Film

New York Stories

Name: New York Stories
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Released: 1989
Cast: Nick Nolte, Rosanna Arquette, Patrick O'Neal, Mae Questel, Steve Buscemi

Three heavyweight directors, one city, no attempt to make it all fit together. Scorsese's jealous painter, Coppola's lonely rich kid, and Allen's mother literally floating over Manhattan share only geography and neurosis. It's uneven by design — you'll love one segment, tolerate another, and the whole thing works best as a curiosity for people who like watching great filmmakers work in miniature.

TMDb rating

6.2

If you liked this

Hannah and Her Sisters1986

Allen's warmest, most generous ensemble piece — overlapping romances and crises among sisters and their men, funnier and kinder than his segment here, with real heart underneath the neurosis.

But It's talky and very New York-intellectual in a way that either charms you instantly or grates within twenty minutes.

After Hours1985

Scorsese's nastiest comedy — one man's disastrous night in downtown Manhattan spirals into pure anxiety-farce. Same director, wildly different register from his Life Lessons segment: paranoid instead of romantic.

But Deliberately claustrophobic and mean-spirited; if you need a likeable protagonist, this will wear you down.

Paris Je T'aime2006

Eighteen directors, eighteen tiny films, one city stitched together into an anthology of love in all its forms. The format New York Stories tried in miniature, done here at greater and more satisfying scale.

But With that many segments, quality swings wildly — some are gorgeous, some forgettable, and it never fully coheres.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Tales of Manhattan1942no page yet

Same anthology structure and same city stitching together strangers' lives — this is where the format New York Stories borrows from was already old news.

A tailcoat passes from owner to owner across Manhattan, each segment a different genre and cast — Rita Hayworth, Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Edward G. Robinson — decades before anthology films were fashionable again.

But Its pacing and moralizing are pure 1940s studio filmmaking; some segments feel dated and stiff to modern eyes.

New York, I Love You2008no page yet

The direct spiritual sequel: eleven directors, eleven vignettes, same city, same appetite for love and loneliness colliding on sidewalks. If the anthology format hooked you, this scratches it further.

But Less starry, less disciplined, and the seams between segments show more than they should.

Crimes and Misdemeanors1989

Made the same year, Allen's darkest film pairs a murder plot with a comic one about a failed filmmaker, asking harder questions about guilt and self-delusion than his segment here ever does.

But The comedy and tragedy sit side by side rather than blending, which some viewers find tonally jarring.

The King of Comedy1982

Scorsese's cringe-classic about obsession and delusional ambition, De Niro at his most uncomfortable. Same director's fascination with tormented men convinced the world owes them recognition, ratcheted up to horror.

But It's excruciating by design — there's no relief valve, and the discomfort is the entire point.

Frances Ha2013

A broke, unmoored artist bouncing around Manhattan apartments and friendships, shot in gorgeous black and white. A gentler, more contemporary take on the striving-artist-in-the-city story than Scorsese's segment.

But Its whimsical, mumblecore energy is an acquired taste, and not much actually happens plot-wise.

Manhattan1979

Allen's iconic black-and-white love letter to the city, gorgeous Gershwin score included. If you want to see where his segment's neuroses and self-regard originally came from, start here.

But The central relationship has aged badly and is hard to watch without wincing at the age gap.

Big1988

A lighter echo of Coppola's segment: a kid navigating an adult world of privilege and loneliness, except here it's played for warmth and wonder instead of melancholy.

But It's a studio comedy at heart — sweet and funny, but nowhere near as thematically ambitious as anything else on this list.

Crumb1995

Scorsese's segment fictionalizes the tortured-artist-obsessed-with-his-muse story; this is the real, far darker version of the same psychology, no romanticism attached.

A documentary portrait of underground cartoonist Robert Crumb — genuinely tormented, genuinely obsessed with women he can't have, channeling all of it into deeply strange art. It's stranger and sadder than any fiction could invent.

But It's unflinching about mental illness and misogyny within Crumb's own family; several scenes are genuinely upsetting.

Uncut Gems2019

Same obsessive, addicted-to-chaos man wrecking his own life in New York, just swapped from an art studio into a jewelry store — genre and register both cranked up to eleven.

Adam Sandler as a Diamond District hustler chasing one more score, one more high, one more disaster — the same feverish, self-sabotaging male energy as Scorsese's painter, transplanted into a heist-thriller nervous system.

But The anxiety is relentless and by design nearly unbearable; there's no calm scene in the entire film.