours"

1. Woody Allen
So that's not a title, exactly, but has any filmmaker had a longer love affair with New York than Woody? From the early 1970s right up until 2005, nearly every film he shot was set in the city -- or least Woody's idealized version of it. And while 1979's "Manhattan" itself might be the obvious choice, that film doesn't feel quite like New York despite its breathtaking opening and closing shots. No, we'll go with "Annie Hall" (1977) and "Hannah and Her Sisters" (1986) -- the former for its attitude (not to mention the compare-and-contrast with Los Angeles) and the latter for its sprawling look at a wonderfully dysfunctional New York family.

See also: "Bullets Over Broadway," "Broadway Danny Rose" ... the list goes on.

What are your favorite New York movies? Write us at heymsn@microsoft.com

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Don Kaye is a native New Yorker. You gotta problem with that?