New Yorker Films was an

independent film An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is film production, produced outside the Major film studios, major film studio system in addition to being produced and distributed by independ ...

distribution company founded by Daniel Talbot in 1965. It started as an extension of his

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

movie house, the New Yorker Theater, founded in 1960, after a film's producer would not allow for a movie's single booking. It went out of business in 2009 and was revived the next year with its acquisition by Aladdin Distribution, though it is no longer active as of 2024.

Background

Through New Yorker Films, Talbot aimed to import

foreign film World cinema is a term in film theory in the United States that refers to films made outside of the Cinema of the United States, American motion picture industry, particularly those in opposition to the aesthetics and values of commercial Ame ...

s that were not otherwise available in the US market. His first acquisition for distribution was the

Bernardo Bertolucci Bernardo Bertolucci ( ; ; 16 March 1941 – 26 November 2018) was an Italian film director and screenwriter with a career that spanned 50 years. Considered one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema, Bertolucci's work achieved inte ...

debut film '' Before the Revolution'' (1964). Other early acquisitions, such as

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French and Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as ...

's '' Les Carabiniers'' (1963) and

Ousmane Sembène Ousmane Sembène (; 1 January 1923 or 8 January 1923 – 9 June 2007), was a Senegalese film director, producer and writer. The ''Los Angeles Times'' considered him one of the greatest authors of Africa and he has often been called the "father o ...

's '' Black Girl'' (1966), helped establish New Yorker Films as a presenter of innovative, artistically significant, and politically engaged films from around the world.

Titles introduced

Woody Boy press promo photo by Nancy Wong

New Yorker Films helped gain an audience for controversial and challenging works avoided by other distributors in the United States. Some of these included

Jacques Rivette Jacques Rivette (; 1 March 1928 – 29 January 2016) was a French film director and film critic most commonly associated with the French New Wave and the film magazine '' Cahiers du Cinéma''. He made twenty-nine films, including '' L'Amour fo ...

's '' Celine and Julie Go Boating'';

Wayne Wang Wayne Wang (; born January 12, 1949) is a Hong Kong-American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Considered a pioneer of Asian-American cinema, he was one of the first Chinese-American filmmakers to gain a major foothold in Hollyw ...

's '' Chan Is Missing'';

Chantal Akerman Chantal Anne Akerman (; 6 June 19505 October 2015) was a Belgian film director, screenwriter, artist, and film professor at the City College of New York. Akerman is best known for her films (1974), (1975), and '' News from Home'' (1976). The ...

's ''

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles ''Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles'' (, "Jeanne Dielman, 23 Commerce Quay, 1080 Brussels") is a 1975 film written and directed by Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. It was filmed over five weeks on location in Brussels, and f ...

'';

Claude Lanzmann Claude Lanzmann (; 27 November 1925 – 5 July 2018) was a French filmmaker, best known for the Holocaust documentary film ''Shoah'' (1985), which consists of nine and a half hours of oral testimony from Holocaust survivors, without historical f ...

documentary A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

Shoah The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

'';

Emir Kusturica Emir Kusturica ( sr-cyrl, Емир Кустурица, ; born 24 November 1954) is a Serbian film director, screenwriter, actor, film producer and musician. Kusturica has been an active filmmaker since the 1980s. He has competed at the Cannes ...

's '' Underground''; the Merchant-Ivory

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television show, television and feature film, film, which features Drama (film and television), dramatized Historical reenactment, re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of docu ...

'' The Courtesans of Bombay'';

Rainer Werner Fassbinder Rainer Werner Fassbinder (; 31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982), sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder, was a German filmmaker, dramatist and actor. He is widely regarded as one of the major figures and catalysts of the New German Cinema moveme ...

's '' The Marriage of Maria Braun'';

Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; né Stipetić; born 5 September 1942) is a German filmmaker, actor, opera director, and author. Regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema, his films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unusu ...

's '' Aguirre, the Wrath of God''; and Jean Eustache's '' The Mother and the Whore''.

Trends introduced

New Yorker Films considered itself the primary force in introducing the United States to

New German Cinema New German Cinema () is a period in Cinema of Germany, West German cinema which lasted from 1962 to 1982, in which a new generation of directors emerged who, working with low budgets, and influenced by the French New Wave and Italian Neorealism, ...

, the politically embattled Latin American cinema, and the

postcolonial Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic consequences of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and extractivism, exploitation of colonized pe ...

African cinema Cinema of Africa covers both the History of film, history and present of the Filmmaking, making or screening of films on the African continent, and also refers to the persons involved in this form of audiovisual culture. It dates back to the ear ...

. It discovered the early breakthrough works of such now-celebrated

filmmakers Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screenwritin ...

Agnieszka Holland Agnieszka Holland (; born 28 November 1948) is a Polish film and television director and screenwriter, best known for her cultural and political contributions to Polish cinema. She began her career as an assistant to directors Krzysztof Zanuss ...

Juzo Itami , born , was a Japanese actor, screenwriter and film director. He directed eleven films (one short and ten features), all of which he wrote himself. He is the namesake of the Juzo Itami Award, founded in 2009 to honor his legacy. Early life ...

Errol Morris Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of their subjects, and the invention of the Interrotron. In 2003, his '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Li ...

, and

Zhang Yimou Zhang Yimou (; born 14 November 1950) is a Chinese filmmaker.Tasker, Yvonne (2002). "Zhang Yimou" i''Fifty Contemporary Filmmakers'' Routledge Publishing, p. 412. . Google Book Search. Retrieved 21 August 2008. A leading figure of China's Cinem ...

. Later it explored new frontiers in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

ian, Asian, and Eastern European cinema.

Non-theatrical market

New Yorker Films also serviced the non-theatrical market, catering to the specialized needs of

film society A film society is a membership-based Club (organization), club where people can watch Public and private screening, screenings of films which would otherwise not be shown in mainstream Movie theater, cinemas. In Spain, Ireland and Italy, they are kn ...

and classroom venues not generally served by larger film providers. Th
New Yorker Films
library includes titles from leading independent and

distributors such as

Sony Pictures Classics Sony Pictures Classics Inc. is an American arthouse film production and distribution company that is a division of Sony Pictures Entertainment. It was founded in 1992 by former Orion Classics heads Michael Barker, Tom Bernard and Marcie Bloo ...

, First Look, and

Lions Gate Entertainment Starz Entertainment Corp, formerly known officially as Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation and commonly as Lions Gate and/or Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment industry, entertainment company currently headquartered in Santa Monica ...

Ownership by Madstone Films and Aladdin Distribution LLC

In 2002, New Yorker Films was acquired by Madstone Films. On February 23, 2009, New Yorker Films posted a notice on its Web site announcing it had gone out of business. An e-mail from company vice president José Lopez, published on the IndieWire news site, confirmed that the company's demise was the result of its parent company's defaulting on a loan. In February 2010, a year after it ceased operations, it was announced that Aladdin Distribution LLC, headed by Christopher Harbonville and David Raphel, had acquired the company and its library. Former vice president José Lopez was named president, and New Yorker Films officially restarted operations on March 8, 2010. Since the revival, its acquisitions have included ''My Dog Tulip'', ''Octubre'', ''Turn Me On, Dammit!'', and the re-release of Jacques Rivette's classic ''Celine and Julie Go Boating''.

End of the company

As of February 2018, the official company website NewYorkerFilms.com only has a placeholder image, and many of its DVDs have been out of print for at least a year.

References

External links

Official New Yorker Films websiteNew Yorker Films at the Internet Movie Database
{{Authority control Film distributors of the United States Entertainment companies established in 1965