As is true in general, which is to say of many aspects of New York — the arts, music, culture, entertainment, cuisine, etc. — no American city can match New York for film.

There is still one great bookstore left, the Strand, and we have, fortunately, very fortunately, Film Forum, which began in 1970 as a nonprofit showing independent films, with, as their website puts it, “50 folding chairs, one projector and a $19,000 annual budget”

I started going there in the early or mid 1970s. It was a screening room in an ordinary building on the Upper West Side,

It has been at its current location on West Houston Street in Greenwich Village since 1990.

I have seen films there that are rarely screened, unavailable for all practical purposes. For example, the films of the great Japanese director/screenwriter Yasujirō Ozu; the documentary film Meeting Gorbachev, (2018), directed by Werner Herzog; Under The Sun, (2015), a documentary about North Korea directed by Vitaly Mansky. which I saw five times; and an unforgettable silent film, The Scarlet Letter (1920), directed by Victor Sjöström and starring Lillian Gish and Lars Hanson.

— posted by Roger W. Smith

   December 2025

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See  also  my posts:

on aesthetic and cultural appreciation of literature and film; my favorite directors

on aesthetic and cultural appreciation of literature and film; my favorite directors (小津安二郎は日本の映画監督・脚本家)

re Under the Sun (a film about North Korea)

re “Under the Sun” (a film about North Korea)