List of Famous people born in New York, United States of America

J. Robert Oppenheimer was an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley. Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is among those who are credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb" for their role in the Manhattan Project, the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. The first atomic bomb was successfully detonated on July 16, 1945, in the Trinity test in New Mexico. Oppenheimer later remarked that it brought to mind words from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." In August 1945, the weapons were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Rosario Isabel Dawson is an American actress, voice actress, producer, and activist. She made her feature film debut in the 1995 independent drama Kids. Her subsequent film roles include He Got Game (1998), Josie and the Pussycats (2001), Men in Black II (2002), Rent (2005), Sin City (2005), Clerks II (2006), Death Proof (2007), Seven Pounds (2008), Unstoppable (2010) and Top Five (2014). Dawson has also provided voice-over work for Disney/Marvel, Warner Bros./DC Comics, and ViacomCBS's Nickelodeon unit.

Douglas Craig Emhoff is an American lawyer who is the current second gentleman of the United States. He is married to Vice President Kamala Harris. As the first-ever husband of a U.S. vice president, Emhoff is the first second gentleman in American history. He is also the first Jewish spouse of a vice president.

Eric Frederick Trump is an American political activist, businessman and former reality television personality. He is the third child and second son of former President Donald Trump and his first wife, Ivana Trump.

Adrien Brody is an American actor and producer. He received widespread recognition and acclaim after starring in Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor at 29 years old, making him the youngest actor to win in that category. Brody is the second male American actor to receive the César Award for Best Actor.

James Brien Comey Jr. is an American lawyer who was the 7th director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 2013 until his dismissal in May 2017. Comey had been a registered Republican for most of his adult life; in 2016, he described himself as unaffiliated.

Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. One of the major figures of the New Hollywood era, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant and influential directors in film history. Scorsese's body of work explores themes such as Italian-American identity, Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption, faith, machismo, nihilism, crime and sectarianism. Many of his films are known for their depiction of violence, and the liberal use of profanity and rock music. In 1990, he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation and in 2017, he introduced the African Film Heritage Project.

Cynthia Ellen Nixon is an American actress and activist. For her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series Sex and the City (1998–2004), she won the 2004 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She reprised the role in the films Sex and the City (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010). Her other film credits include Amadeus (1984), James White (2015), and playing Emily Dickinson in A Quiet Passion (2016).

Bernard Lawrence Madoff is an American former market maker, investment advisor, financier and convicted fraudster who is currently serving a federal prison sentence for offenses related to a massive Ponzi scheme. He is the former non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, the confessed operator of the largest Ponzi scheme in world history, and the largest financial fraud in U.S. history. Prosecutors estimated the fraud to be worth $64.8 billion based on the amounts in the accounts of Madoff's 4,800 clients as of November 30, 2008.

Andrew M. Yang is an American entrepreneur, politician, philanthropist and Democratic candidate for New York City mayor. Originally a lawyer, Yang began working in startups and early stage growth companies as a founder or executive from 2000 to 2009. In 2011, he founded Venture for America (VFA), a nonprofit organization focused on creating jobs in cities struggling to recover from the Great Recession. He ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, and is running in the 2021 New York City mayoral election.