To celebrate Scream VI hitting the Big Apple, Daniel Rutledge takes us through the six best movies about going to New York, from Death Wish 3 to Friday the 13th Part VIII.
The new Scream movie features the killer Ghostface heading off to the land of the Ghostface Killah: New York, New York. It’s the city America calls The City and it’s the subject of countless songs, books, poems and plays.
Of course, it’s the setting of countless movies too—and in some of those movies, the main character or characters go to New York as an important part of the plot, just like Ghostface does in Scream VI. To celebrate his move, here are the six best movies ever made about characters going to New York.
Rumble in the Bronx
Jackie Chan’s first American movie remains his best, by quite some margin. That’s probably because it’s only set in America but actually made by Stanley Tong and some other Hong Kong homeboys. Anyway, Chan plays a dude named Ma Hon Keung from Hong Kong who pops over to New York for a wedding but gets entangled in a violent war against a few gangs and has to stay a while, so he can crack a few hundred skulls.
Like so many millions of other people, the Big Apple works its magic on Ma Hon Keung and he just has to stay there. Not many of those millions carry out as many mind-blowing stunts or waste as many gangsters as Ma Hon Keung, however.
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
It’s generally regarded as one of the shittier entries in the Friday the 13th series, but I’ve always had a serious soft spot for this stupid, stupid flick. Maybe it’s just my love for this particular flavour of absurdity, but seeing the zombified, super-powered mass murderer Jason Voorhees taking the New York subway, terrifying pre-Giuliani dirty old ’80s New York punks and punching a boxer’s head off just really does it for me.
It’s also the best title in the franchise, hands down. Our guy gets towed to the Big Apple on some schmuck’s boat and goes on a fun tour of the city’s famous landmarks, including somehow causing lightning to hit the Statue of Liberty. It’s glorious.
Death Wish 3
This franchise started off as fairly gritty attempted commentary on how crime and violence damage or destroy people. By the third one, however, it had seemingly gotten influenced by the likes of Rambo: First Blood Part II and Commando, cranking the ridiculousness up to an absolutely wild level. It’s an incredibly entertaining romp with a barely awake Charles Bronson travelling to New York to calmly mow down a few thousand gang members with increasingly chaotic firepower.
Filthy, dangerous mid-80s era New York City was often exaggerated in film, but perhaps never as insanely as it is in Death Wish 3, with post-apocalyptic style gangs roaming the streets and openly terrorising locals as weirdly absent police condone mass murder by vigilantes. It’s a joyously over-the-top, hyper-violent laugh fest.
Midnight Cowboy
Despite what an awful jerk Jon Voight turned into in real life, he delivered one of the all-time great movie performances in this, holding his own alongside Dustin Hoffman when that legend was in his prime. Voight plays the titular cowboy, a big dum-dum from Texas who moves to The City to make money, but kind of sucks at it. He does make friends with a hustler who screws him over, however—that’s Hoffman.
The cowboy has a few sexual encounters of note but one of the most fun sequences is where he goes to a trippy art party and does drugs. Seriously though, of all the films on this list this is the most genuinely great, meaning it just beat Hercules in New York for a spot.
Basket Case
This uplifting tale of brotherly love follows Duane and Belial as they try to start a new life in the Big Apple, again in the dirty, crime-infested pre-Giuliani ’80s era. The brothers have had a rough upbringing and are off to The City to try and right some wrongs and live a better life. The thing is, Duane is a pretty average bloke, but Belial is a gross little blob that lives in a basket, groans like a beast and often savagely kills people.
If you’re in the mood for a filthy, silly, nasty old ’80s B-movie, this is always a great option packed with hilarity and thrills. There’s also something special about the low-budget way it was shot and its sleazy tone that amplifies the grimy, dangerous feel of old New York.
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
The good thing about Belial the basket monster, Ghostface from Scream or Jason Voorhees is that they’re all fictional. Sadly, despite his physical resemblance to both Belial and the unmasked Voorhees, Donald Trump is a non-fictional movie villain. It’s a good thing he only fouls up this otherwise delightful sequel for just a few minutes. It’s an unseemly interruption in what is otherwise a heartwarming family comedy about Kevin repeatedly hurling bricks into the faces of two nasty crims and otherwise causing them grievous bodily harm.
We also see him visit many of The City’s famous locations including the World Trade Centre, Times Square, Central Park, the Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall and Wollman Rink. What a town!
