Film

Bloodhounds of Broadway

A 1989 romp through 1928 New York's criminal underworld, where desperate characters collide over gambling debts, blood transfusions, and the promise of New Year's reinvention. It's boisterous, theatrically weird, and unevenly toned—part screwball comedy, part dark farce. For anyone who loves baroque ensemble chaos and doesn't mind a film that swings wildly between registers.

TMDb rating2.9

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love Damon Runyon-style storytelling, with loopy sidewalk characters, gently absurd romance, and a tall-tale take on 1920s New York that never quite takes itself seriously.

Skip it if you want a tight plot or a steady tone; this one wanders between sentiment, slapstick and gangster grit, and its rough, uneven seams show throughout.

What it asks of you: Ninety-three minutes of unhurried, shambling charm: you'll drift with the mood more than the plot, and keep your attention loose rather than sharp.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Miller's Crossing1990

Another Prohibition-era crime comedy that balances genuine menace with absurdist humor. Smart, stylish, and deeply funny about loyalty and betrayal in a world of gangsters and grifters.

But It's considerably more coherent than Bloodhounds, which some might find less fun. Also deliberately paced in ways that test patience.

Miller's Crossing poster

After Hours1985

Scorsese's only real comedy: a man's night spirals into nightmare through downtown Manhattan. Surreal, darkly hilarious, and captures that same sense of urban chaos where nothing goes as planned.

But Genuinely uncomfortable at points. The energy is relentless and sometimes exhausting rather than exhilarating.

After Hours poster

Barfly1987

Bukowski's world through Barbet Schroeder's lens: booze, desperation, and strange love in LA's underbelly. Funnily tragic, with Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway creating real chemistry amid squalor.

But It's a film about alcoholics that doesn't judge them but also doesn't glamorize. Some find it depressing rather than entertaining.

Barfly poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Bloodhounds of Broadway

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Pennies from Heaven1981

Both films use genre chaos and stylization to explore desperation and reinvention on New Year's Eve / during economic collapse, but Pennies uses music instead of farce.

Steve Martin as a Depression-era salesman whose mundane life erupts into elaborate musical fantasy sequences. A strange hybrid of realism and dream-logic that captures similar tonal vertigo: how do you tell the story of desperate people?

But It's genuinely bleak beneath the musical numbers. Many found it slow and emotionally punishing at release. Doesn't feel like entertainment in a conventional sense.

Pennies from Heaven poster
More like this (8)

Raising Arizona1987

Coen Brothers at peak playfulness: a ex-con and his wife steal a baby. Wildly inventive dialogue, cartoonish action, and a genuine sweetness underneath the chaos and crime.

But The Coen voice won't click for everyone. If you don't like their style of humor, this won't convert you.

Raising Arizona poster

Ghostbusters II1989

Released the same year, similarly embraces 1920s New York aesthetics and tone-deaf comedy. A sequel that knows it's silly and commits fully to the bit.

But It's considered the weaker Ghostbusters. Nostalgia carries it further than the actual screenplay.

Ghostbusters II poster

Johnny Dangerously1984

Joe Piscopo in a Prohibition-era gangster parody that's deliberately stupid and gleeful about it. Anarchic comedy that doesn't apologize for swinging for the fences.

But The humor is broad and dated. Most jokes land soft, and the plot is genuinely thin.

Johnny Dangerously poster

Eating Raoul1982

Suburban couple discovers murder as an entrepreneurial venture. Dark comedy about the underworld told with deadpan precision and genuine ingenuity.

But The premise is funnier than the execution. It's deliberately slow, which some find clever and others find tedious.

Eating Raoul poster

Something Wild1986

Jeff Daniels and Melanie Griffith's road movie lurches from romantic comedy into genuine darkness. Tonally untethered in a way that mirrors Bloodhounds' instability.

But The tonal shifts are jarring by design, and it doesn't always stick the landing. The second half is notably rougher.

Something Wild poster

The Hudsucker Proxy1994

Coens again, but this time full screwball: a naive man inherits a major corporation. Wildly theatrical, gorgeously shot, with a large ensemble doing impossible physical comedy.

But It's long, visually dense, and sometimes the stylization overwhelms the story. Not everyone finds whimsy this deliberate charming.

The Hudsucker Proxy poster

Stories We Tell2012

Both assemble large casts of characters whose stories collide rather than connect linearly; both find darkly comic notes in human desperation, though Haneke subtracts the theatricality.

Michael Haneke's Austrian ensemble piece about a small town's intersecting lives, shot in static tableaus. Deceptively simple-looking but structurally complex, finding tragedy and comedy in ordinary collisions.

But It's austere and glacially paced. There's no plot engine—just people bumping into each other. Requires patience and investment in small moments.

Stories We Tell poster

Synecdoche, New York2008

Both are films about theatrical artifice run amok in urban settings; both embrace formal chaos as a form of expression rather than fighting it, turning narrative incoherence into their point.

Charlie Kaufman's theater director builds a life-size replica of New York inside a warehouse. Chaotic, philosophical, formally inventive—a film about art-making that's itself wild and ungovernable.

But It's deliberately incoherent. Meaning collapses into itself. Some see it as essential Kaufman; others see self-indulgent mess.

Synecdoche, New York poster

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