After Hours (1985)

Desperate to escape his mind-numbing routine, uptown Manhattan office worker Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) ventures downtown for a hookup with a mystery woman (Rosanna Arquette). So begins the wildest night of his life, as bizarre occurrences—involving underground-art punks, a distressed waitress, a crazed Mister Softee truck driver, and a bagel-and-cream-cheese paperweight—pile up with anxiety-inducing relentlessness and thwart his attempts to get home. With this Kafkaesque cult classic, Martin Scorsese—abetted by Michael Ballhaus’s kinetic cinematography and scene-stealing supporting turns by Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, Catherine O’Hara, and John Heard—directed a darkly comic tale of mistaken identity, turning the desolate night world of 1980s SoHo into a bohemian wonderland of surreal menace.

“I have spent 40 years in swoony thrall to this movie. I tremble every single time I watch it. After Hours is an object lesson in sonder.” – Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central

“Dazzling movie making; you could get a giddy kick just from cinematographer Michael Ballhaus’ shot as a set of house keys floats down toward the camera, tossed from a top-floor apartment.” – Sheila Benson. Los Angeles Times