Brighton Beach - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

  • The Neil Simon play, Brighton Beach Memoirs, which won two Tony awards in 1983, and its subsequent film adaptation, are both set against the backdrop of Brighton Beach in 1937.
  • The 1994 film Little Odessa is set in Brighton Beach.
  • In Darren Aronofsky's 2000 film, Requiem for a Dream, the character Sara Goldfarb (played by Ellen Burstyn) lives in an apartment on Brighton 6th Street.
  • In the film Lord of War, the main character, Yuri Orlov, played by Nicolas Cage, lives in Brighton Beach.
  • In the 2007 crime drama, We Own the Night, the character Bobby Green, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is the manager of a nightclub in Brighton Beach.
  • In the 2009 film Two Lovers, featuring Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow, the action takes place in Brighton Beach.
  • Brighton Beach is also featured in the 1990s Russian spy-comedy Weather Is Good on Deribasovskaya, It Rains Again on Brighton Beach.
  • In the Russian crime film Brother 2, Danila, the protagonist, comes to Brighton Beach from Russia.
  • In the 1998 novel In Every Laugh a Tear by Lesléa Newman, developments take place partly in Brighton Beach.
  • In the 1998 trading autobiography The Education of a Speculator, speculator and hedge fund manager Victor Niederhoffer takes us back to his childhood in Brighton Beach during the 1950s.
  • In the 2000 novel Vector by Robin Cook, disillusioned former Russian biochemical worker Yuri Davydov develops weapons-grade Anthrax in the basement of his Brighton Beach home.
  • Brighton Beach is where Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character Neil McCormick was taken to be beaten and raped in the 2004 film, Mysterious Skin.
  • In the 2008 video game Grand Theft Auto IV, Brighton Beach is represented by the neighborhood of "Hove Beach". This is in reference to Brighton, England's proximity to, and relationship with, neighboring Hove. The two, having city status, are officially known as Brighton and Hove.
  • In the songs "Xero Tolerance" and "Hey Pete" by Type O Negative, Brighton Beach is mentioned as the place where Pete is going to kill his cheating girlfriend. The D-train is his means of transportation in these songs. The full title of the band's faux-live album on which these songs appear is "The Origin Of The Feces - Not Live At Brighton Beach".
  • In the video game, XIII, Brighton Beach is one of the first settings of the game's complex plotline.
  • The French electronic music group Telepopmusik has a song on their album Angel Milk entitled "Brighton Beach".
  • In the space flight simulator Orbiter, there is a fictional base on the moon named Brighton Beach.
  • On the TV series The West Wing, Toby Ziegler (Richard Schiff) hails from Brighton Beach.
  • On the TV series Bored to Death, unlicensed private detective Jonathan Ames investigates a case based at a Russian nightclub in Brighton Beach.
  • A Lifetime reality TV show called Russian Dolls, documenting the lives of young Russian-Americans and a group of Brighton Beach housewives spending time in a popular Russian nightclub, Rasputin Restaurant, premiered August 11, 2011.
  • In an episode of the CBS's Blue Bloods the storyline revolves around the murder of a Russian Mob associate who lived in Brighton Beach. Several scenes are shot on and around the boardwalk.
  • In Haley Tanner's debut novel "Vaclav and Lena" (2011) action takes place in Brighton Beach
  • In the episode "Witness" of the TV series Person of Interest (2011), Reese has to protect a Brighton Beach high school history teacher who's being hunted by the Russian mob.

Brighton Beach is mentioned:

  • In a Rilo Kiley song "Close Call", in which the lyrics "She was born on a Brighton pier to a gypsy mother and a bucket of tears..." are sung.
  • In a Little Brazil song "Brighton Beach", in which the lyrics, "I first met her Brighton Beach back in 1973..." are sung.
  • In two songs on gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello's album Multi Kontra Culti vs. Irony: "Smarkatch" and "Let's Get Radical".
  • In the 2002 film 25th Hour during Edward Norton's rant about New York City.
  • In the German soap opera Verbotene Liebe (Forbidden Love), when Christian Mann and Oliver Sabel return to Düsseldorf from New York. Christian claims to have learned a new recipe while in "Little Odessa".
  • In the song "Brooklyn's Here" from the Tony Award Winning musical Newsies (musical).
  • In the 2004 film Mysterious Skin in the scene on Christmas eve.

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