According to City Hall, on any given day there are around 120 film and television projects in production in New York. About 12,000 permits are issued a year, resulting in the intermittent irritation of non-industry-connected residents as we try to park our cars or push our strollers. We might complain, but really we wouldn’t want it any other way. Trailers, craft service tables and production assistants policing sidewalks with clipboards and walkie-talkies have long been fixtures of New York life.

They are also the building blocks of a virtual city, a second metropolis extracted from and existing alongside the real one. For natives, transplants and tourists alike, it can be hard to tell where the actual New York leaves off and its cinematic doppelgänger begins. And it would be downright impossible to pick just one movie that sums up the experience of the city. Still, it might be interesting to try.

Everyday life entwines with half-remembered images and catchphrases. The Queensboro Bridge is the most beautiful shot in “Manhattan.” The Verrazano recalls “Saturday Night Fever.” Times Square evokes “Midnight Cowboy” and “Sweet Smell of Success.” (Or maybe “Vanilla Sky.”) The Empire State Building belongs to King Kong and Andy Warhol; Katz’s Delicatessen to Harry and Sally (mostly Sally); Fort Greene and Bed-Stuy to Spike Lee. Our local wall of fame bursts with characters, many of them fictitious. Rupert Pupkin. Snake Plissken. Annie Hall. Consciousness is layered with soundtrack music and voice-over narration. When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way. I love this dirty town. Someday a real rain will come. Warriors, come out to play.