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Hard-core NYC movie lovers know tomorrow is Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza and Arbor Day rolled into one: The New York Film Festival celebrates its opening night and then unspools for the next two weeks. Already, we know that the opening-night selection is the world premiere of Martin Scorsese's three-and-a-half-hour gangster epic The Irishman—which we simply can't wait to luxuriate in. (Expect our review sometime tomorrow evening.) And we've already given you our 10 best picks from the rest of the main slate.
What if you still don't have your tickets, though? Many of the buzziest titles are long sold out: You're not going to be able to get into see Joker or Noah Baumbach's exquisite Marriage Story. But here are five truly amazing films for which there is still ticket availability. Click on the links below to get involved:
Free Time
If you thrill to archival footage of the city in its earlier black-and-white incarnation, Manny Kirchheimer’s hour-long collection of gorgeously restored vignettes (shot by himself and Walter Hess) needs to be seen: a reclamation of impossibly romantic late-’50s street life. Children playing stickball, some guy walking with his cat, rows of chrome tailfins—all of it plays hypnotically. The jazz accompaniment is nice but the live sound is even better. In some ways, our town hasn’t changed a bit.
Walter Reade Theater, Sept 28 at 1pm; Francesca Beale Theater, Sept 29 at 6:15pm.
Martin Eden
Jack London’s 1909 novel, about an angry young man who blooms into a radical poet (and then becomes something of a sellout), is one of the most epic-feeling Italian movies in years, a throwback to ’70s-era big-canvas statements. Lead actor Luca Marinelli, rousing in every scene, comes within hailing distance of a young Robert De Niro. He’s even got the mole.
Alice Tully Hall, Oct 6 at 2:30pm; Walter Reade Theater, Oct 7 at 8:45pm.
State Funeral
If Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin used the despot’s 1953 funeral as a springboard for vicious comedy, Sergei Loznitsa’s documentary is a fascinating counterpoint: an assemblage of Soviet footage of grieving, wreath-laying and paying respects. The grandeur is off the charts. A live orchestra saws away in a stiff March breeze, and the footage has an unusual hush: It’s the official record, with no dissent. Stalin would be disentombed in 1961 but for now, the cult of his personality commands obedience even after death.
Walter Reade Theater, Sept 28 at 5:45pm; Francesca Beale Theater, Sept 29 at 12:30pm.
Synonyms
Nadav Lapid’s spiky quasi-comedy is about a man drifting through Paris; we come to learn that Yoav (Tom Mercier, doing a physical Adam Driver–like performance) is Israeli, that he hates his home country, that he wants to improve his French post-haste. Falling in with an attractive couple of twentysomethings, Yoav begins to broaden his horizons, but Lapid’s film has other ideas, specifically about the indelibility of one’s past and culture. This is the kind of edgy, problematic drama that you go to festivals to see—and hopefully hash out afterward.
Alice Tully Hall, Sept 29 at 2:45pm; Walter Reade Theater, Oct 1 at 8:30pm.
Varda by Agnès
This year’s NYFF is dedicated to the late French documentarian Agnès Varda, who died in March at age 90 but still seems impossibly alive. Her final work is a literal master class: a filmed lecture during which Varda rambles enjoyably through her greatest hits, such as Cléo from 5 to 7, Vagabond and The Gleaners, imparting the crucial lesson that art is meant to connect its maker with the larger public.
Alice Tully Hall, Oct 9 at 6pm; Walter Reade Theater, Oct 10 at 8:45pm.