New York City 1989 Commercial Releases
(Reconstructed from New York Times archives; I didn't start keeping track week-to-week until 1998. List is probably not definitive—if it got neither an ad nor a review, I won't have caught it—but everything major should be here. Films seen by yours truly are in blue.)
Week of 29 Dec
Music Box (Costa-Gavras)
Week of 22 Dec
Always (Steven Spielberg)Born on the Fourth of July (Oliver Stone)
Camille Claudel (Bruno Nuytten)
The Gang of Four (Jacques Rivette)
Roger & Me (Michael Moore)
Sand and Blood (Jeanne Labrune)
Tango & Cash (Andrei Konchalovsky)
Week of 15 Dec
Blaze (Ron Shelton)City of Pirates (Raúl Ruiz) [1983]
Driving Miss Daisy (Bruce Beresford)
Enemies, a Love Story (Paul Mazursky)
Family Business (Sidney Lumet)
Glory (Edward Zwick)
Three Sad Tigers (Raúl Ruiz) [1968]
We're No Angels (Neil Jordan)
The Wizard (Todd Holland)
Week of 8 Dec
Bloodhounds of Broadway (Howard Brookner)Dance of Hope (Deborah Shaffer)
Fear, Anxiety and Depression (Todd Solondz)
She-Devil (Susan Seidelman)
Triumph of the Spirit (Robert M. Young)
The War of the Roses (Danny DeVito)
Week of 1 Dec
Mapantsula (Oliver Schmitz)National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (Jeremiah S. Chechik)
Upper West Side Stories: Award-Winning Films From Columbia University (various)
Week of 24 Nov
Back to the Future Part II (Robert Zemeckis)
Week of 17 Nov
All Dogs Go to Heaven (Don Bluth)The Everlasting Secret Family (Michael Thornhill)
Harlem Nights (Eddie Murphy)
High Stakes (Amos Kollek)
A Hungarian Fairy Tale (Gyula Gazdag)
The Little Mermaid (John Musker & Ron Clements)
Mystery Train (Jim Jarmusch)
Prancer (John Hancock)
Steel Magnolias (Herbert Ross)
Times to Come (Gustavo Mosquera)
Tora-San Goes to Vienna (Yôji Yamada)
Valmont (Milos Forman)
Week of 10 Nov
Best of the Best (Bob Radler)Communion (Philippe Mora)
Hawks (Robert Ellis Miller)
Henry V (Kenneth Branagh)
My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (Jim Sheridan)
Staying Together (Lee Grant)
The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie (Michael Herz & Lloyd Kaufman)
Week of 3 Nov
An Avenue Called Brazil (Octávio Bezerra)Dealers (Colin Bucksey)
Forced March (Rick King)
Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (Spike Lee) [1983]
Making Do the Right Thing (St. Clair Bourne)
New York Shorts: Five New Films From N.Y.U. (various)
The Phantom of the Opera (Dwight H. Little)
Second Sight (Joel Zwick)
Seduction: The Cruel Woman (Elfi Mikesch & Monika Treut) [1985]
Sidewalk Stories (Charles Lane)
Stepfather II (Jeff Burr)
Week of 27 Oct
Animal Behavior (H. Anne Riley)The Bear (Jean-Jacques Annaud)
Dad (Gary David Goldberg)
Erik the Viking (Terry Jones)
Immediate Family (Jonathan Kaplan)
Shocker (Wes Craven)
Worth Winning (Will Mackenzie)
Week of 20 Oct
Apartment Zero (Martin Donovan)Fat Man and Little Boy (Roland Joffe)
Gross Anatomy (Thom Eberhardt)
The Last Warrior (Martin Wragge)
The Method (Joseph Destein)
Next of Kin (John Irwin)
True Love (Nancy Savoca)
When the Whales Came (Clive Rees)
Week of 13 Oct
Breaking In (Bill Forsyth)Crimes and Misdemeanors (Woody Allen)
The Fabulous Baker Boys (Steve Kloves)
Fight for Us (Lino Brocka)
Halloween 5 (Dominique Othenin-Girard)
Look Who's Talking (Amy Heckerling)
Story of Women (Claude Chabrol)
An Unremarkable Life (Amin Q. Chaudhri)
Week of 6 Oct
Drugstore Cowboy (Gus Van Sant, Jr.)An Innocent Man (Peter Yates)
Old Gringo (Luis Puenzo)
Streetwise (Martin Bell) [1984]
Yaaba (Idrissa Ouedraogo)
Week of 29 Sep
Emma's Shadow (Søren Kragh-Jacobsen)The Girl in a Swing (Gordon Hessler)
Johnny Handsome (Walter Hill)
On the Make (Samuel Hurwitz)
Shell Shock (Yoel Sharon)
Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser (Charlotte Zwerin)
War Party (Franc Roddam)
Welcome Home (Franklin J. Schaffner)
Week of 22 Sep
Black Rain (Ridley Scott)A Dry White Season (Euzhan Palcy)
Heavy Petting (Obie Benz)
Hell High (Douglas Grossman)
Penn & Teller Get Killed (Arthur Penn)
Queen of Hearts (Jon Amiel)
The Time Guardian (Brian Hannant)
Time Trackers (Howard R. Cohen)
Week of 15 Sep
The Big Picture (Christopher Guest)Heaven Becomes Hell (Mickey Nivelli)
High Fidelity: The Adventures of the Guarneri String Quartet (Allan Miller)
Heart of Dixie (Martin Davidson)
In Country (Norman Jewison)
Night Game (Peter Masterson)
Nowhere to Run (Carl Franklin)
Sea of Love (Harold Becker)
The Second Animation Celebration: The Movie (various)
Week of 8 Sep
Kickboxer (Mark DiSalle & David Worth)Spices (Ketan Mehta)
Week of 1 Sep
Relentless (William Lustig)Shirley Valentine (Lewis Gilbert)
Weapons of the Spirit (Pierre Sauvage)
Week of 25 Aug
The Adventures of Milo and Otis (Masanori Hata) [1986]Babar: The Movie (Alan Bunce)
Cannibal Tours (Dennis O'Rourke)
Cookie (Susan Seidelman)
The Little Thief (Claude Miller)
Millennium (Michael Anderson)
The Package (Andrew Davis)
Romero (John Duigan)
Wired (Larry Peerce)
Week of 18 Aug
Casualties of War (Brian DePalma)Cheetah (Jeff Blyth)
A Chorus of Disapproval (Michael Winner)
Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives (Jean-Claude Lord)
La boca del lobo (Francisco J. Lombardi)
Laputa: Castle in the Sky (Hayao Miyazaki) [1986]
Let It Ride (Joe Pytka)
Rude Awakening (Aaron Russo & David Greenwalt)
Uncle Buck (John Hughes)
Week of 11 Aug
The Abyss (James Cameron)Distant Voices, Still Lives (Terence Davies)
Machine Dreams (Peter Krieg)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (Stephen Hopkins)
Week of 4 Aug
Lock Up (John Flynn)Parenthood (Ron Howard)
sex, lies and videotape (Steven Soderbergh)
Young Einstein (Yahoo Serious)
Week of 28 Jul
Friday the 13th Part VIII—Jason Takes Manhattan (Rob Hedden)The Magic Toyshop (David Wheatley)
Tales From the Gimli Hospital (Guy Maddin)
Turner & Hooch (Roger Spottiswoode)
Week of 21 Jul
Eat a Bowl of Tea (Wayne Wang)Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle (Eric Rohmer)
Shag (Zelda Barron)
UHF (Jay Levey)
Valentino Returns (Peter Hoffman)
Week of 14 Jul
Jimi Plays Monterey (D.A. Pennebaker & Chris Hegedus) [1986]Licence to Kill (John Glen)
1789 (Ariane Mnouchkine) [1974]
When Harry Met Sally... (Rob Reiner)
Week of 7 Jul
Haunted Summer (Ivan Passer)Les Misérables (Jean-Paul Le Chanois) [1958]
Lethal Weapon 2 (Richard Donner)
The Music Teacher (Gérard Corbiau)
Weekend at Bernie's (Ted Kotcheff)
Week of 30 Jun
Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee)Funny (Bran Ferren)
Great Balls of Fire! (Jim McBride)
The Karate Kid Part III (John G. Avildsen)
The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (Vincent Ward)
A Sinful Life (William Schreiner)
A Taxing Woman's Return (Juzo Itami)
Toute une nuit (Chantal Akerman) [1982]
Week of 23 Jun
Batman (Tim Burton)Far From Home (Meiert Avis)
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (Joe Johnston)
Kung Fu Master! (Agnès Varda)
Week of 16 Jun
Comic Book Confidential (Ron Mann)Ghostbusters II (Ivan Reitman)
Ice House (Eagle Pennell)
Milk and Honey (Rebecca Yates & Glen Salzman)
Week of 9 Jun
La Bohème (Luigi Comencini)Lady Terminator (Jalil Jackson)
Lords of the Deep (Mary Ann Fisher)
Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (Paul Bartel)
Star Trek V—The Final Frontier (William Shatner)
Week of 2 Jun
The Brave Little Toaster (Jerry Rees)The Courier (Frank Deasy & Joe Lee)
Dead Poets Society (Peter Weir)
No Holds Barred (Thomas J. Wright)
Renegades (Jack Sholder)
Vampire's Kiss (Robert Bierman)
Week of 26 May
Directed by Andrei Tarvoksky (Michal Leszczylowski)Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg)
Pattes blanches (Jean Grémillon) [1949]
Pink Cadillac (Buddy Van Horn)
Week of 19 May
Back to Ararat (Pea Holmquist & Jim Downing & Suzanne Khardalian)Cold Feet (Robert Dornhelm)
Esther (Amos Gitai) [1986]
For Queen and Country (Martin Stellman)
How I Got Into College (Savage Steve Holland)
Miracle Mile (Steve DeJarnatt)
A Night in Havana: Dizzy Gillespie in Cuba (John Holland)
Road House (Rowdy Herrington)
The Suitors (Ghasem Ebrahimian)
Week of 12 May
Earth Girls Are Easy (Julien Temple)Fist Fighter (Frank Zuniga)
The Return of Swamp Thing (Jim Wynorski)
See No Evil, Hear No Evil (Arthur Hiller)
Teen Witch (Dorian Walker)
Voices From the Attic (Debbie Goodstein)
Week of 5 May
Getting It Right (Randal Kleiser)Growing Up in America (Morley Markson)
How to Get Ahead in Advertising (Bruce Robinson)
Jan Svankmajer: Alchemist of the Surreal (Jan Svankmajer)
Listen to Me (Douglas Day Stewart)
Lost Angels (Hugh Hudson)
Out of the Dark (Michael Schroeder)
The Rainbow (Ken Russell)
Signs of Life (John David Coles)
The Terror Within (Thierry Notz)
Week of 28 Apr
Criminal Law (Martin Campbell)The Horror Show (James Isaac)
K-9 (Rod Daniel)
Loverboy (Joan Micklin Silver)
Miss Firecracker (Thomas Schlamme)
Scandal (Michael Caton-Jones)
Stealing Heaven (Clive Donner)
Wonderland (Philip Saville)
Week of 21 Apr
Avanti popolo (Rafi Bukaee) [1986]Checking Out (David Leland)
Field of Dreams (Phil Alden Robinson)
La Lectrice (Michel Deville)
Let's Get Lost (Bruce Weber)
Pet Sematary (Mary Lambert)
Red Scorpion (Joseph Zito)
See You in the Morning (Alan J. Pakula)
Speed Zone (Jim Drake)
Week of 14 Apr
Brightness (Souleymane Cisse)Disorganized Crime (Jim Kouf)
Edge of Sanity (G´rard Kikoïne)
A Few Days With Me (Claude Sautet)
Say Anything... (Cameron Crowe)
She's out of Control (Stan Dragoti)
Stripped to Kill 2: Live Girls (Katt Shea Ruben)
Winter People (Ted Kotcheff)
Week of 7 Apr
Cameron's Closet (Armand Mastroianni)Cyborg (Albert Pyun)
Dead Calm (Phillip Noyce)
The Dream Team (Howard Zieff)
Egg (Danniel Danniel)
I, Madman (Tibor Takács)
Major League (David S. Ward)
Le Schpountz (Marcel Pagnol) [1938]
The Toxic Avenger Part II (Michael Herz & Lloyd Kaufman)
Week of 31 Mar
All's Fair (Rocky Lang)Crusoe (Caleb Deschanel)
Heat and Sunlight (Rob Nilsson)
Heathers (Michael Lehmann)
Little Vera (Vasily Pichul)
Plaff! (Juan Carlos Tabío)
Riding the Edge (James Fargo)
Sing (Richard Baskin)
Voyage to Cythera (Theo Angelopoulos) [1984]
Week of 24 Mar
Dead-Bang (John Frankenheimer)84 Charlie Mopic (Patrick Duncan)
Exquisite Corpses (Temístocles López)
In a Glass Cage (Agustín Villaronga) [1986]
Lódz Ghetto (Kathryn Taverna & Alan Adelson)
976-EVIL (Robert Englund)
Powwow Highway (Jonathan Wacks)
Troop Beverly Hills (Jeff Kanew)
Week of 17 Mar
Fletch Lives (Michael Ritchie)Leviathan (George P. Cosmatos)
Rooftops (Robert Wise)
Slaves of New York (James Ivory)
Tapeheads (Bill Fishman)
A Very Moral Night (Karoly Makk) [1977]
Week of 10 Mar
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Terry Gilliam)Chances Are (Emile Ardolino)
Chocolat (Claire Denis)
Echoes of Paradise (Phillip Noyce)
Hanussen (István Szabó)
Jacknife (David Jones)
Lightning Over Braddock: A Rustbowl Fantasy (Tony Buba)
Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (Peter Bonerz)
Week of 3 Mar
Dream a Little Dream (Marc Rocco)Farewell to the King (John Milius)
Heart of Midnight (Matthew Chapman)
Lean on Me (John G. Avildsen)
New York Stories (Martin Scorsese/Francis Ford Coppola/Woody Allen)
Out Cold (Malcolm Mowbray)
Skin Deep (Blake Edwards)
Under the Sun of Satan (Maurice Pialat)
Week of 24 Feb
Bert Rigby, You're a Fool (Carl Reiner)High Hopes (Mike Leigh)
The Luckiest Man in the World (Frank D. Gilroy)
Used Innocence (James Benning)
Week of 17 Feb
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (Stephen Herek)The 'Burbs (Joe Dante)
Gleaming the Cube (Graeme Clifford)
The Mighty Quinn (Carl Schenkel)
Paperhouse (Bernard Rose)
Rachel River (Sandy Smolan)
True Believer (Joseph Ruben)
Week of 10 Feb
Cousins (Joel Schumacher)The Fly II (Chris Walas)
Party Line (William Webb)
Princess Tam Tam (Edmond T. Gréville) [1935]
Rorret (Fulvio Wetzl)
Tap (Nick Castle)
Virgin Machine (Monika Treut)
Zouzou (Marc Allégret) [1934]
Week of 3 Feb
Her Alibi (Bruce Beresford)The Iron Triangle (Eric Weston)
Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (J. Lee Thompson)
Voices of Sarafina! (Nigel Noble)
Who's Harry Crumb? (Paul Flaherty)
Week of 27 Jan
Buy and Cell (Robert Boris)The Chocolate War (Keith Gordon)
Escape From Savehaven (Brian Thomas Jones & James McCalmont)
Letters From a Dead Man (Konstantin Lopushanski) [1986]
Outrageous Animation (various)
Parents (Bob Balaban)
Peking Opera Blues (Tsui Hark) [1986]
Physical Evidence (Michael Crichton)
Tango Bar (Marcos Zurinaga)
Three Fugitives (Francis Veber)
Week of 20 Jan
Crime Zone (Luis Llosa)Field of Honor (Jean-Pierre Denis)
Memoirs of Prison (Nelson Pereira dos Santos) [1984]
Week of 13 Jan
Comrades (Bill Douglas) [1986]Deepstar Six (Sean S. Cunningham)
The Eve of Ivan Kupalo (Yuri Ilyenko) [1969]
A Forgotten Time for the Flute (Eldar Ryazanov)
Friendship's Death (Peter Wollen)
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (Keenen Ivory Wayans)
The January Man (Pat O'Connor)
Week of 6 Jan
The Dressmaker (Jim O'Brien)Purgatory (Ami Artzi)
36 Fillette (Catherine Breillat)