Popular reviews

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  Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★★ 18

  "I thought people like me were the legal system."

  One of the seminal films of the 1990's...almost perfect as a stylistic exercise yet concurrently filled with such political commitment that it's simply overwhelming. Everything Ferrara hates is in this movie, including it's form which he criticizes in the commentary. "This is so uptight I can't even breathe. I'm glad I made this film because I would never make a film like this again. This is fascistic filmmaking." He's partially right, the film is incredibly tight, so tight that nearly every shot, every cut, every object has a specific purpose and function. It's some of the most "perfect" mis-en-scene I've ever witnessed, even down to the sheen on the wineglasses near…

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★★½ 3

  Never sacrifices thrills or atmosphere or style, never skips one opportunity for digression, never misses any chance to shock, doesn't sell short a single member of its incredibly stacked cast of future stars -- not to mention Walken's absolutely towering performance -- and still has time for a stinging critique of white capital's exploitation of black labor. It's weird that I don't watch this like four times a year.

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  Review by Karsten ★★★★

  maybe christopher walken is the best actor of all time

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  Review by Will Menaker ★★★★★ 3

  You guys got fat while everybody on the street shhhtarved!

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★★ 4

  A cops vs. gangsters movie with a deceptively complicated moral lens about systems of ostensible righteousness connected to systems of violent force. The contradiction of philanthropy built on exploitation; the redistribution of blood money. Probably Walken's finest performance (particularly his sudden transitions from charm to dead-eyed wielding of power) and Ferrara's fullest stylistic expression of his brute nihilism. "Build a brand new day, dream on."

  Full discussion on ep 185 of my podcast SLEAZOIDS.

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 7

  90

  This movie seems to exist in those precious minutes right before the sun rises at dawn. As if the night will never cease, and there is no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel. Such a nocturnal vibe that I adore.

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★★★

  City of the living dead.

  Frank gets out of jail and descends over the city. A new vampire (Ferrara gives the game away by actually score a deal to a screening of Nosferatu), very remote yet emotional, all cool seduction, violence and capital filtered through a good game. Does Frank means anything of what he says? That's the film's mystery and one might add that how new Frank is presented as a philantropist entrepneur is Ferrara's largest provocation. He certainly means it when he describe himself as "not the problem, but a businessman" everything else comes from that. His opposite numbers, uptight Victor Argo, hothead David Caruso have lost long before they started, it is Frank's world after all and…

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  Review by Will Sloan ★★★★★

  There were mass walk-outs during this movie’s world premiere at the New York Film Festival. I guess those people couldn’t handle this much Cinema.

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  Review by Nakul ★★★★ 6

  Name a more badass gangsta scene than the King of New York sequence where Frank White visits the police funeral in a limo, rolls down the window next to Caruso and goes "Hey you".

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  Review by ₳ⱠØⱠ ★★★★★ 11

  Watched with Ferrara's audio commentary. Fuckin hysterical. Had me absolutely howling.

  Highlights include:
  • "How can you be cool if you dont have shades on?"

  • "THIS girl, i almost married her" (shot of theresa randle)

  • "Love of my life" (shot of janet julian)

  • "Look at that chick ... forget it"

  • "Oh mommyyyy" (walken and julian making out on the subway)

  • (Someone asking Ferrara) "Were you in love with ALL OF THEM???"
  (Ferrara) "You're in love with everybody in the movie, ya know? I'm in love with Giancarlo [Esposito]"

  • Laughing hysterically (at steve buscemi not fitting the vibe AT ALL)

  • (any time there's a shot of Walken) "There he goes - look at this…

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  Review by Jake Cole ★★★★★ 2

  Ferrara’s most classically formal masterpiece does just as much to fit into the mainstream as it does to illustrate just how boldly the director diverges from all but the most daring of his ostensible peers. The politics of the film, of a white kingpin bossing around mostly Black and Latino underlings while enjoying entry into the rarefied, extremely white upper crust of society based on a shared exploitation of the lower rungs, are clear without ever being clumsily insisted upon. Numerous scenes show the ways that both Frank’s underlings and even just Black people in the orbit of service work in rich areas always occupy a lower status without Ferrara ever resorting to so much as a pointed insert shot…

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  Review by Matt! ★★★★½ 5

  “I’m not your problem. I’m just a businessman.”

  I’m not a big Abel Ferrara guy. Scratch that, I’m REALLY not a big Abel Ferrara guy. But a spade is a spade, and King of New York is a fucking banger.

  The atmosphere is absolutely killer. Grit. Violence. Elitism vs Streetism. Both cops and criminals alike humanized and demonized for doing the only things they can do. Burning slowly like a candle flickering in the cold night air. Christopher Walken looming over the city (HIS city) from an ivory tower of status yet also descending down into the dark alleyways to silently walk amongst the hungry and the penniless. The system swallows you whole; no one is safe.

  It's more digestible…