The director of “Alphabet City” and “The Blank Generation” was a key figure in the No Wave movement.

Amos Poe, underground New York filmmaker, dies at 76

The director of "Alphabet City" and "The Blank Generation" was a key figure in the No Wave movement.

By Jordan Hoffman

Jordan Hoffman

Jordan Hoffman is a writer at **, mostly covering nostalgia. He has been writing about entertainment since 2007.

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December 26, 2025 6:53 p.m. ET

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Amos Poe at the Rome Film Festival in 2012. Credit:

Elisabetta A. Villa/WireImage

Amos Poe, a foundational member of New York's underground filmmaking world, died Thursday at 76.

His wife, Claudia Summers, announced the news on her late husband's Instagram, writing that he "took his last breath today at 3:33 pm, surrounded by loved ones" on Christmas Day. Poe had been battling cancer.

Notables like directors Jim Jarmusch and Joe Berlinger, musicians Fab Five Freddy and Kim Gordon, and writer Lucy Sante were among those who paid their respects in the comments.

Poe was born in Tel Aviv, and emerged in the late 1970s as a figure in the burgeoning No Wave art scene in New York City. His 1976 documentary *The Blank Generation*, shot with Ivan Král, captured footage of music acts like the Patti Smith Group, Blondie, the Ramones, Talking Heads, and others at fabled downtown clubs like Max's Kansas City, CBGB, and the Bottom Line (none of which exist anymore).

camilla morandi/Corbis via Getty

The same year, Poe released *Unmade Beds*, a no-budget project inspired by French New Wave films and Andy Warhol's Factory films. The shaggy-dog story about a New York photographer and Francophile interacting with "street people" boasted an appearance by Blondie's soon-to-be-a-superstar lead singer, Debbie Harry.

During this period Poe was also the director of *TV Party*, a legendary public-access show in New York created by performer, writer, and Warhol associate Glenn O'Brien and Blondie's Chris Stein. Guests included celebrated musicians, artists, and various downtown freaks.

Vincent Spano in 'Alphabet City'.

Atlantic Releasing/courtesy Everett

While mainstream success never seemed to be a major goal for Poe, he work with some bigger (by his standards) budgets, as with the 1985 crime drama *Alphabet City*, starring Vincent Spano and Jami Gertz, with music by Nile Rogers. He followed that up in 1988 by writing the script to an uncharacteristic family drama, *Rocket Gibralter*, which starred Burt Lancaster and a pre-*Home Alone *Macaulay Culkin, in addition to Bill Pullman, Patricia Clarkson, and Kevin Spacey. Poe later said that he believed the film would make him a Hollywood player, but as with *Alphabet City*, it was a bit of a financial dud.

His 1991 independently produced crime drama *Triple Bogey on a Five Par Hole* featured the first film appearance by Philip Seymour Hoffman. In 1998, after the post-Tarantino boom of American indie cinema, he released *Frogs for Snakes*, starring Barbara Hershey, Debi Mazar, John Leguizamo, and Robbie Coltrane.

In the 1980s, Poe directed music videos for artists as diverse as hip hop group Run-D.M.C., thrashers Anthrax, and Southern rockers Van Zant. In 2003 he released *Just an American Boy*, a documentary about musician Steve Earle.

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In a 1991 interview with *Bomb* magazine, Poe expressed continued enthusiasm for independent productions. "For every movie I've made, from *Unmade Beds*, the first, some part of my fantasy was that I was making a Hollywood movie," he said. "But the kind of filmmaking I'm attracted to comes out of pure invention. You're right there inventing it as you go, getting a real kick out of it."**

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