Elizabeth Weitzman

Te advertimos: a pesar de su brillante reparto y su hábil campaña de marketing, Amores Materialistas no es una comedia romántica. En cuanto a lo que es, ni siquiera su creadora parece estar del todo segura… Deberías ver: Entrevista con David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan y James Gunn por Superman.  ¿Qué es Amores Materialistas? Una anti comedia romántica con Pedro Pascal y Dakota Johnson Al principio, la guionista y directora Celine Song (Past Lives) parece decidida a dar la vuelta a las convenciones del género: a exponer el romance como la simulación sin alma que a menudo parece ser. Así, siguiendo la tradición clásica de las comedias románticas, nuestra heroína, Lucy (Dakota Johnson), se dedicó a juntar parejas, es pragmática y tan exitosa en el manejo de los algoritmos de citas que está celebrando la novena boda de uno de sus clientes. Es en esta boda donde conoce a Harry (Pedro Pascal), un sujeto con pinta de banquero o corredor de bolsa que su sector considera un “unicornio”: guapo, rico y alto. (Los clientes de Lucy, al igual que la propia película, fetichizan la altura masculina y la juventud femenina, así que si eres un hombre que mide menos de 1,80 m o una mujer mayor de 30 años, prepárate para sentirte indigno). Casualmente, el exnovio de Lucy, John (Chris Evans), también está en la recepción. Pero mientras Harry es un invitado, John es un camarero. Y ahí radica su dilema: ¿nuestra chica materialista elegirá el amor o el dinero? Lujo, tragedia y dilemas morales en una

It’s been a banner year for horror movies. In fact, it seems like all the buzziest films to come out so far aim to terrify. What’s truly great about the current horror bumper crop is that none of the standouts really resemble one another.  Cannes hit The Substance icked its way into the awards conversation on the back of Demi Moore’s staggeringly strong lead turn, Osgood Perkins’ hit Longlegs mixed ’90s serial killer procedurals with the Satanic panic of the previous decade, while I Saw the TV Glow was David Lynch directing Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Late Night with the Devil made found-footage fun again, while In a Violent Nature invented a new subgenre that people called ‘ambient slasher’. And that’s to name just a few. Below, you’ll find our best and scariest movies of 2024. 🎃 The 100 best horror films ever made 😱 The scariest movies based on a true story 🔥 The best horror films of 2025 (so far)

By turns inspiring and bleak, 14th uses a constitutional amendment to dissect the American experiment. Spoiler alert: things are not going great. But while it may seem as though the country is unraveling in real time, this upheaval is not, as it turns out, anything new. 14th does feel like a natural follow-up to 13th, DuVernay's 2016 documentary about how the 13th Amendment’s exception clause paved the way for mass incarceration. Ratified in 1868, the 14th Amendment was a cornerstone of post-Civil War reconstruction, guaranteeing birthright citizenship, due process, and equal protection under the law, and barring officials who engage in insurrection from holding office again. As DuVernay expertly illustrates, every one of those provisions is under pressure, at minimum, today.   DuVernay is clearly aware that the very notions of civics lessons and constitutional amendments are likely to put people to sleep. So she emphasises visual flair and narrative momentum, to keep her audience engaged as we're learning. It works: due credit to everybody on her graphics, archival, score, and soundtrack teams, who have juxtaposed past and present with considerable insight. 150 years of striking archival material shares the screen with biting comedy from the likes of George Carlin and Paul Mooney, backed by music from James Brown, Kendrick Lamar and even Fleetwood Mac. Rarely has a documentary felt so thoughtfully constructed. Her longtime editor, Spencer Averick, deserves extra praise for p

Harry Lehman (John Turturro), a New Yorker pushing 70, is facing a dystopian scenario in Noah Segan’s poignantly nostalgic drama: planned obsolescence.  He still diligently shines his wingtips every morning, gets excited about ‘renting a tape from the library’ (Barbara Stanwyck is his favourite), and treats people with gentlemanly courtesy. True, he also happens to be a pickpocket. But once he’s taken what he needs, he throws the wallets in a mailbox so his victims can get everything else back. Unfortunately, as the title suggests, Harry is increasingly a man out of time. And the clock really starts running when he lifts a bag from Dylan (After the Hunt’s Will Price), the spoiled scion of a New York crime family. As it happens, Dylan has been hiding a USB drive holding a non-fungible token worth nearly $1 million in that bag. Harry, of course, has no idea what the drive is, and casually tosses it to someone else. He also doesn’t realise that there are cameras on every corner of the city. So it’s not long before Dylan tracks him down, and gives him an ultimatum: either Harry finds the drive, or his entire world implodes. It’s Dylan who brings up obsolescence, but – as a wry pawnbroker (Steve Buscemi) notes – it’s Harry who’s facing it. Harry’s most important relationship is with New York itself Turturro is impeccable as an old-fashioned man who has always lived by his own code of ethics, for good and ill. Buscemi and Giancarlo Esposito, who plays a retiring detective, are equ

Don't be fooled by the jaunty punctuation: Behemoth! is a serious drama, a character study from Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) that offers us not one, but two main characters: orchestral musician Alex Serian (Pedro Pascal), and the extraordinary score that follows wherever he goes. Alex is a cellist with deep, if increasingly rotted, roots in music. His embittered father (Hank Azaria) was a virtuoso horn player who wound up creating compositions for cartoons, his mother (JoBeth Williams) hasn’t seen her beloved harp since she declined into dementia, and his flaky brother (Will Arnett) is decades past a brief foray into rock stardom. Alex himself was once an acclaimed prodigy, appearing on Johnny Carson at the age of six before rising to principal positions at a range of prestigious orchestras. But he's still so unsettled in middle age that he almost appears to be a dispassionate observer of his own life. He wanders from one city, job, and accompanying affair to another, always searching for something he can't even name, let alone locate. After infuriating a wealthy patron (Olivia Wilde) in Chicago and a soulful violinist (Eva Victor) in Dallas, he retreats to a movie offer in LA. Once ensconced in Hollywood's legendary Barbra Streisand Scoring Stage, he begins work as the cellist on a top-secret project codenamed ‘Behemoth!’. The promise is right there in the title, but the effect is up to Alex: will this job wind up having an outsized impact on his life, or will he continue t

Movie hitmen don’t tend to come with complex motivations. They need the money. They had a lousy childhood. Or their beloved wife has died. Latif (Mahershala Ali), the hero of Bassam Tariq's Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, is indeed mourning his recently departed spouse. But it’s fair to say that he’s still the first assassin to be driven primarily by an urgent need for breastmilk. With his wife gone and his infant Aziza allergic to formula, he has to find a wet nurse, quickly. He rounds up his preteen son Qadir (Jahleel Kamara) and his teenage daughter Fatiha (Adia), and they head to their family’s Houston mosque for help. But when the imam (Giancarlo Esposito) can't help, he runs into Mike (Laith Nakli), a mobster who thinks Latif owes him a favour. He’s calling it in now, by asking him to kill Pastor Hwan (John Cho). The gun-toting pastor is no angel, but he’s put himself in the mob’s crosshairs by publicly calling out their Muslim-themed porn business. As it happens, one of Mike’s actresses just had a baby, so she can help nurse. But that leads to more trouble, and soon Latif and his family are spending half their time trying to feed Aziza, and half their time dodging men determined to murder them. It’s a genre thriller, but Latif is no John Wick This isn’t the only overwhelming conflict they have to live with, though, because while Latif is a genuinely grieving widow, devoted father, and faithful Muslim, he's also a stone-cold killer. He'll swiftly remind you that h

Misty Green is not, as they say, ‘likeable’. Not as a person, and not as a character. A B-list actress who believes she's an A plus, Misty is arrogant, irresponsible, and so prone to self-sabotage that we initially wonder if we're meant to root against her. But because she's imagined with so much regard by writer-director Chris Rock, and played with so much ferocity by Slow Horses’ Rosalind Eleazar, she is also spectacularly enthralling. We watch Misty Green on the edge of our seats, wondering where she will land even as we can guess at the likeliest trajectory.  Eleazar and Rock, however, manage to make a potentially clichéd story feel surprisingly fresh. He does it by openly acknowledging its depressing familiarity, through a lens of darkly wry wit. She does it by extraordinary force of focus and talent.  Misty is the sort of actor perpetually in demand at LA parties, which fools her into thinking the world is still at her feet. She is gifted, gorgeous, and, at nearly 40, a decade past her prime. She won a Best Supporting Actress Emmy in 2008, and now she's auditioning against young women whose parents loved her. That hurts, but she’s got bigger problems: she’s losing her free apartment (because her boyfriend's wife found her living there), her bipolar brother (Daniel Kaluuya, underused) seems increasingly unstable, and her reputation as ‘difficult’ has finally caught up with her. if there’s any justice, this will land Rosalind Eleazar on top of every casting director’s li

‘A sidewalk is usually poured by a contractor employed by the local municipality. And they do everything they can to keep it smooth.’ Laughing yet? You will be, when you hear it from John Wilson. As fans of his cultishly beloved show How To With John Wilson know, he has a way of turning literally any subject into an object of droll hilarity. So The History of Concrete really is a documentary about concrete. And along the way, we learn that concrete is the second most used material on the planet. (Also, not the same thing as cement!) We attend the World’s Best Bricklayer contest, a ‘mortar workability’ competition, and a lecture on geomorphology. Happily, Wilson has a talent for this kind of thing, so when he opines that ‘gum is like the birdshit of people’, you can expect a deep dive into the vagaries of sidewalk gum, including a field trip with the owner of GumBusters, ‘the only gum vaporiser in NYC’. The gum guy is also a vintner who appears to bottle wine out of his garage, which is the sort of oddball detail upon which Wilson cheerfully and rather brilliantly expands. The movie was initially inspired, for example, by a class he took on how to make a Hallmark movie. The lesson couldn’t be more basic: write a story about a big-city girl finding love with a small-town boy, and you’ve got a potential hit. And yet, this path leads us to a disquisition on the late spiritual leader Sri Chinmoy, New York’s most unusual marathon, and self-transcendence. Wilson has worked with Nat

How you relate to It Ends will depend, in large part, on how you relate to It Ends. To make things even simpler: if circular logic alone is enough to irritate you, this definitely isn’t your movie. What this is, in fact, is a movie in which four friends literally drive around in circles… forever. Soon after Tyler (Mitchell Cole) picks up James (Phinehas Yoon), Day (Akira Jackson), and Fisher (Noah Toth) for a night out, they realise they’ve misread the GPS and missed their turn. Then they discover that there is no turn. And finally, it dawns on them that there is no exit at all. They’re just stuck on an unfamiliar two-lane country road, surrounded by forest on both sides, indefinitely.  This unusual development alone would, obviously, be concerning. But it gets worse when they stretch their legs, and are almost immediately beset upon by zombies. Or are they zombies? Maybe they’re just other people who eventually went crazy driving down the same road forever. Either way, things are not looking great. Being culture-savvy members of Gen-Z, though, they’re pretty good at figuring out what they can figure out. Each relies, ultimately, on their own strengths: ambitious James sets about defining the scenario (Purgatory? Hell? A communal nightmare?) so he can best conquer it. The thoughtful Day times the arrival of the zombies, and discovers that it’s always safe to leave the car for exactly 90 seconds. Anxious Fisher plans games, conversations, and other daily structures, so they do

One Night Only is so brazenly flirtatious, so determined to seduce, you’ll barely even notice how empty and cheap it feels – until the end, when you’re left alone again. Who wouldn’t, after all, enjoy a date with a movie that’s shiny and bright and brilliantly packaged? And who wouldn’t want to spend a couple of hours with Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner, as they fall in and out of low-stakes love? There are some clever ideas in One Night Only, beginning with the intrigue of its central plot: with the United States now run by ultra-conservatives, single Americans are forbidden from sex 364 days a year. The movie opens on the 365th, as everyone in New York is prepping for the Big Event. Owen (Turner) is about to propose to his girlfriend (Maya Hawke), while Allie (Barbaro) is hoping to find romance, or at least a memorable hook-up, in a downtown bar. It is no spoiler – unless you’ve never seen a romcom, in which case surely don’t start here – to say that things go awry, leaving our leads about ten hours to find their way to each other. The journey is, in fairness, pretty entertaining. Director Will Gluck has stuffed the story with so many cameos, he comes dangerously close to name-dropping. But it’s fun to see how much Molly Ringwald, LeVar Burton, Mike Birbiglia, Pete Davidson, Bobby Cannavale, Julia Fox, etc. can make of their minutes onscreen. (FWIW, Burton wins.) Who wants dystopian realities to ruin a feel-good comedy? But eventually, as Owen and Allie bicker and banter

You'd never – truly, not ever – guess that Her Private Hell was crafted by the same director who once made the cultishly revered Pusher or Drive. But it definitely comes from the guy who gave us polarising follow-ups Only God Forgives and The Neon Demon. Chances are, unless you're a Nicolas Winding Refn completist you've never even heard of those. But the threads are similar: a stubborn focus on style over substance, and a conviction that any personal obsession deserves its time onscreen. This is one of those movies so dependent on vibes that the plot itself feels like an afterthought. But here's the idea: Young actress Elle (Yellowjackets' Sophie Thatcher) is living in an eerie hotel suite with her weirdo father Johnny (Dougray Scott), until he abandons her the night before she starts filming a new movie. Then she’s stuck there with her co-stars, the empty-headed Hunter (Kristine Froseth) and the wiser Dominique (standout Havana Rose Liu) – who also happens to be both her girlfriend and her stepmother.   Before he goes, Johnny tells them a ghost story about Leather Man, an enigmatic villain who wears diamonds on his gloves and hunts pretty girls until he can tear their hearts out. Why? Why not? Anyway, one of his victims was the daughter of a young GI (May December’s Charles Melton) many decades ago, and now he's hunting Leather Man through time. Also, Leather Man arrives with the mist, and there’s been an awful lot of mist building around Elle’s hotel lately. It’s so depen

In a season of splashy horror debuts, the most unsettling of them all is also the quietest. Aussie director Adrian Chiarella does offer us a supernatural big bad in Leviticus, but it’s very nearly beside the point. The real terrors here are entirely human: cruelty, fear, ignorance, and alienation. Leviticus is so spare that it requires everyone to work on all cylinders, so it’s pretty remarkable that Chiarella was able to hit such a high level with his first feature. By stripping away anything even remotely extraneous, he’s achieved a palpable sense of gothic anguish. And by casting his leads so perfectly, he’s also made one of the most touching romances of the year. Joe Bird (Talk to Me) is Naim, an Australian teen who’s just been moved to the middle of nowhere by his deceptively passive mother (Mia Wasikowska). Their upheaval seems to have been inspired by her connection with a small community that would be tempting to call cultish. But in truth, the group’s values feel as familiar as those that underpin a great many major religions. Among these is the belief – cited from the Book of Leviticus – that homosexuality is an abomination to be snuffed out immediately.This is a problem for Naim since he’s falling in love for the first time, with the equally disaffected Ryan (Stacy Clausen). When they’re discovered – in two gorgeously-realised scenes as tense as any horror moment – the elders take swift action. As a form of conversion therapy, the two are imbued with a demon that l

Be warned: you will almost certainly leave Power Ballad unable to get the title song and its catchy chorus out of your head. In fact, this cheerful earworm could be the movie’s most memorable element. That said, there’s always space for an easygoing comedy-drama like this one. Who wouldn’t want to spend a couple of hours with Paul Rudd in melting-down mode? Rudd’s Rick Power looks like the ageing rock star he always assumed he’d become, but he actually works as an unabashedly embittered wedding singer. He had a moment, a couple decades back, when he’s sure he could have made it big. Instead, he fell in love, settled down in Dublin with Rachel (Marcella Plunkett), and became a doting parent to Aja (Beth Fallon). He’s happy, at home. But at work… well, every gig feels just like the last, and there’s nothing more depressing than singing other people’s hits. Or so he assumes, until he meets one-time boy band star Danny (Nick Jonas). As a childhood friend of this week’s groom, Danny turns another faceless job into a thrilling all-night jam session in which he and Rick drunkenly write a song together. They part ways the next morning as friends, and so they remain until Danny releases the song, it becomes a global hit, and he takes full credit. For Rick, the experience is literally maddening. The more he hears the song, the crazier he becomes, until he’s risking the life he’s already got by obsessing over the one he might have had. This is a crowd-pleasing wedding band of a movie Di

The best thing about The Christophers may be the fact that it exists at all. At a time when any good news is welcome, Steven Soderbergh has reminded us that, yes, old-school artistry is still valued and viable.  On its surface, this miniscule movie is about a famously difficult painter, Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen), and the young restorer, Lori Butler (Michaela Coel), attempting to exploit his dotage. But this is a Soderbergh joint, with a prickly script written by his frequent collaborator Ed Solomon (Mosaic). So clearly, there’s more to the story than the initial set-up, in which Julian is eking out his final years in resentful boredom until Lori shows up as his inspiring new assistant.She’s actually a forger secretly hired by his children – a mischievous James Corden and a disappointingly underused Jessica Gunning – to finish a series of paintings inspired by a long-ago lover. Julian has hidden his half-done ‘Christopher’ canvases in the attic, so if Lori can sneak up there between tea fetching and brush cleaning, everyone stands to make a fortune when he dies. Well, everyone but Julian, who’s delighted to discover one last opportunity to beat others at their own game.That’s all laid out early, so here’s the only twist you need to know: the cat-and-mouse structure is just a scaffold, for a series of erudite debates between two people with more in common than either realises.  Here’s a reminder that, yes, old-school artistry is still valued  Coel keeps us on edge by leaning

Ah, fall. When leaves start to drop, pumpkin spice kicks in and Oscar insanity takes hold of otherwise reasonable film fans. As ever, the New York Film Festival—which runs from September 25 through October 12—is the best place to find early front-runners for the upcoming awards season. This year’s lineup looks especially intriguing, so the truth is that you’ll find a winner whether you’re hoping for big buzz or sifting for hidden gems. But if you just want to cut to the chase, here are our picks for the likeliest entries in your eventual Oscar pool. Paper Tiger Directed by James Gray Gray’s opening-night crime flick stars Adam Driver and Miles Teller as brothers who get in over their heads while doing business with the Russian mob in 1986 Queens and Brooklyn. Scarlett Johansson’s here too, stealing her scenes as Teller’s strong-willed wife. Sept 25 at 6, 6:15, 6:30, 9, 9:15, 9:30 and 9:45pm; Oct 2 at 1:15pm You Can See Everything Directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim You’ve watched the trailer 17 times. You’ve scoured reviews out of the Telluride Film Fest for any possible spoilers. And now Fielder and Oppenheim’s documentary about disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is finally here. Is the three-hour runtime too much time? Or not nearly enough? Sept 30 at 8pm Photograph: Courtesy Yannis DrakoulidisArtificial Artificial Directed by Luca Guadagnino Andrew Garfield plays OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in Guadagnino’s take on the men who enthusiastically ushered in art

It’s only appropriate that the 25th anniversary edition of the Tribeca Festival is leaning hard into expansion. Tribeca has been about growth since its earliest days, when cofounders Robert DeNiro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff wanted to create a new cinematic community downtown in the aftermath of 9/11. Since then the festival has evolved immeasurably, stretching into concerts, talks, podcasts and gaming. Today one ticket often covers multiple experiences: a show after a concert film, a Q&A paired with a romantic comedy, a cast reunion following a documentary. Indeed, the 2026 festival opens on June 3 with the premiere of Questlove’s documentary Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs. That’s the Weight of the World), to be followed by a performance from Earth, Wind & Fire and the Roots. You’ll also get a two-for-one experience with several other music docs: Frampton, Mumford & Sons: The House Band, Travis Barker: Louder than Fear, Sara Bareilles: Good Grief and Alicia Keys: Girl from Hell’s Kitchen will all be paired with appearances from their central subjects. And while there may not be a movie attached, it could prove tough to pass up the chance to see Bono and Bruce Springsteen in conversation, when the latter receives the festival’s Harry Belafonte Voices for Social Justice Award. Courtesy Tribeca FestivalDoc Meets World: Will Friedle, Danielle Fishel and Rider Strong You’ll also get to do some star-spotting in other corners of the fest. Expect a packed house for t

Technically, the Oscars race began a few weeks ago with the first spate of fall film festivals. But who’d fly out to Telluride or up to Toronto when so many of this year’s Big Films—and their Big Stars—are arriving right here on our doorstep? As ever, the New York Film Festival, which begins on September 26 at Lincoln Center, marks the start of our city’s cinematic season. There are, admittedly, far more films than you’ve likely got time to see. But that’s what we’re here for. So unless you have limitless funds and nothing else to do—in which case, let us introduce you to the $17,500 Gold Pass—consider starting with one of the high-buzz titles below. Screening times and tickets for all movies can be found here—and we’ve included the rest of the essential details at the bottom of this story. After the Hunt Directed by Luca Guadagnino It doesn’t get more electric than this already-controversial opening night entry: Guadagnino directs Julia Roberts as a Yale professor forced to navigate an ethical minefield, when her mentee (Ayo Edebiri) accuses a close colleague (Andrew Garfield) of sexual assault. Sept 29 at 6, 6:15, 6:30, 9:15, 9:45pm Photograph: Vague Notion 2024/ Yorick Le Saux Father Mother Sister Brother Directed by Jim Jarmusch Fresh from a big win at the Venice Film Festival, Jarmusch arrives with a characteristically wry triptych starring Adam Driver, Mayim Bialik, Cate Blanchett, Vicky Krieps, Luka Sabbat and Indya Moore as unsettled siblings. (No less than Tom Wait

How to choose? That’s the welcome dilemma the Tribeca Festival offers us every year, and the 24th edition—which begins on June 4 and runs through June 15—is as packed as ever. Festival programmer Vincent Cassous calls Tribeca “a bridge between different viewpoints and cultures,” but the fest’s famously expansive reach also spans genres, mediums and even—name be damned—neighborhoods. Actually, the lineup is so vast that organizers dropped “Film” from the festival’s original title several years ago. But cinema still remains at the center, with literally hundreds of shorts, features, and documentaries on offer. That said, any Tribeca event is designed to be a full experience; as Cassous says, “The films don’t end with the credits!”  In other words, stick around for a second act—which at this fest could include an insightful conversation about the movie you just watched, or a full-on concert from the film’s subject. The main exception, sadly, was Wednesday’s opening night entry, the intimate biography Billy Joel: And So It Goes. Joel has, unfortunately, had to cancel upcoming appearances while he recuperates from a brain injury. However, this year’s program is packed with music docs, and fans of Eddie Vedder (Matter of Time) Billy Idol (Billy Idol Should Be Dead), Becky G (Rebbeca), and De La Soul and Rakim (The Sixth Borough) can expect live performances at the films’ premieres. (Planned appearances are listed on the site, but it's worth noting that stars and filmmakers often su

For some people, fall means apple-picking and questionable latte choices. For others, it’s time to start planning early Oscar bets. This is, after all, the season of Prestige Films, featuring big stars and bigger ambitions. Happily, the New York Film Festival—which opens September 27 and runs through October 14—is a one-stop shop for cinephiles. As always, this year’s NYFF line-up offers a little of everything, and a lot of awards potential. The entire slate is worth checking out, but you won’t go wrong by starting here: Oscar Bait These are among the top titles leading awards talk (so far): Nickel Boys RaMell Ross’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel—which opens this year’s festival—tells the story of two Black teen boys sent to an abusive reform school in 1962 Florida. The Brutalist It’s long—215 minutes to be exact—but critics are already raving about Brady Corbet’s mid century epic, in which the life of a Hungarian architect (Adrien Brody) is redefined by a wealthy patron (Guy Pearce). Read our review Emilia Pérez The buzz is building around Jacques Audiard’s crime musical—you have to see it to get it—co starring Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Adriana Paz and Selena Gomez (all of whom shared the Best Actress trophy at Cannes).  Read our review Hard Truths Marianne Jean-Baptiste nabbed a 1997 Oscar nomination for her work in Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies. They reunite for an intimate drama that earned her an effusive ovation at the Toronto Film Festiv

The Tribeca Festival has long prided itself on having something for everyone. But what it has most of all is, well, everyone: A-listers dotting intimate indies, career conversations delving deep, professional panels packed with celebrity insights. This year’s festival begins on June 5 with the biographical documentary Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge—to be followed, through June 16, by a tremendous lineup of streaming, gaming, podcast, music, and design events. That said, Tribeca Festival really does remain a film festival at heart. What’s more, the added bonus is where TF forever excels. Want some standup with your screening? Judy Gold, Margaret Cho, and Joel Kim Booster will deliver exactly that before the documentary Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution, about the cultural influence of queer comics. How about a live concert after your concert movie? Consider one of the festival’s many music docs: premieres about Ani DiFranco (1-800-On-Her-Own), Melissa Etheridge (I’m Not Broken), and Renée Elise Goldsberry (Satisfied) will be followed by performances from their very subjects. Photograph: courtesy of 1-800-ON-HER-OWN and Tribeca Festival And that’s just for starters. Michael Angarano, who directed and stars in the road trip dramedy Sacramento, acknowledges that “audiences have a lot of ways to view something these days. But seeing a film at a festival is like going to an off-Broadway play: it’s appreciating the art form, rather than just pure commerce. It’s also excitin

Over the last decade, the vast majority of nonfiction Oscar nominees—and nine out of 10 feature winners—have stopped off at DOC NYC before continuing their red carpet tours. This isn’t exactly a surprise, considering that the 14-year-old event is now the biggest documentary film festival in the country. But it does make things awfully easy for anyone who wants to get a jump on awards season. Even more convenient? Lots of this year’s entries can be seen on the big screen or from the comfort of your couch. While the in-person festival runs from November 8-16, many of the films will also be available online through November 26.  Nonfiction films often tend to tackle big issues, but right now they may feel even more impactful than ever. “The films in this year’s program,” says artistic director Jaie Laplante, “reassure us that problems can be addressed, that human creativity and kindness can find a way forward through the darkness, that connection remains possible and that hope for better times is palpable.” You’ll find this admirable mission throughout nearly two dozen thematic sections, which focus on subjects ranging from international to local, universal to intimate. And yes, choosing among 243 films can be, as Laplante notes, “a lot to wrap your head around.” So you may want to start with the prestigious, buzz-heavy Short List and Winner’s Circle sections, which hold many of the likeliest nominees. Here you’ll find the North Korean escapees of Beyond Utopia, Estonian secret-

You may have noticed that the film industry is, shall we say, experiencing a touch of turmoil these days. While the inescapable successes of Barbie and Oppenheimer balance one side of the scale, an upended system battling multiple strikes and stoppages sits pretty heavily on the other. Which makes the latest edition of the New York Film Festival more essential than ever. Then again, while the details may change from one year to the next, the festival's objectives have remained remarkably steady throughout its six decades. NYFF has always been thoughtfully curated, with a sensibility that is simultaneously current and timeless. “I hope that [this year’s] festival does what it has done every year since 1963,” affirms artistic director Dennis Lim. “Which is simply to make a case for cinema as a vital art form, and prove that the art of film is in robust health despite the disruptive changes that have always been part of its history.”  RECOMMENDED: A guide to the New York Film Festival 2023 Photograph: Francois Duhamel | Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman in ‘May December’ He and his team at Lincoln Center have more than achieved their goal, with an impressively strong slate that’s likely to serve as a substantial sneak preview for the upcoming awards season. Many of the movies at NYFF will be making their North American premieres, after having screened to ovations at international festivals. Among the high-profile films already drawing rave reviews is Todd Haynes’ May December

Here’s the secret truth about film festivals: unless you’re starring in a premiere yourself, most of them inspire a lot of work at best, and soul-sucking FOMO at worst. Either you have to pay a fortune to get there and spend half your time trying to land on the right list (hi Sundance!), or you’re stuck at home scrolling through TikTok just to catch a five-second glimpse of Leo on a red carpet (looking at you, Cannes). In 2002, the Tribeca Film Festival broke into this entrenched world as a deliberately brash newcomer. Intent on crafting a festival by and for New Yorkers, creators Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff upended every annoying element that keeps most fans on the outside peeping in. The festival has grown like ivy in the decades since, and now offers options for everyone. RECOMMENDED: The Tribeca Festival 2023 guide “We pride ourselves on being a storytelling festival, so the breadth of the kinds of events you can find at Tribeca is quite unique,” festival director Cara Cusumano says of this year’s line-up. She’s not kidding. You want to be the first to see a big-buzz movie? Sit in on conversations between A-listers? Attend live performances, bring the kids, try out new immersive experiences? At Tribeca, you don’t need to know anyone, pull any strings, or get on any lists to spot stars and sneak peeks.  How to attend Tribeca Festival Honestly, the biggest issue you’re going to face is figuring out how to pare down your options. Cusumano has a couple o