The New York Film Festival opened September 25 with more than 70 fiction features and documentaries screening across all five boroughs through October 12, marking the 64th edition of the flagship autumn showcase presented by Film at Lincoln Center. This year's lineup ranges from a gala-night crime thriller starring Adam Driver to a decades-old censored horror film finally restored from its original negatives, alongside documentaries wading into active geopolitical conflicts.
James Gray's crime thriller Paper Tiger, starring Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson, served as the festival's gala opening-night feature, according to CBS News. The film follows a former NYPD street cop connected to the Russian mob and made its North American premiere on September 25 after debuting in competition at Cannes in May, per Screen Daily. Neon will release the film theatrically on November 13.
Festival programming this year also features talks with an unusually stacked roster of directors, including James Gray, Jim Jarmusch, Mike Leigh, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Pedro Almodóvar, Sofia Coppola and Ava DuVernay, the station's report notes. Stars appearing across the lineup include Pedro Pascal, Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore.
A Closing Night Sequel a Decade in the Making
Ava DuVernay's documentary 14th examines attacks on the 14th Amendment's citizenship, due process and anti-insurrection protections, and will have its world premiere on October 9 as the festival's Closing Night selection, with another screening on October 11. The film functions as a companion sequel to DuVernay's 2016 documentary 13th, which itself opened NYFF a decade ago, according to Film at Lincoln Center. Netflix will stream 14th starting December 4. Hoodline previously reported on the film's selection in its closing-night announcement.
Elsewhere in the documentary slate, A24's You Can See Everything, co-directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, centers on convicted Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes and will premiere in New York on September 30, per the CBS News preview. Fielder reportedly moved into Holmes's home before she began her 11-year prison sentence for fraud, and the documentary emerged from three years of secret production before a surprise premiere at the Telluride Film Festival, according to the Los Angeles Times. It opens in U.S. theaters October 16.
Films Confronting War, Exile and Gaza
My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile, premiering in New York on September 27, follows journalists forced into exile after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, per the CBS News preview. This year's documentary programming places work shot amid active conflict zones alongside starrier premieres.
That pattern extends most pointedly to Naza, directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, which examines allegations that AI-powered targeting contributed to potential human rights abuses against Palestinians in Gaza and won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. The film has North American premieres scheduled for September 26 and 27. The Israeli government has criticized the film, the Israel Defense Forces has denied allegations that it intentionally targets civilians in Palestinian territories, and Israel's culture minister has called for revoking the citizenship of Abraham and Szor, according to the same CBS News account.
Jonathan Glazer's 38-minute documentary Joy of Joys centers on the Abbey Road Studios recording of “HELP(2),” a 2026 War Child Records charity album, pairing digital footage shot by London schoolchildren with footage recorded by young people in Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine and Yemen, according to the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Glazer directed The Zone of Interest.
Restorations Undo Decades of Studio Censorship
Two archival restorations headline the festival's revivals section. Ken Russell's 1971 drama The Devils, censored in both the United States and United Kingdom upon release, has been restored from its original negatives and incorporates previously censored footage derived from Russell's 2004 edit. Following its NYFF 35mm premiere, the restoration opens for a one-week theatrical run at Film at Lincoln Center on October 16 — a cut kept out of full theatrical circulation for more than 50 years.
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1950 Technicolor feature Gone to Earth received its own 4K restoration, reconstructing the directors' original version using BFI positive prints alongside the damaged negative. The restoration was consulted on by Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker, with Steven Spielberg also involved, according to The Playlist. American producer David O. Selznick had substantially recut and altered the film's negative for its 1952 U.S. release as The Wild Heart.
Also among the festival's historical offerings is unseen 16mm footage shot in 1972 by pioneering filmmaker William Greaves capturing Harlem Renaissance figures, restored and edited 50 years later by his son David Greaves and granddaughter Liani Greaves as Once Upon a Time in Harlem. Greaves had originally set aside 60,000 feet of film from a Duke Ellington gathering at his Harlem townhouse due to a lack of completion funds in the 1970s. The film screens at NYFF ahead of an October 16 release by Neon, as Hoodline detailed in its earlier report on the footage.
From Sandra Hüller to a Cannes-Winning Fjord
Cannes and Venice prizewinners populate much of the fiction slate. Cristian Mungiu's drama Fjord, starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, won the top prize at Cannes in 2026 and enters NYFF's Spotlight section with U.S. distribution acquired by Neon, per the CBS News preview. Mungiu also directed 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.
Sandra Hüller appears in two festival titles: Rose, in which she plays a woman disguising herself as a man in 17th-century Germany, and Fatherland, in which she plays Thomas Mann's daughter. Tom McCarthy's drama A Statement, featuring Paul Rudd, Paul Giamatti, Evan Peters, Amy Ryan and John Turturro, recreates a 1980 meeting about climate change, according to TheWrap. McCarthy previously directed the Oscar-winning journalism drama Spotlight.
Genre Swings, From Godzilla to an Orchestral Cellist
The festival also makes room for genre and music programming. Takashi Yamazaki's Godzilla Minus Zero screens at Alice Tully Hall on September 26, per the CBS News preview, while Paul Thomas Anderson's Cameron Winter at Carnegie Hall, shot on 16mm and 35mm film, documents a concert performance. Sofia Coppola completed Making Marie Antoinette after her mother, Eleanor Coppola, died; Eleanor had created a video diary during the making of Sofia's 2006 film, and the documentary is narrated by Diane Lane.
Other titles include Behemoth!, starring Pedro Pascal as a former child prodigy and orchestral cellist; Artificial, about the burgeoning artificial intelligence industry with Andrew Garfield, Mark Rylance, Yura Borisov and Monica Barbaro; Chris Rock's Misty Green, starring Rosalind Eleazar as an actress seeking employment and dignity; and Werner Herzog's Bucking Fastard, starring Kate Mara and Rooney Mara.
With screenings, free talks and short film programs scheduled across all five boroughs through October 12, NYFF64's lineup includes restored and long-unseen work alongside its other festival selections, according to Film at Lincoln Center's own festival materials.
