# City of Hope
**City of Hope** is a 1991 American ensemble drama written, directed, and edited by [John Sayles](https://www.edgepedia.org/john-sayles), set in the fictional Hudson City, New Jersey, and following roughly three dozen characters whose lives intersect through urban corruption, racial tension, and political compromise.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE) The film stars [Vincent Spano](https://www.edgepedia.org/vincent-spano) as Nick Rinaldi, Tony Lo Bianco as his contractor father Joe, and [Joe Morton](https://www.edgepedia.org/joe-morton) as the idealistic black city councilman Wynn.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE) It was Sayles's seventh feature and his first shot in anamorphic widescreen.[2](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/1991/10/city-of-hope-2/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | World premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, 23 January 1991; New York opening 11 October 1991[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE) |
| Director | John Sayles, who also wrote, edited, and acted in the film (as the crooked auto-shop owner Carl)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE) • [3](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-25-ca-300-story.html) |
| Setting | Fictional Hudson City, New Jersey, evoking Hoboken, where Sayles lives, and nearby Jersey City[2](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/1991/10/city-of-hope-2/) |
| Budget | $3 million per the AFI Catalog; $3.1 million per the Los Angeles Times[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE) • [4](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-20-ca-90-story.html) |
| Format | 2.35:1 anamorphic (Panavision), Dolby Stereo, 129–130 minutes, rated R[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE) |
| Honor | Grand Prix at the 1991 Tokyo International Film Festival[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE) |
| Box office | About $1 million in the weeks after opening, per a 3 December 1991 New York Times report; $1.3 million US gross per Rotten Tomatoes[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE) • [5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/city_of_hope) |
## Spoilers
### Story and characters
The plot turns on an old apartment block that stands in the way of a major commercial development called Galaxy Towers. Joe Rinaldi owns the buildings and is pressured to torch them so the development can proceed; corrupt Mayor Baci and the policeman O'Brien push the project, while the idealistic councilman Wynn is torn between what he knows is right and what his black constituents want.[6](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/cityofhope) Nick Rinaldi, Joe's estranged son, quits his blue-collar job on his father's site and drifts into petty crime, becoming a pawn in the city's power politics.[6](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/cityofhope) • [7](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/19914/city-of-hope)
Around this spine, Sayles arranged a dense web of subplots: a teacher falsely accused of a sex crime, a police officer with romantic difficulties, a woman raising a handicapped child, a deranged homeless man called Asteroid ([David Strathairn](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-strathairn)), and two black teenagers who mug a college professor after years of harassment by racist cops.[8](https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/1991/1119/19103.html) • [7](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/19914/city-of-hope) The action unfolds over three days in the characters' lives.[4](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-20-ca-90-story.html)
Sources disagree on the size of the cast. Roger Ebert, the longtime [Chicago Sun-Times](https://www.edgepedia.org/chicago-sun-times) critic and 1975 [Pulitzer Prize](https://www.edgepedia.org/pulitzer-prize) winner for criticism, was told there were 36 characters; the Melbourne International Film Festival notes count 38 interweaving roles of almost equal weight; the Deseret News review says about 50 speaking parts; and Rotten Tomatoes lists 52 roles.[9](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/city-of-hope-1991) • [7](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/19914/city-of-hope) • [10](https://www.deseret.com/1991/10/28/20087274/film-review-city-of-hope/) • [5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/city_of_hope) The distributors sent critics a "who's who" sheet listing characters, performers, and capsule descriptions.[8](https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/1991/1119/19103.html)
## Production
Producers Sarah Green and Maggie Renzi requested a script from Sayles in early 1990, and he drafted the screenplay in two weeks from an idea that, he told a September 1991 Box interview, "had been in his head for a long time." Many roles were written for actors from his earlier films. By March 1990 the producers had secured funding; contemporary sources noted that RCA/Columbia Home Video financed the picture in exchange for video rights.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE)
[Principal photography](https://www.edgepedia.org/principal-photography) began on 10 July 1990 and ran into mid-August. The $3 million picture was filmed on forty locations within [Cincinnati](https://www.edgepedia.org/cincinnati), Ohio, as well as in the suburbs and areas of northern Kentucky.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE) Sayles said the city was chosen partly because Hoboken lacked parking for the equipment trucks.[11](https://www.walkerart.org/reader/john-sayles-1991/) Although audiences outside New York often assume Hudson City stands in for New York, Sayles pointed to the New Jersey license plates on the cars and said, "It could be any big Eastern city."[4](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-20-ca-90-story.html)
**Cinematography.** Cinematographer Robert Richardson convinced Sayles to shoot in 2.35:1 anamorphic format, the first time Sayles had used the wide frame. The format let him shoot characters and scenes from foreground to background in continuous, interconnecting takes, a process Sayles described as "trading, where you follow one group of characters and then pick up on another." Contemporary reviews singled out this choreographic camerawork: Screen International praised the camera's revelation of "a kaleidoscope of interconnecting urban strata," and the New York Times called the camera "an active presence within the film."[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE) Kenneth Turan, then film critic of the Los Angeles Times, noted that instead of cutting between stories Sayles often simply moved the camera, bringing a new group from the background into the foreground of the action.[3](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-25-ca-300-story.html)
## Themes
Sayles framed the film around political patronage. "What you find is that to get power, people have to become tribal," he said, citing the Irish, Jewish, and Italian political machines of New York and arguing that black Americans were largely shut out of this route by [Jim Crow laws](https://www.edgepedia.org/jim-crow-laws). "I'm not saying that patronage politics is totally bad. I'm just saying there comes a point when the patrons no longer have anybody who is of their ethnic group to hand it out to anymore and they're just holding power and stealing everything that's not nailed down."[4](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-20-ca-90-story.html) Turan wrote that the film explores urban issues from crime and racial animosity to political corruption and the absence of leadership, with reference points including reports of police brutality and the [Tawana Brawley](https://www.edgepedia.org/tawana-brawley-rape-hoax) case.[3](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-25-ca-300-story.html)
The title is partly ironic: the line is spoken by the corrupt mayor. Sayles maintained that he did not view the film as a tragedy despite its somber ending, in which Vincent Spano's character lies bleeding in his father's arms.[4](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-20-ca-90-story.html)
## Reception
Domestic reviews were divided. [The Hollywood Reporter](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-hollywood-reporter) and the New York Times called the picture Sayles's "best and most mature work" and his "most invigorating achievement to date," while the LA Weekly and the Wall Street Journal appraised it as "an embarrassing wreck of a movie" with "neither the resonance nor originality" of his earlier films.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE) Ebert gave it four stars, writing that Sayles used the large canvas with complete assurance and asking whether a good person can prevail in a corrupt system simply because right is on his side; his answer for the short run was that power is stronger than right.[9](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/city-of-hope-1991) The Chicago Sun-Times critic Chris Hicks called it a marvelous achievement from a filmmaker who keeps getting better.[10](https://www.deseret.com/1991/10/28/20087274/film-review-city-of-hope/) The film critic Adrian Martin later ranked it among Sayles's weaker efforts, calling it "singularly schematic and colourless in its execution."[12](https://adrianmartinfilmcritic.com/reviews/c/city_of_hope.html) On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 95% Tomatometer from 19 reviews and an 83% audience score.[5](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/city_of_hope)
The film won the Grand Prix at the 1991 Tokyo International Film Festival but grossed only about $1 million in the weeks after its opening.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE) It continued to appear on festival programs for years afterward; the Sundance Institute scheduled it for a screening on 29 January 2016, twenty-five years after its world premiere there.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE)
## References
1. [City of Hope, AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/58799-CITY-OF-HOPE)
2. [City of Hope, review by Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader, 1 October 1991](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/1991/10/city-of-hope-2/)
3. ["'Hope' and Glory: Sayles' Tale Is the Most Ambitious U.S. Film of the Year," by Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times, 25 October 1991](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-25-ca-300-story.html)
4. ["Bard of the Low-Budget," Los Angeles Times, 20 October 1991](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-20-ca-90-story.html)
5. [City of Hope, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/city_of_hope)
6. [City of Hope, Sony Pictures Entertainment](https://www.sonypictures.com/movies/cityofhope)
7. [City of Hope, Melbourne International Film Festival archive](https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/19914/city-of-hope)
8. ["Bleakness Dominates in 'City of Hope'," by David Sterritt, Christian Science Monitor, 19 November 1991](https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/1991/1119/19103.html)
9. [City of Hope, review by Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, 25 October 1991](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/city-of-hope-1991)
10. [Film review: City of Hope, by Chris Hicks, Deseret News, 28 October 1991](https://www.deseret.com/1991/10/28/20087274/film-review-city-of-hope/)
11. [John Sayles in dialogue with Jay Carr, Walker Art Center, 1991](https://www.walkerart.org/reader/john-sayles-1991/)
12. [City of Hope, review by Adrian Martin, October 1993](https://adrianmartinfilmcritic.com/reviews/c/city_of_hope.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1990s › Drama films early 1990s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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