The best of the best of the '70s? No contest.

Thanks to Gothamist for alerting readers to Wikipedia's page on films set in New York, and I do not think too many people would challenge Jake Dobkin's insistence that the 1970s were the best decade for NYC films. I mean, of course the movies were great--and Wikipedia even leaves out some true classics like Woody Allen's Interiors and James Toback's Fingers--but more importantly, the '70s made it safe to actually shoot New York. Remember that around the century's midpoint, on-location mind-blowers like The Naked City and Sweet Smell of Success provided rare exceptions to a rule that dictated Gotham be recreated on Hollywood soundstage.

Rosemary's Baby and Midnight Cowboy (and even Scorsese's Who's That Knocking at My Door) presaged a more authentically urbane cinema at the end of the 1960s, and with New York directors like Scorsese, Coppola, Allen and Lumet firing on all cylinders by 1973, the point is probably not that the '70s were the best decade for NYC film; rather, '70s cinema was like a perfect storm of politics, talent and independence that only could have occurred here. The most conspicuous example of this would probably be Coppola eschewing the backlot for Mott Street when shooting the Feast of San Gennaro in The Godfather Part II; he had earned the privilege by beating the odds with The Godfather, a quintessentially New York film that symbolized Hollywood's irrelevance when it decapitated a studio head's racehorse.

Either way, Wikipedia's list would be a fine resource to browse next time you update your Netflix queue--although I admit claiming Michael Mann's L.A. masterpiece Heat for a 23rd or 24th viewing this weekend. Dog Day Afternoon is next weekend, I promise.