For generations of movie lovers, New York’s bridges, avenues, subway stations, parks, museums and neighbourhood cafés have existed not merely as landmarks, but as pieces of cinematic memory.
A walk through Manhattan can feel strangely familiar: perhaps you have never lived there, yet you know the corner where a heroine hurried to work, the park where two characters fell in love, or the bridge where a movie star stood against the skyline.
For Bollywood audiences, New York has long carried a particular romance. From Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta wandering through Manhattan in Kal Ho Naa Ho to the complicated love stories of Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, the city became part of the emotional vocabulary of Hindi cinema.
Hollywood, meanwhile, has turned the same streets into everything from a fashion editor’s playground in The Devil Wears Prada to a superhero’s battleground in Spider-Man.
And then there are films such as Past Lives, which use the city more quietly, allowing its bridges, waterfronts and ordinary streets to hold the weight of memory.
For film fans visiting New York, the result is almost a cinematic treasure hunt.
When Shah Rukh Khan made New York feel like Bollywood in Kal Ho Naa Ho
Few films have connected Bollywood and New York as memorably as Kal Ho Naa Ho.
Released in 2003, the Nikkhil Advani-directed film follows Naina, Aman and Rohit, played by Preity Zinta, Shah Rukh Khan and Saif Ali Khan, through a New York that feels both enormous and intimate. The movie’s locations became almost as recognisable as its stars.
