The film revolves around three friends studying at the fictional New York State University whose carefree and pleasant lives are changed by the September 11 attacks and its aftermath.

In the United States in 2009, the FBI arrest Omar Aijaz, a young Muslim man originally from Delhi, India, after finding guns in the trunk of a taxi cab he owned.

Omar is then taken into custody and interrogated by FBI Agent Roshan, also a Muslim man originally from South Asia who has been living in the United States for twenty years.

He is befriended by his international student counselor Maya and learns that though she was born and raised in New York, she is fluent in Hindi because of her mother's interest in Bollywood films.

Omar also meets and befriends Sam, an American Muslim who is not only well-spoken, good at sports and academics but is also fluent in Hindi due to the fact that his father is a professor of Indian studies.

Omar learns that Maya is a civil rights activist who is helping one of Sam's employees, Zilgai overcome his experience as a former 9/11 detainee.

However, when Omar is ready to leave, a series of events forces him to reconsider as he meets the same suspected convicts Roshan had mentioned to him earlier.

In the process, Omar learns from Sam that ten days after 9/11, Sam, who was on the way to meet Maya, was arrested and detained for a period of nine months at the Guantanamo Bay prison as a suspected terrorist simply because he took pictures of the twin towers for an architecture paper he was doing for the university weeks before the attacks and purchased a ticket for his cousin at a Kiosk at Kinkos.

Though he was eventually released due to lack of evidence, the impact of being detained and tortured permanently changed Sam in ways which are difficult for those surrounding him to understand, leaving him more mellow, somber and with feelings of deep resentment and hatred towards the FBI.

Sam wanted to tell Maya about his terrorism plans but was unable to do so because she was pregnant with his child hence she doesn't know of her husband's reality.

After a routine traffic stop escalates and an NYPD police officer gives Maya a very rough full-body search, Zilgai becomes agitated.

When Sam comes to know of Zilgai's death he cancels his attack and instead decides to work on a new building contract with his sleeper cell employees including Omar.

In a June 2009 interview with the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), director Kabir Khan argued that the film "is based on part of the political canvas of 9/11, but it speaks of prejudices after the great human tragedy.

"[3] In a separate interview with IANS, actor John Abraham argued that, "in its own strange way, New York begins where Pakistani film Khuda Ke Liye ended.

Abraham continued by suggesting that this is why Khan and Shoaib Mansoor offer different interpretations of these events in their respective films.

The plot of New York is similar to ''The Greater Good'', the twenty-first episode of the first season of ABC TV series Lost.

The songs and the theme featured in the soundtrack are composed by Pritam Chakraborty, Julius Packiam and Pankaj Awasthi and the lyrics are penned by Sandeep Shrivastava and Junaid Wasi.

[17] Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave it four out of five arguing that New York is "one of the finest films produced by this premier production house, Yash Raj [...] the screenplay is its biggest star, without a doubt.

He states: "When a hardcore commercial flick gets a standing ovation and a huge round of applause at the end of the show, you know that there is something definitely right that the director has done.

In this regard, Kabir Khan can take a bow because he has done exceedingly well in making a film that is not frivolous, has a message and still carries enough commercial ingredients to reach out to masses as well as classes.

"[19] Jayant of the Hindustan Times argues that comparing New York "to Mark Pellington's Arlington Road would be grossly unfair.

The central theme itself is closer to Shoaib Mansoor's Khuda Kay Liye (2007), and you can sense how the superior execution here makes all the filmmaking difference.

[21] Sandhya Iyer of the Sakaal Times gave the film three and a half out of four, arguing that "New York manages to be gripping, thanks to an excellent screenplay.