In 2017, 38 years after its original theatrical run, Woody Allen's Manhattan (1979) was re-released as a new 4K digital print in cinemas across the United Kingdom and in select cities in the United States. That this was the only film of Allen's to be accorded the honour of a reissue after 4K restoration suggested, even at the time, something of the special status that Manhattan holds within his extensive oeuvre.

Village Voice critic Andrew Sarris famously stated at its time of release that Allen's motion picture was ‘the only great film of the Seventies’ (quoted in McCann 1990: 9). Asked in the 1990s if his contentious view still remained, Sarris clarified that ‘[t]here are others I like from that period. But my test of a movie is whether or not I can look at it again and again. Can you stand to see The Bridge on the River Kwai another ten times? Or Lawrence of Arabia?’ (quoted in Meade 2000: 130). Manhattan is still Allen's most successful box office hit (adjusted for inflation) and arguably the project that is most emblematic of his desire to bridge the divide between comedy – his natural and longstanding metier – and straight drama. Indeed, Allen was to highlight this himself when discussing Manhattan in conjunction with its two immediate predecessors, Oscar-winning critical breakthrough Annie Hall (1977) and the unpopular familial drama Interiors (1978).