Times Square

Times Square is the major commercial and entertainment district around the junction of Broadway, Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York. The area is known for its theatre marquees, giant video screens, neon signs, traffic, crowds, costumed street performers and New Year’s Eve celebrations. Once closely associated with Broadway glamour, adult cinemas, crime and urban decline, Times Square was heavily redeveloped from the 1990s onward and is now one of the most visited public spaces in New York. On screen, the location has been used both as a symbol of the city’s energy and as a way to show loneliness, spectacle, danger, fantasy or complete urban emptiness.

Times Square has appeared in many films and TV productions, but only some use it as a real scene location rather than a quick establishing shot. Productions with notable Times Square scenes include Midnight Cowboy (1969), Taxi Driver (1976), *batteries not included (1987), Crocodile Dundee (1986), Big (1988), Vanilla Sky (2001), I Am Legend (2007), Enchanted (2007), Friends with Benefits (2011), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), New Year’s Eve (2011), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Mr. Robot (2015–2019), The Deuce (2017–2019) and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019). These productions use the square in different ways: as a place of arrival, alienation, tourism, romance, fantasy, superhero spectacle, public performance, urban emptiness or social collapse.

In Midnight Cowboy (1969), Times Square is part of the film’s bleak New York landscape. Joe Buck arrives in the city believing he can reinvent himself, but the streets around Times Square expose him to a much harsher reality. The area’s adult cinemas, cheap hotels, signs and crowded pavements become part of the film’s portrait of loneliness, poverty and exploitation in late-1960s Manhattan. Times Square is not used as a glamorous landmark here, but as a worn-down urban environment where Joe’s fantasy of New York quickly begins to collapse.

In Taxi Driver (1976), Times Square is central to Travis Bickle’s night-time New York. Travis drives through the area repeatedly in his cab, passing adult theatres, street life, neon signs and crowds as he becomes increasingly isolated and unstable. The Times Square scenes are important because they show the version of New York that Travis obsesses over: dirty, restless, overlit and morally threatening in his own mind. The location becomes part of the film’s psychological landscape, not just a background for the taxi routes.

In Crocodile Dundee (1986), Times Square appears during Mick Dundee’s first experience of New York. Sue Charlton takes him through the city, and the Times Square material includes the scene where he samples a New York hot dog from a street vendor. The location is used as part of Mick’s introduction to Manhattan, contrasting his outback confidence with the speed, crowds and street culture of the city.

*batteries not included (1987) uses Times Square in the film’s final act, when the small alien machines are separated from their children. After the tenants search through Manhattan, the adult Fix-Its are drawn to Times Square by the sound of a dog whistle. High above the lights and signs of the square, the missing baby machines are found near one of the illuminated advertising signs, turning one of New York’s busiest public spaces into the setting for the film’s emotional reunion. The scene brings the story out from the threatened East Village apartment building and into the larger city, before the alien family is reunited and flies away together.

In Big (1988), the St. James Hotel near Times Square is used when the adult Josh Baskin needs somewhere to stay after arriving in New York. The area around Times Square gives the scene a slightly seedy, overwhelming quality, especially because Josh is still a child inside an adult body and is frightened by the city around him. The hotel itself is a more specific location, but the Times Square setting is important to the way the film presents Josh’s first night alone in Manhattan.

In Vanilla Sky (2001), Times Square is used in one of the film’s most famous scenes. David Aames finds himself completely alone in the middle of an empty Times Square, with no crowds, traffic or city noise around him. The scene was filmed by closing parts of the real Times Square early on a Sunday morning, rather than creating the emptiness entirely with visual effects. The result is one of the most unusual uses of the location in modern film, turning one of New York’s busiest public spaces into a deserted dream image.

In I Am Legend (2007), Times Square appears in the post-apocalyptic New York scenes with Robert Neville. The area is shown empty, overgrown and without the crowds, traffic and advertising activity normally associated with it. Neville drives through the deserted city with his dog Sam while hunting deer, turning one of the busiest places in New York into a silent survival landscape. The Times Square material is part of the film’s wider transformation of Manhattan into an abandoned urban wilderness, where familiar landmarks are stripped of their normal life and made part of Neville’s daily routine.

In Enchanted (2007), Times Square is used as the arrival point between the animated fairy-tale world and real New York. Giselle emerges from a manhole into the middle of Times Square after being sent out of Andalasia, suddenly surrounded by crowds, traffic, signs and confusion. Later, other characters from the fairy-tale world also arrive there. The location works as a collision point between fantasy and modern Manhattan, with the brightness and chaos of Times Square replacing the visual order of the animated kingdom.

In Friends with Benefits (2011), Times Square is used for the flash-mob scene where Jamie tries to convince Dylan to take a job in New York. The scene turns the square into a public performance space, with dancers moving through the crowds and the large screens and open plaza giving the moment a staged but recognisably New York setting. The location is used directly as part of Jamie’s attempt to sell Dylan on the energy of the city.

In Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Times Square appears at the end of the film when Steve Rogers wakes up in the present day. After escaping the fake 1940s hospital room, Steve runs out into modern New York and emerges into Times Square, overwhelmed by the lights, screens, traffic and crowds. Nick Fury then tells him that he has been asleep for nearly seventy years. The scene uses Times Square as the clearest possible contrast between the world Steve left behind and the modern world he has entered.

In New Year’s Eve (2011), Times Square is central to the film’s structure. The film follows several interconnected stories on 31 December, all moving toward the midnight ball drop. The square is used as both a real public celebration space and a symbolic meeting point for the characters’ hopes, regrets and romantic resolutions. The countdown, crowds, stage, police barriers and illuminated buildings are all part of the film’s New York holiday setting.

In The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), Times Square is used for the major confrontation between Spider-Man and Electro. Max Dillon’s transformation into Electro becomes public when he appears in the square, surrounded by police, tourists, giant screens and bright signs. Spider-Man tries to calm him down, but the scene turns into a large action sequence as Electro’s powers overload the area. Some footage was filmed in the real Times Square, while much of the full battle was created on a large Times Square replica built at Gold Coast Studios on Long Island. The scene remains one of the clearest examples of Times Square being used as a superhero battleground.

In Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), Times Square appears when Riggan Thomson is locked out of the theatre in his underwear and has to walk through the crowded square to get back inside. The scene uses the public chaos of Times Square directly, with Riggan forced into an embarrassing walk through tourists, cameras and street noise. The location becomes part of the film’s theatre-world pressure, turning a private backstage disaster into a public humiliation.

In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014), Times Square appears during the film’s New York action. The location is used as part of the Turtles’ movement through the city, connecting the characters to one of Manhattan’s most recognisable urban spaces. The bright signs, crowds and street-level geography give the sequence a clear New York identity within the film’s larger comic-book version of the city.

In Mr. Robot (2015), Times Square appears in the season 1 finale, “eps1.9_zer0-day.avi”. After the Five/Nine hack, Elliot moves through a changed New York while the financial system is in chaos. Times Square is used during the aftermath of the attack, with public screens, empty-looking space and the surrounding city environment helping show the scale of what fsociety has done. The production could not fully shut down Times Square, so the scenes were filmed late at night around the July 4 weekend to capture the area at its quietest, with additional set work used for parts of the sequence. The result gives the normally crowded square an unusually unsettling atmosphere, fitting Elliot’s confusion and the collapse of the world around him.

In The Deuce (2017–2019), Times Square is one of the central locations of the series. The show is built around the sex industry, crime, bars, cinemas, police work and street life in and around Times Square during the 1970s and early 1980s. Because the modern square no longer looks like that period, the production recreated much of the old Times Square atmosphere elsewhere in New York, using sets, altered storefronts and period dressing. The series is still one of the most important screen portrayals of Times Square because the area is not just a backdrop; it is the subject of the story.

In John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019), Times Square appears during John Wick’s escape through New York after being declared excommunicado. The bright screens, rain-slicked streets and crowds place him inside one of the city’s busiest public spaces while he is being hunted. The location creates a contrast between the ordinary movement of tourists and pedestrians and the hidden assassin world closing in around him.

Batteries Not Included (1987)

Mr. Robot (2025)

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