"New York, New York, a helluva town," as the song says and even if you've never set foot in it, you know it because you just can't escape it on screen.
Over the history of film and TV, America's most diverse and well-known city has become as much a character in the medium's history as any of the well-known ones we've seen stalking, singing, crying or laughing on its well-pounded pavements.
If you've traipsed the streets of the city you'll know how hard it is not to stop every few blocks and come face to face with something you've seen on screen. So in tribute to the city that's forever alive and awake and filled with possibilities, here are a few of our favourite on-screen versions and visions of life in the city both then and now:
TAXI DRIVER (1976)
You can't talk about New York on screen without talking about Martin Scorsese, who over his four-decade career has explored many of the city's eras and neighbourhoods to scintillating cinematic effect.
The most devastating and difficult depiction of the director's city is the one here, the rundown, dangerous, drug-infested, sleaze-filled '70s New York as seen through the eyes of its troubled protagonist Travis Bickle.
It's a New York that no longer exists in reality but has raised its head again thanks to the recent success of David Simon's The Deuce, set in the world of porn and prostitution in the Times Square district of the '70s.
WATCH | The trailer for Taxi Driver
THE SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957)
Alexander Mackendrick's dark, bitter film noir shot in brilliant black and white by legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe is a cynical, fast-talking vision of New York sleepless nights.
Starring Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster, it's the story of the nightclubs of Broadway and Midtown Manhattan and the forgotten era of press agents and gossip columnists brought to life by whip-smart dialogue care of playwright Clifford Odets and a bebop jazz score by Elmer Bernstein.
It still stands up over 60 years later as one of the most memorable depictions of the ruthless underbelly of the city.
WATCH | The trailer for The Sweet Smell of Success
MANHATTAN (1979)
Woody Allen's love letter to the Upper East Side set to the soaring sounds of George Gershwin and also shot in black and white is still one of the most beautiful and iconic of New York films.
Its love story is bittersweet and there are issues that cloud Allen's work today but as a film which makes a city a visible, breathing character it's still hard to beat.
WATCH | The trailer for Manhattan
WHEN HARRY MET SALLY (1989)
Rob Reiner's classic romantic comedy is a pleasant, heart-warming tale of love in middle-class Manhattan that's full of iconic images from the Rockefeller centre in the snow to Central Park in spring. It gives you the kind of happy feeling that only the Big Apple really can when it's at its best.
Nora Ephron's witty script and the too-cute-to-hate chemistry between Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan find their perfect visual match in the city.
WATCH | The trailer for When Harry Met Sally
DO THE RIGHT THING (1989)
Brooklyn's finest, Spike Lee's most consummately realised film is set in his home neighbourhood of Bedford Stuyvesant on the hottest day of the year. With its vivid colours and unforgettable characters it's a powerful political film with a tender love for its setting and the inhabitants at its centre.
It also accomplishes the seemingly impossible feat of making you feel the heat of a blistering high summer day as temperatures and racial tensions rise to boiling point.
WATCH | The trailer for Do the Right Thing
