Manhattan

Why it's a great Manhattan movie: Woody Allen's classic love letter to New York City combines the lush black-and-white cinematography of Gordon Willis with the music of Gershwin to create a vision of the Big Apple that still makes any New Yorker a little weepy-eyed.

Trivia: Allen has required all rebroadcasts of Manhattan, both on TV and video, to preserve the proper 2:35:1 widescreen aspect ratio. Pan-and-scanned or full frame versions of the movie do not exist.

Quote: New York was his town, and it always would be...

Taxi Driver

Why it's a great Manhattan movie: Not for the faint of heart, Taxi Driver portrays a decadent, hopeless city rife with drugs and prostitution. Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) is a Vietnam vet who simply can't take it all anymore, ultimately opting to take a vigilante approach to cleaning up the town.

Trivia: The classic "Are you talking to me" mirror scene was actually an improv by DeNiro. Scorsese's script only indicated that Bickle "looks in the mirror."

Quote: Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.

Ghostbusters

Why it's a great Manhattan movie: Forever cemented into the pop culture stratosphere, it's hard to ever look at the New York Public Library or Central Park's Tavern on the Green quite the same way ever again.

Trivia: The Ghostbuster roles were initially planned for John Belushi, Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd with John Candy portraying the role Rick Moranis made famous as Louis.

Quote:We've been going about this all wrong, this Mr. Stay Puft's okay, he's a sailor, he's in New York, we get this guy laid we won't have any trouble.

Midnight Cowboy

Why it's a great Manhattan movie: Like Taxi Driver, Midnight Cowboy showcases a dimmer vision of New York. On the other hand, it's a story about the loving friendship that builds from two lonely souls in the big city shunned by the fast-paced lifestyle.

Trivia: Despite an initial rating of "X" commonly associated with pornographic content at the time, Midnight Cowboy took home Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay.

Quote: I like the way I look. Makes me feel good, it does. And women like me, goddammit. Hell, the only one thing I ever been good for is lovin'. Women go crazy for me, that's a really true fact!

When Harry Met Sally

Why it's a great Manhattan movie: Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) and Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) show off the beauty of Manhattan while proving once and for all that men and women cannot be friends.

Trivia: Harry's character is based on director Rob Reiner; Sally is based on writer Nora Ephron.

Quote: I'll have what she's having.

Working Girl

Why it's a great Staten Island movie: A working class Staten Island girl (Melanie Griffith) with a big accent and even bigger bangs gets her shot at big business when her boss (Sigourney Weaver) steals her idea and she takes her shot to steal it back. Plus, the romance with Harrison Ford is h-o-t.

Trivia: David Duchovny had his film debut in Working Girl, as one of the guests hiding in the bathroom at Tess's birthday party.

Quote: I have a head for business and a bod for sin.

The Godfather

Why it's a great Staten Island movie: Staten Island has long received short shrift compared to its more cinematic neighbors across the bay, but "the forgotten borough" can lay claim to one of the greatest movies ever made. Much of Francis Ford Coppola's mafia masterpiece was shot in Staten Island.

Trivia: Paramount, the studio that bankrolled The Godfather, had initially wanted James Caan, at the time a more recognizable star than Al Pacino, to play Michael Corleone.

Quote: Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.

A Bronx Tale

Why it's a great Bronx movie: Well, aside from being called A Bronx Tale, this directorial debut of Robert DeNiro tells a moving coming-of-age story about a young man growing up during the 60's mafia heyday in the Bronx. A classic tale of good versus evil, young Anello must decide between the allure of mob power and the hard-working, honest life his father has fought for.

Trivia: The majority of the movie was filmed in Brooklyn and Queens.

Quote: The saddest thing in life is wasted talent, and the choices that you make will shape your life forever. But you can ask anybody from my neighborhood, and they'll just tell you this is just another Bronx tale.

Raging Bull

Why it's a great Bronx movie: One of the great biopics of all time about one of the town's greatest sports heroes, the "Bronx Bull," Jake LaMotta.

Trivia: The idea of making LaMotta's autobiography into a movie actually came from DeNiro. He read the book during the filming of The Godfather II and spent four years convincing Scorsese to make it into a movie.

Quote: I'm gonna open his hole like this. Please excuse my French. I'm gonna make him suffer. I'm gonna make his mother wish she never had him -- make him into dog meat... He's a nice, a nice kid. He's a pretty kid, too. I mean I don't know, I gotta problem if I should f*** him or fight him.

Do the Right Thing

Why it's a great Brooklyn movie: This urban drama about racial tensions during a hot summer day in put writer/director Spike Lee -- and Bed-Stuy -- on the map.

Trivia: Do the Right Thing was Martin Lawrence's feature film debut.

Quote: Today's temperature's gonna rise up over 100 degrees, so there's a Jheri curl alert.

Saturday Night Fever

Why it's a great Brooklyn movie: In addition to helping launch the disco craze, Saturday Night Fever introduced mainstream America to a young John Travolta, whose brash, swaggering Tony Manero epitomized the hopes and aspirations of thousands of Brooklyn teenagers (well, at least the Italian ones).

Trivia: Saturday Night Fever's soundtrack is the second most popular movie soundtrack of all time, selling over 15 million copies to date. (Number one: The Bodyguard.)

Quote: There's ways of killing yourself without killing yourself.

GoodFellas

Why it's a great Bronx movie: The quintessential tale of the Brooklyn mafia, GoodFellas tracks Henry Hill's journey from a neighborhood kid in the '50s on through his rise within the family and his ultimate '70s courtroom outing of family patriarch Paul Cicero and notorious right-hand man Jimmy Conway.

Trivia: Henry Hill was kicked out of the witness protection program after the movie's premiere because he started telling people who he really was.

Quote: We ran everything. We paid off cops, we paid off lawyers, we paid off judges... Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it's all over and that's the hardest part. Today everything is different. There's no action. I have to wait around like everyone else...I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.

Coming to America

Why it's a great Queens movie: John Landis's comedic fairy tale of an African prince who ventures to Queens to find a wife serves as a poignant reminder that Arsenio Hall was, for a brief time, actually quite funny.

Trivia: Hall and star Eddie Murphy each played four different speaking roles in the film.

Quote: The land is so big, the choices so infinite. Where shall we go, L.A. or New York?

Spider-Man

Why it's a great Queens movie: Not all superheroes hail from fictional locales like Gotham City and Metropolis. Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man (aka Peter Parker) was born and raised in Queens (though he suspiciously lacks any trace of a bridge-and-tunnel accent).

Trivia: Queens' venerable Shea Stadium, home to the New York Mets, played host to the make-believe nuptials of Spider-Man and sweetheart Mary Jane in 1987.

Quote: You have a knack for saving my life. I think I have a superhero stalker.

Garden State

Why it's a great New Jersey movie: A New Jersey native (Zach Braff) comes home for his mother's funeral and falls in love with an irresistible offbeat girl (Natalie Portman) he meets at the neurologist's office. Kind of like the Jersey version of Reality Bites for the millennium.

Trivia: The helmet that Natalie Portman's character wears is actually a rugby scrum cap.

Quote: So uh, I gotta go bury this hamster before the dogs eat him... You wanna help?

Clerks

Why it's a great New Jersey movie: This sardonic tale of a pair of foul-mouthed convenience store flunkies and their slacker pals not only launched the filmmaking career of Red Bank, New Jersey native Kevin Smith, it helped usher in an independent film renaissance.

Trivia: Smith initially intended for his main character, Dante, to die at the hands of a burglar during Clerks' final scene.

Quote: You ever notice how all the prices end in nine? Damn, that's eerie.