After Hours (1985)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
All the anxiety of Koch-era New York is wrapped up in this surreal, screwball and terrifying film about a toothy nobody (Griffin Dunne) who gets stuck in SoHo, broke, hunted by an angry mob and surrounded by bad luck, suicide, lunatics and awful coincidences. Pitching Downtown as a psychic prison—an inescapable, ouroboric maze—this nightmare of eternal return propels through interweaving adventures in artists’ lofts, diners, dive bars, subway stations, punk clubs and the apartments of bartenders, waitresses and johns. It’s a last look at crazy old New York, before the early-morning streets got so crowded cabbies couldn’t even drive down them like maniacs anymore. Henry Stewart (May 15, 16, midnight at IFC Center’s “Staff Picks”)