Michael Rohatyn & Peter Yost
2025 / 1H48M / FEAR CITY / ENGLISH
Drop Dead City is the first-ever documentary about the NYC fiscal crisis of 1975, an extraordinary, overlooked episode in urban American history that saw an already crumbling city of 8 million people brought to the edge of bankruptcy and social chaos by a perfect storm of greed, incompetence, ambitious social policy, and poor governance. Built entirely of 16mm archival footage, it features present-day interviews with people who were “in the room.”
The film is an immersive, ticking-clock drama, following a year in the life and near-death of this iconic city. It examines the origins of the crisis and documents the increasingly desperate clashes of stakeholders — unions, banks, local, state, and federal governments, and average citizens — as, together, they slide ever nearer to the unthinkable: bankruptcy. Drop Dead City overturns present-day assumptions about politics and compromise, showing what bitter rivals achieved through shared sacrifice, and stands as a cautionary tale to every city facing post-covid challenges of plunging revenue and ever-greater public service obligations.
The parallels with what is happening in America today, with the dismantling of public institutions in the name of austerity, are striking and unmistakable.
PRAISE FOR DROP DEAD CITY
“An extraordinary historical documentary.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“No story about money is straightforward, but this version is about as fun and vivid as it could be without skimping on the details.” – Alissa Wilkinson, New York Times
“Drop Dead City charts how those pivotal months of 1975 unfolded like a thriller.” – Owen Gleiberman, Variety
“The filmmakers also convey, crisply and succinctly, what exactly made the city so expensive to maintain.” – Jason Bailey, RogerEbert.com
TRAILER
