The New York Film Festival's 64th edition is underway at Lincoln Center, having opened its 18-day run last Friday with the North American premiere of James Gray's "Paper Tiger," a semi-autobiographical crime drama starring Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson.
Gray's film, a U.S.-Brazil-Italy co-production, follows a former New York police officer who becomes entangled with the Russian mob, with the plot complicated by his brother's naivete in dealing with the gangsters involved. The festival, presented by Film at Lincoln Center in partnership with Rolex, runs through October 12 and is screening more than 70 fiction features and documentaries across venues in multiple boroughs, including Alice Tully Hall.
Centerpiece and Closing Selections
This year's centerpiece film is Tony Gilroy's "Behemoth!," a drama with musical elements starring Pedro Pascal as a cellist — Gilroy's first appearance in the festival's Main Slate. The festival closes on October 12 with Ava DuVernay's documentary "14th," also her first Main Slate selection. Both films join a lineup that, according to a preview of this year's program, is loosely organized around themes of obsession, deception and monsters.
The broader Main Slate draws from dozens of countries and includes new work from Pedro Almodóvar, Andrew Haigh and Mike Leigh, along with two films from South Korean director Hong Sang-soo. Festival programmers have highlighted a run of high-profile premieres generating early buzz among critics and industry attendees, including an AI-industry drama titled "Artificial."
Founded in 1963, the New York Film Festival has long served as a fall proving ground for films entering awards-season conversation, distinct from the market-driven atmosphere of festivals like Toronto or Sundance. Its noncompetitive format — there are no juried prizes — has historically let programmers focus on curation rather than campaign strategy, a structure organizers say remains central to the festival's identity even as its lineup has grown.
Screenings continue daily through October 12, with rush and standby tickets available for most shows through the festival's box office. Several Main Slate titles, including "Paper Tiger" and "Behemoth!," are expected to open in limited theatrical release in the weeks following the festival before wider rollouts later this year.
