Movie · 1979 · Comedy, Drama, Romance · 1h 36m · R · English
Curator score: 7.9/10 (328.9K ratings)
Woody Allen's New Comedy Hit
Overview
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.
Ratings
Curator score: 7.9/10
IMDb: 7.8/10
Letterboxd: 3.87/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 93%
Metacritic: 83
TMDB: 7.7/10
Director
Woody Allen
Production
United Artists, Jack Rollins & Charles H. Joffe Productions
Cast
Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy, Mariel Hemingway, Meryl Streep, Anne Byrne Hoffman, Karen Ludwig, Michael O'Donoghue, Gary Weis, Kenny Vance, Tisa Farrow, Damion Sheller, Wallace Shawn, Helen Hanft, Bella Abzug, Victor Truro, Charles Levin, Karen Allen, David Rasche, Mark Linn-Baker
Where to watch
Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A beautifully shot, sharply written New York relationship comedy-drama that pairs romantic yearning with moral messiness. Its reputation is complicated by the filmmaker’s off-screen history and the film’s own uncomfortable premise, but as a work of style, performance, and urban melancholy it remains a major late-70s American film.
Best for
Viewers who like elegant black-and-white cinematography
Fans of talky, neurotic romantic comedies with literary dialogue
People interested in New York as a romanticized character
Audiences comfortable with flawed, morally compromised protagonists
Skip if
You want a cleanly likable lead or uncomplicated romance
The subject matter around age and power dynamics is a dealbreaker
You prefer plot-driven films over conversation-heavy character studies
You cannot separate the film’s artistry from the controversies surrounding its creator
Overview
Manhattan is one of those films that can be admired and argued with in the same breath. It is gorgeously photographed, wryly written, and full of the kind of observational confidence that makes even small conversations feel like set pieces. The city is rendered as both fantasy and emotional weather: luminous, restless, and a little self-mythologizing.
Worth noting
At the same time, the film’s central relationships are intentionally, and sometimes uncomfortably, tangled. That tension is part of its design, but it also means the movie can feel less like a romance than a portrait of self-justifying desire. The performances, especially Diane Keaton’s, give the film its warmth and friction.
Bottom line
If you respond to sophisticated banter, romantic ambivalence, and a very specific late-70s New York sensibility, it’s an essential watch. If the premise itself is enough to shut the door, there’s no shortage of other urban relationship dramas that offer the style without the baggage.
Top Letterboxd reviews
maria (2★) · 2974 likes
no amount of beautiful b&w cinematography can save this self indulgent, pretentious and perverted dogshit
megan (2.5★) · 2128 likes
can you believe that woody allen actually directed and starred in his own biopic???
mary (5★) · 1393 likes
beautiful movie about bad people
Mike D'Angelo (5★) · 1335 likes
100/100
I don't understand how you make a film that looks like this and then go on to make 32 subsequent films (and counting) that look nothing like this. But then, neither do I understand how you achieve the perfect synthesis of your many gifts and somehow conclude that you totally whiffed, to the point where you beg the studio to destroy the negative. Each of the film's tricky balancing acts—between visual beauty and verbal dexterity, between wit and pathos,… more
Kall S (3★) · 1252 likes
As if any of those women would actually put up with Woody Allen's annoying face for five minutes.
1984 · Comedy, Drama · 1h 24m · PG · Curator 7.8/10 (52K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, fuboTV, MGM Plus, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Another New York-set character comedy that mixes melancholy, affection, and showbiz absurdity.
2005 · Comedy, Drama · 1h 21m · R · Curator 7.1/10 (240.7K ratings) · Where to watch: Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
For the sharp, painful family and relationship dynamics, plus the same dry, verbal intelligence.
Topics
romantic drama, relationship comedy, black-and-white cinematography, New York City, neurotic humor, moral ambiguity, late 1970s, urban melancholy, literary dialogue, adult relationships