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Queens’ own James Gray will be opening this year’s New York Film Festival (NYFF) with his new crime drama Paper Tiger.
The 64th NYFF kicks off on September 25 with the US premiere of Gray’s gritty period piece and the prospect of its cast, Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Miles Teller, walking the Lincoln Center red carpet.
Selma director Ava DuVernay’s new civil rights documentary, 14th, will bring the curtain down on the festival on October 12.
The NYFF’s newly announced 2026 slate is full of big-hitting new movies – and includes several major coups for the festival. The 32 feature films on the main slate boasts new films from Mike Leigh (Tender Loving Care), Ira Sachs (The Man I Love), Pedro Almodóvar (Bitter Christmas), Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (All of a Sudden), Paweł Pawlikowski (Fatherland), Sandra Wollner (Everytime), Valeska Grisebach (The Dreamed Adventure), Andrey Zvyagintsev (Minotaur), Andrew Haigh (A Long Winter), Julia Loktev (My Undesirable Friends: Part II – Exile) and Chris Rock (Misty Green).
The centrepiece film is the world premiere of Tony Gilroy’s much-anticipated new musical drama, Behemoth!, starring Pedro Pascal as a composer on a feverish search for inspiration.
Also getting a world premiere at the festival is Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus Zero, the follow-up to the Japanese filmmaker’s epic kaiju 2023 movie Godzilla Minus One, on September 26.
There’ll also be an international debut for I Deserve a Lover Whose Every Rise Sets Fiery Dooms Raging Across the Skies, the latest from Iranian filmmaker Mani Haghighi.
NYFF64 films will screen at Lincoln Center and in cinemas across the city, including BAM in Brooklyn, Queens’ Museum of the Moving Image, Alamo Drafthouse in Staten Island, and AMC Bay Plaza Cinema in the Bronx.
‘It’s hard to recall a prior main slate program in which the state of the world has been as urgently reflected in so many creative ways,’ says the festival’s artistic director Dennis Lim. ‘I’m deeply encouraged to be able to introduce New York audiences to works by so many fearless, imaginative directors whose artistry has been inspired by the shared realities of our world.’
When is New York Film Festival 2026?
This year’s New York Film Festival runs from September 25 through October 12. Head to the official website for all the info.
This year’s New York Film Festival has just announced a ‘Behemoth!’ world premiere