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The Arts Intel Report

Criterion Channel New York Love Stories

Peter Riegert and Amy Irving in Crossing Delancey (1988).

Carrie Bradshaw once reflected, “If Louis was right, and you only get one great love, New York may just be mine.” In time for Valentine’s Day, the Criterion Channel is highlighting New York’s greatest cinematic romances. Among them are Hollywood hits such as Annie Hall (1977)—Woody Allen and Diane Keaton as a Brooklyn Jew and a Wisconsin WASP— and Falling in Love (1984), starring Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro as commuters who meet on the Metro-North Hudson line. Equally glowing is the downtown gem Crossing Delancey (1988), in which the lovely, literary Amy Irving refuses to fall for the mensch played by Peter Riegert, a Lower East Side pickle merchant recommended by her Orthodox bubbe. —Paulina Prosnitz

Photo courtesy of the Criterion Channel