As London officials boast of luring New York’s Woody Allen across the Atlantic to film his most recent movies, city lawmakers are making a push to keep the cameras rolling within the five boroughs.

A group of City Council members yesterday called on the state to expand a program started last year that provides tax credits to film producers who shoot at least 75% of a movie in New York.

“The credit, everyone agrees, has been hugely successful,” Council Member David Yassky, a Democrat of Brooklyn, told reporters at City Hall.

Enacted as part of the “Made in N.Y.” program, the tax break is offered as an incentive for filmmakers who can reclaim a total of 15% of a movie’s production costs as a tax credit. The filmmakers get a 5% break on city taxes and a 10% cut in state taxes. Lawmakers put initial caps of $12.5 million annually for four years in city credits and $25 million a year for the state.

The city’s total share has already been allocated, and a current proposal being negotiated in the state budget would more than double the size of the program. The city would have $30 million an year to give in credits to filmmakers, and the state would have $60 million.

Mr. Yassky said it was necessary to expand the program, especially because the city’s share is already gone. “Unless you expand it, it’s almost as good as canceling it,” he said.

While critics of the tax credits deride it as a political favor to Hollywood, supporters say they are needed to help New York draw productions that filmmakers might otherwise take to cheaper cities such as Toronto or Vancouver. Other cities that have turned to tax credits for the film and television industry include London, which recently announced that Mr. Allen, whose films have become synonymous with New York, plans to shoot his third movie set in the British capital.

Governor Pataki had initially vetoed the expanded film tax credit, but in a compromise budget deal his aides floated this week, the program would be restored. Leaders in both the Senate and the Assembly have said they intend to override the governor’s vetoes.

The city does not have statistics that estimate the economic gain generated by the tax credit thus far, but council members yesterday said the revenues exceed the program’s cost. A spokeswoman for the city’s Office of Film, Theater, and Broadcasting, Kara Alaimo, said the program had been successful, and the city wants it to be expanded.

While some lawmakers tout the program as bringing jobs and business to the city, the idea of the tax credits has drawn criticism from those who say the government is essentially subsidizing the film industry while ignoring other employment sectors.

“People who wouldn’t dream of providing a less glamorous business are happy to go overboard in providing tax breaks to the entertainment industry,” a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, E.J. McMahon, said. He added: “The same people who rail on tax breaks for the wealthy are delighted to give them to Robert de Niro.” Mr. de Niro’s TriBeCa Film Festival opens tonight.

No sector of the economy is as heavily subsidized as the film industry, Mr. McMahon said. While acknowledging that the program was successful for New York, he asked, “What about the rest of the economy?”