Woody Allen is celebrated as New York's greatest filmmaker.

A Brooklyn native, Allen's directorial debut came in 1966 with What's Up Tiger Lily and followed up with comedy flicks, moving towards a more ruminative style with the classic 1977 film Annie Hall, starring his muse and romantic partner Diane Keaton; the picture won four Oscars including Best Picture and became the template for hundreds of other cloying rom-coms. The hand-wringing, Jewish, wise-cracking nebbish does duty in nearly all of his films, either in his own performances or by actors doing a thinly-veiled imitation of him. Indeed, Allen's upper class, educated, neurotic, white New Yorker characters are his constant across genres.

The '80 sand 90's saw the director alternating between mostly well-received romantic comedies, dramas, and mysteries, and while the early-aughts were quite for Allen, he's hit his stride again with flicks like Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Midnight in Paris (although notably none of his later films feature New York, the city he's synonymous with and few feature himself as an actor).

Allen and muse Mia Farrow's 1992 split was the stuff of New York tabloid legend: Farrow discovered nude photos that a 56-year-old Allen had taken of her then-22 year-old adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn. Allen and Farrow later battled in court over custody of their three kids, with Farrow claiming that Allen had sexually molested their adopted daughter Malone. The bitter case was settled in 1994; Allen and Soon-Yi married in 1997 and have been together ever since. [Image via AP]