Manhattan
2 Oscar Nominations·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
Manhattan explores how the life of a middle-aged television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.
What critics thought
Manhattan landed as one of Allen's finest achievements at the time of release, with critics singling out its visual ambition, the quality of its ensemble performances, and its tonal balance between romantic yearning and satirical bite. The dissent was quiet but real — a minority found it only modestly successful — while the passage of time has, if anything, deepened its reputation, with later writers reading it as a deliberate mythologizing of a city in crisis.
“Manhattan has comic integrity in part because Allen is now making jokes at the expense of his own parochialism. There's no opportunity to heap condescending abuse on the phonies and sell-outs decorating the Hollywood landscape. The result appears to be a more authentic and magnanimous comic perception of human vanity and foolhardiness.”
Gary Arnold·The Washington Post
“Manhattan is a faulty film, but it's moderately amusing”
Stanley Kauffmann·The New Republic
“harder, harsher, crueler, deeper-going, more assertive but in the end no less life-affirming than Annie Hall”
Charles Champlin·Los Angeles Times
“The New York City that Woody so tediously defended in Annie Hall was in crisis. And so he imagined an improved version. More than that, he cast this shining city in the form of those movies that he might have seen as a child in Coney Island—freeing the visions that he sensed to be locked up in the silver screen.”
J. Hoberman·The Village Voice
Genres
Comedy, Drama, Romance
Cast & Crew
DirectorWoody Allen
StarringWoody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy, Mariel Hemingway, Meryl Streep
Manhattan
2 Oscar Nominations·National Film Registry
Manhattan explores how the life of a middle-aged television writer dating a teenage girl is further complicated when he falls in love with his best friend's mistress.
What critics thought
Manhattan landed as one of Allen's finest achievements at the time of release, with critics singling out its visual ambition, the quality of its ensemble performances, and its tonal balance between romantic yearning and satirical bite. The dissent was quiet but real — a minority found it only modestly successful — while the passage of time has, if anything, deepened its reputation, with later writers reading it as a deliberate mythologizing of a city in crisis.
“Manhattan has comic integrity in part because Allen is now making jokes at the expense of his own parochialism. There's no opportunity to heap condescending abuse on the phonies and sell-outs decorating the Hollywood landscape. The result appears to be a more authentic and magnanimous comic perception of human vanity and foolhardiness.”
Gary Arnold·The Washington Post
“Manhattan is a faulty film, but it's moderately amusing”
Stanley Kauffmann·The New Republic
“harder, harsher, crueler, deeper-going, more assertive but in the end no less life-affirming than Annie Hall”
Charles Champlin·Los Angeles Times
“The New York City that Woody so tediously defended in Annie Hall was in crisis. And so he imagined an improved version. More than that, he cast this shining city in the form of those movies that he might have seen as a child in Coney Island—freeing the visions that he sensed to be locked up in the silver screen.”
J. Hoberman·The Village Voice
Genres
Comedy, Drama, Romance
Cast & Crew
DirectorWoody Allen
StarringWoody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy, Mariel Hemingway, Meryl Streep
Rent/Purchase