What To Expect At The 2024 New York Film Festival
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2 weeks ago
Who's on the line-up?
Tickets are on sale now for the 62nd annual New York Film Festival (NYFF) – though we’re sure the Letterboxd fans in the room are well aware. Here’s exactly what to expect in 2024.
What Is The New York Film Festival?
New York Film Festival (NYFF) is an annual film festival hosted by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. It was founded in 1963 by film critics Richard Roud and Amos Vogel, who wanted to bring the world’s best cinema to New York audiences, emphasising artistic excellence over commercial appeal. From the beginning, NYFF has showcased works by both established and emerging filmmakers alike, so you can expect a varied roster each year. International films, independent cinema and innovative works pushing the boundaries of filmmaking all appear on the slate every year.
Unlike many other of the world’s prestigious film festivals, NYFF is not a competition, focussing entirely on creativity and artistic achievements rather than quantifiable awards.
What’s On The NYFF Schedule For 2024?
The New York Film Festival line-up is split into the following categories: Main Slate, Spotlight, Currents and Revivals.
Main Slate
Thirty-two films make up NYFF’s 2024 Main Slate, representing 24 countries, with 18 directors making their debut in this section. These films make up the core of the Festival, featuring the line-up’s most prestigious films handpicked from across the globe. ‘The festival’s ambition is to reflect the state of cinema in a given year, which often means also reflecting the state of the world,’ says the Festival’s artistic director Dennis Lim. ‘The most notable thing about the films in the Main Slate […] is the degree to which they emphasise cinema’s relationship to reality. They are reminders that, in the hands of its most vital practitioners, film has the capacity to reckon with, intervene in, and reimagine the world.’
The 2024 Main Slate includes:
- Nickel Boys, directed by RaMell Ross – Opening Night
- The Room Next Door, directed by Pedro Almodóvar – Centerpiece
- Blitz, directed by Steve McQueen – Closing Night
- All We Imagine as Light, directed by Payal Kapadia
- Anora, directed by Sean Baker
- April, directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili
- The Brutalist, directed by Brady Corbet
- By the Stream, directed by Hong Sangsoo
- Caught by the Tides, directed by Jia Zhangke
- Dahomey, directed by Mati Diop
- The Damned, directed by Roberto Minervini
- Eephus, directed by Carson Lund
- Grand Tour, directed by Miguel Gomes
- Happyend, directed by Neo Sora
- Hard Truths, directed by Mike Leigh
- Harvest, directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari
- Misericordia, directed by Alain Guiraudie
- My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, directed by Julia Loktev
- No Other Land, directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
- Oh, Canada, directed by Paul Schrader
- On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, directed by Rungano Nyoni
- Pepe, directed by Nelson Carlos de los Santos Arias
- The Seed of the Sacred Fig, directed by Mohammad Rasoulof
- The Shrouds, directed by David Cronenberg
- Stranger Eyes, directed by Yeo Siew Hua
- Suburban Fury, directed by Robinson Devor
- Transamazonia, directed by Pia Marais
- A Traveler’s Needs, directed by Hong Sangsoo
- Việt and Nam, directed by Trương Minh Quý
- Who by Fire, directed by Philippe Lesage
- Youth (Hard Times), directed by Wang Bing
- Youth (Homecoming), directed by Wang Bing
Spotlight
In the Spotlight line-up, find a curated selection of films expected to make a splash, whether that’s thanks to big-name directors or stars, or films that have generated buzz at other festivals during the season. In short, while the Main Slate features work attracting film auteurs and artistically significant flicks, the Spotlight brings attention to higher profile works you might even get to see in the cinema. This year, that includes:
- The US premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer based on William S. Burroughs’ Beat Generation work and starring Daniel Craig
- Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra’s bullfighting documentary, Afternoons of Solitude
- Pablo Larraín’s Maria starring Angelina Jolie as legendary opera singer Maria Callas in her final days
- North American premiere of Pavements, Alex Ross Perry’s anti-biodoc about indie rock band Pavement
- North American premiere of TWST/Things We Said Today, Andrei Ujică’s archival film about the Beatles’ in NYC for their sold-out 1965 Shea Stadium concert
- US premiere of Elton John: Never Too Late, directed by R.J. Cutler and David Furnish
- Jacques Audiard’s Cannes Jury Prize winner Emilia Pérez, starring Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz
- Petra Costa’s Apocalypse in the Tropics looking at the chilling rise of the far right in Brazil
- Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here, a political drama telling the true story of a woman’s search for the truth about her husband’s kidnapping by the Brazilian government
- Brett Story and Stephen Maing’s documentary Union, following the day-to-day struggles of the Amazon Labor Union and the events leading up to its historic 2022 vote
- Rumours, Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson’s sci-fi satire of world leaders at the annual G7 summit
- Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, starring Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin as cousins trying to reconnect on a pilgrimage to the Polish hometown of their grandmother, a Holocaust survivor
- US premiere of Jean-Luc Godard’s Scénarios, two years after his death
- US premiere of Leos Carax’s It’s Not Me
- The Friend, Scott McGehee and David Siegel adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s novel of the same name starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray
Currents
This section of the Festival brings 12 more feature films to the line-up as well as 28 short films, with work spanning more than 20 countries. The idea is to complement the Main Slate, showcasing the state of contemporary cinema and emphasising new voices and innovative forms. The Centrepiece is Jem Cohen’s Little, Big, and Far, a stargazing documentary centred on an Austrian astronomer named Karl who journeys to a Greek island in search of the darkest sky against which to view the cosmos. You can see the full Currents line up here.
Revivals
Revivals at the New York Film Festival is all about classics that have been newly remastered, restored or preserved, featuring classics, rarities and (re)discoveries that were groundbreaking in their time. In 2024, the line-up includes:
- Bona by Lino Brocka, 1980, Philippines
- Camp de Thiaroye by Ousmane Sembène & Thierno Faty Sow, 1988, Senegal/Algeria/Tunisia
- Compensation by Zeinabu irene Davis, 1999, US
- The Fall of Otrar by Ardak Amirkulov, 1991, Kazakhstan/USSR
- Four Nights of a Dreamer by Robert Bresson, 1971, France
- Hellraiser by Clive Barker, 1987, UK
- Model by Frederick Wiseman, 1981, USA
- La Musica by Marguerite Duras & Paul Seban, 1966, France
- Nightshift by Robina Rose, 1981, UK
- Northern Lights by John Hanson & Rob Nilsson, 1978, USA
- Reporters by Raymond Depardon, 1981, France
- The Sealed Soil by Marva Nabili, 1977, Iran
When Is The 2024 New York Film Festival?
This year, NYFF will take place from 27 September–14 October, hosted as always at Lincoln Center.
How To Get Tickets
New York Film Festival tickets are on sale now at filmlinc.org/nyff2024