Which Is the Better Film: Annie Hall or Manhattan?

The Conversation

Two masterpieces. One impossible choice.

Annie Hall changed the romantic comedy. Manhattan turned New York into one of the most beautiful characters in American cinema. If you could keep only one, which would it be?

Originally published April 2023 Revised for WoodyAllenFilms.org

There are questions Woody Allen fans can happily argue about for hours, and this may be the biggest one: Annie Hall or Manhattan?

They were released only two years apart, they share Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, co-writer Marshall Brickman and cinematographer Gordon Willis, and both are inseparable from New York. Yet they feel remarkably different.

Annie Hall is funny, restless and inventive. It jumps through time, interrupts itself, speaks directly to us and turns the collapse of a relationship into something funny and painful at the same time.

Manhattan is more controlled. It is romantic, melancholy and visually overwhelming, with the city photographed in black and white and George Gershwin's music giving everything an almost dreamlike quality.

Both films deserve their reputations. But they achieve very different things.

1977

Annie Hall

Loose, inventive, funny and emotionally direct.

• Diane Keaton as Annie Hall
• Fragmented, playful storytelling
• Constant formal invention
• A relationship remembered after it has ended

Explore Annie Hall →

1979

Manhattan

Elegant, melancholy and built around an extraordinary vision of New York.

• Gordon Willis's black-and-white photography
• George Gershwin throughout
• A more classical narrative
• One of Allen's strongest endings

Explore Manhattan →

The case for Annie Hall

The film that refuses to behave

What still feels remarkable about Annie Hall is how freely it moves. Allen seems completely uninterested in obeying the normal rules of a romantic comedy.

Alvy Singer talks directly to the audience. Childhood memories are revisited and altered. Characters watch earlier versions of themselves. Animation suddenly appears. Thoughts become visible. A conversation can be interrupted by an argument with a stranger or by a memory from years earlier.

None of this feels like experimentation for its own sake. The form matches the way Alvy remembers the relationship. He isn't giving us an orderly account of what happened. He is going back over moments, trying to understand how something that once made him happy eventually disappeared.

And then there is Diane Keaton.

Annie could easily have existed simply as the object of Alvy's affection, but Keaton gives her a life that extends far beyond him. She changes during the film. Her confidence grows, her ambitions grow and eventually her world becomes larger than the relationship.

That is one reason the ending works so well. There is affection in the memory of the relationship, but no attempt to pretend that it should have lasted forever.

Annie Hall feels like memory: funny, fragmented, affectionate and slightly unreliable.

The case for Manhattan

When the city takes over

Manhattan announces itself differently from the first few minutes. The black-and-white images of New York, accompanied by Gershwin, immediately give the film a scale that Annie Hall never attempts.

Gordon Willis's cinematography is a huge part of that. New York is photographed as something romantic and imposing: bridges, streets, apartments, museums and skylines become part of the emotional life of the characters.

The famous early-morning view towards the Queensboro Bridge has become one of the defining images of the film, but the achievement goes far beyond a handful of beautiful shots. The entire film has a visual confidence that makes New York feel permanent even while the relationships taking place inside it are unstable.

The storytelling is also more restrained. Isaac Davis doesn't jump through his memories or address us directly. The film allows scenes and conversations to unfold within a more traditional structure.

That control gives the emotional shifts greater weight. Isaac spends much of the film convinced that he understands what he wants, only to discover how badly he has misjudged the people around him and, particularly, Tracy.

The final scene is one of the reasons Manhattan stays with me. Allen allows the film to become unexpectedly simple. After all the talking, rationalising and changing of minds, Isaac is finally forced to listen.

Head to head

Where each film wins

Comedy

Annie Hall

Faster, stranger and consistently funnier.

Visuals

Manhattan

Gordon Willis's monochrome New York is difficult to beat.

Performance

Annie Hall

Diane Keaton gives the film its warmth, spontaneity and individuality.

Music

Manhattan

Gershwin and New York become almost impossible to separate.

Structure

Annie Hall

Its fragmented storytelling still feels astonishingly modern.

Ending

Manhattan

Quiet, emotional and one of the strongest endings in Allen's work.

Recognition

The Oscars tell only part of the story

If awards settled the argument, Annie Hall would win easily. It received five Academy Award nominations and won four: Best Picture, Best Director for Woody Allen, Best Original Screenplay for Allen and Marshall Brickman, and Best Actress for Diane Keaton.

Manhattan received two Academy Award nominations, for Mariel Hemingway's supporting performance and for Allen and Brickman's screenplay.

But awards are a poor way of deciding which film means more to you. Manhattan's reputation rests less on trophies than on the experience of watching it: the photography, Gershwin, New York and the melancholy that hangs over the film.

My choice

Manhattan

I admire Annie Hall

But if I could keep only one, it would be Manhattan.

There is something about the combination of Gordon Willis's photography, Gershwin's music and Allen's view of New York that keeps pulling me back. I can admire individual elements of Annie Hall; with Manhattan, I find myself responding to the film as a whole.

It remains my favourite Woody Allen film.

The Conversation

Your turn.

If you could choose only one, which would it be: Annie Hall or Manhattan?

Continue exploring

The films

1977

Annie Hall

Review, cast, music & locations → 1979

Manhattan

Review, cast, music & locations →