Color, 1977, 163 mins. 10 secs. / 137 mins. 16 secs.
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring Liza Minnelli, Robert De Niro, Barry Primus, Lionel Stander, Mary Kay Place
MVD (UHD) (US R0 4K), Imprint (Blu-ray) (Australia RA HD), MGM (Blu-ray & DVD) (International RA/B HD/NTSC/PAL) / WS (1.66:1) (16:9)

It's hard to imagine Martin Scorsese coming up with a more controversial film than Taxi Driver in the immediate wake of that era-defining urban nightmare masterpiece, but somehow he came very close to doing just that with this splashy, very divisive homage to and acidic deconstruction of classic MGM musicals. Drawing its extravagant aesthetic from Powell and Pressburger, Vincente Minnelli, Mario Bava, and Busby Berekely among others, this emotionally violent anti-love story was a tough sell in 1977, especially when it was one of many movies completely steamrolled by the success of Star Wars. Depressed by this costly film's commercial failure and grappling with his own personal demons, Scorsese didn't make another narrative film after this until 1980's Raging Bull; however, it did find a belated cult following and its fair share of critical respect once home video made it easier to see in its complete form. On top of that, several films have openly paid tribute to this including La La Land, whose entire resolution is essentially an L.A. tweak to the one found here.

During the celebrations at the end of World War II, sax player Jimmy Doyle (De Niro) aggressively pursues and eventually wins over aspiring young singer Francie Evans (Minnelli), leading to an unplanned gig as a musical duo and eventually marriage. Their dysfunctional relationship goes through numerous ups and downs including going on the road with an orchestra, having a baby, volatile fights between themselves and with others, and separate ascensions in the music and film industries.

Anyone who walked into this expecting a feel-good musical romance got a cold splash of water in the face very quickly, with the largely improvised dialogue and wildly dysfunctional two main characters making this a far cry from Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire. The tension between the New Hollywood approach and more traditional performance found in the two lead actors gives the film a nervous energy that can take some getting used to, making this feel like a two-hander even with familiar faces like Lionel Stander, Dick Miller, Mary Kay Place, Clarence Clemons, and George Memmoli drifting in and out of the story.

Scorsese unleashes a level of colorful flamboyance he wouldn't outdo until his '90s hyper-stylish trilogy of Cape Fear, The Age of Innocence, and Casino. Of course, much of the film's eventual recognition is due to the classic song "Theme from New York, New York" by John Kander and Fred Ebb which inexplicably didn't even earn an Oscar nomination (the same year "You Light Up My Life" won). Thanks to Frank Sinatra's massively popular cover of it in 1980, the song has since become a popular standard (including serving as the climax for Gremlins 2: The New Batch) and is performed here during the finale by Minnelli in one of the most memorable sequences.

Released in at least three distinctly difference cuts over the years, New York, New York initially lost most or the entirety of a long, splashy movie-within-a-movie sequence called Happy Endings with Francine as an usherette whose rise to fame is a starry-eyed counterpoint to what we've been watching for the past two hours. The shortest cut released in Europe at 137 minutes made the most drastic edits including a pivotal (and amazing looking) nightclub sequence, while the full uncut version was reassembled in 1981 and eventually released as a two-VHS edition that was, along with Manhattan, one of the rare cases of a filmmaker getting his way for a letterboxed-only option around that time. Since this film was shot at a tight 1.66:1, the black bars were so minimal most consumers probably didn't even notice; however, it's crucial for the composition of several scenes including a pivotal split diopter shot in the final sequence.

The same transfer was also issued in a double-laserdisc edition and eventually made its way to DVD in 2005 with a lavish MGM special edition outfitting it with numerous substantial extras. Among the bonuses are a 5m36s Scorsese intro, a candid and often perceptive audio commentary with the director and critic Carrie Rickey covering his personal struggles and influences on the film, a two-part "The New York, New York Stories" making-of (25m31s and 26m58s) with Scorsese, producers Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, and cinematographer László Kovács, a video interview with Minnelli (22m9s), a 32-image storyboard gallery, a 19m14s batch of alternate and deleted scenes highlighting the improvised process, a 10m14s selected scene commentary by Kovács, and a teaser and trailer.

In 2025, Imprint released a three-disc hardbox Blu-ray limited edition in Australia featuring all of the preexisting extras plus several new bonuses as well. The usual extended cut is presented on disc one with DTS-HD MA 5.1 and 2.0 stereo English options with SDH subtitles, plus the Scorsese commentary and a new solo on by Daniel Kremer who does a thorough job of dissecting the film's visual language and its themes involving relationships and performance. Disc two features the abridged European cut (a disc debut at the time), while disc three has all the video extras from before along with two new featurettes: "Player Piano Player" (24m15s) with Primus recalling his connection to a drowning Scorsese via Brian DePalma and his experiences on the set reuniting with De Niro after Bloody Mama (plus a bonus 3m27s segment about music supervisor-conductor Ralph Burns), and a Kremer visual essay, "Momentary Departures: Movie Ballets, Musical Showstoppers and Detours" (14m51s), about the role of elaborate, stylized song-and-dance standalone scenes like "Happy Endings" in the movie musical. Also added here are an archival TV interview with Scorsese (5m11s) about De Niro's comic skills, a pre-title card sequence (2m7s) from the letterboxed VHS with more Kremer commentary, and an alternate workprint ending (1m29s) that goes in a far more traditional direction.

In 2026, MVD premiered the film on UHD as part of its Marquee Collection as a two-disc set also including a Blu-ray featuring the shorter international cut, with the main extended version on the UHD (both have DTS-HD 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 stereo options with SDH subs). The UHD gets a nice boost both in the detail department and the color grading with the HDR helping a lot during those blazing red sequences, which now have a lot more nuance with a more pure scarlet look instead of an orange cast. The Scorsese commentary is included here as usual on the UHD, while the Blu-ray has all of the prior MGM extras including the Scorsese intro, Minnelli interview, two-part making-of, deleted and alternate scenes, trailers, storyboards, and Kovács selected commentary.

MVD (UHD)

Imprint (Blu-ray)

Reviewed on October 20, 2026