Fear City

This article is about the 1984 film. For the Netflix documentary series, see Fear City: New York vs The Mafia. For the 1975 propaganda campaign in New York City, see Fear City pamphlets.
Fear City
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAbel Ferrara
Written byNicholas St. John
Produced byBruce Cohn Curtis
StarringTom Berenger
Billy Dee Williams
Jack Scalia
Melanie Griffith
CinematographyJames Lemmo
Edited byJack W. Holmes
Anthony Redman
Music byDick Halligan
Joe Delia
Production
companies
Zupnik-Curtis Enterprises
Rebecca Productions
Castle Hill Productions
Distributed byAquarius Releasing
Release dates
  • July 18, 1984 (1984-07-18) (France)
  • February 16, 1985 (1985-02-16) (U.S.)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$4 million[1]

Fear City is a 1984 American neo-noir[2] erotic thriller film directed by Abel Ferrara[3] and starring Tom Berenger, Billy Dee Williams, Jack Scalia, and Melanie Griffith. The screenplay was written by longtime Ferrara collaborator Nicholas St. John. It is considered a cult film.

The film follows a haunted former boxer turned mob-connected nightclub promoter (Berenger) and a fiercely driven police Detective (Williams), investigating a brutal serial killer targeting strippers in Manhattan.

  1. ^ "AFI|Catalog".
  2. ^ Silver, Alain; Ward, Elizabeth; eds. (1992). Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style (3rd ed.). Woodstock, New York: The Overlook Press. ISBN 0-87951-479-5
  3. ^ Maslin, Janet (1985-02-16). "Screen: 'Fear City' Opens". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-09-09.