Allen’s breakthrough was 1977’s Academy Award-winning Annie Hall. A major commercial hit as well as a critical success, Annie Hall announced a new era of intelligence and complexity in American comedies.

Allen himself subsequently turned away from humor completely with 1978’s Interiors, a brooding drama inspired by the films of his hero Ingmar Bergman, which earned a pair of Oscar nominations.

His 1979’s Manhattan, was widely hailed as a masterpiece, and remains his definitive work. Its follow-up, 1980’s Stardust Memories, recalled Federico Fellini’s 8 1/2; while Bergman, along with William Shakespeare, was again the inspiration behind 1982’s A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy.

Hannah and Her Sisters won favorable comparisons to Chekhov, and earned Allen his second Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

After Radio Days, he entered into another Bergman-like phase, directing two dramas, September and Another Woman, which failed to find favor with audiences or critics, while his Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), ended scoring three Academy Award nominations.

Both 1990’s Alice and 1992’s Shadows and Fog were negligible at best, but he returned to form with Husbands and Wives, a cinéma vérité look at a crumbling marriage.

In 1994, he returned to critics’ good graces with the period comedy Bullets Over Broadway, which garnered an impressive seven Oscar nominations, while 1995’s Mighty Aphrodite scored two more Academy nods.

In 1996, Allen directed his first-ever musical comedy, Everyone Says I Love You, which got generally positive reviews. However, Deconstructing Harry followed in 1997 to vehemently mixed reviews, as did 1998’s Celebrity.

Almost in direct response to these sentiments, Allen released a string of lighthearted films, beginning with critically acclaimed Sweet and Lowdown in 1999. . 2000’s Small Time Crooks enjoyed a healthy run at the box office and decent reviews.

Though Allen wasn’t as lucky with the noir comedy Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001) or his moviemaking farce Hollywood Ending, the latter film opened the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and marked his appearance in Cannes.

Allen’s next pair of films, Anything Else and Melinda and Melinda, continued his trend of mixed-reviewed comedies, but in 2005, he changed the setting of his work to Britain and delivered what many considered his best film in years with the dark drama Match Point.

Perhaps hoping she might be his lucky charm, the filmmaker cast Johansson again in the following year’s so-so mystery-comedy Scoop, and continued to explore the dark corners of the other side of the Atlantic with the star-studded Cassandra’s Dream in 2007. --allmovie