NYFF is back for its 64th annual run from September 25 through October 12, and Time Out Worldwide is treating the festival as an early map of Oscar season. The lineup looks especially intriguing because it gathers films that could shape the awards conversation before the fall campaign hardens.
The opening-night crime flick leads the field with Adam Driver and Miles Teller as brothers doing business with the Russian mob in 1986 Queens and Brooklyn, with Scarlett Johansson as Teller’s strong-willed wife. It screens on Sept. 25 at 6, 6:15, 6:30, 9, 9:15, 9:30 and 9:45pm, then returns Oct. 2 at 1:15pm, a heavy scheduling push that signals the festival wants multiple entry points for the same title.
Elizabeth Holmes and AI in Luca
Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim bring a three-hour documentary about disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, while Andrew Garfield plays OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in Luca Guadagnino’s film about the men who enthusiastically ushered in artificial intelligence. Monica Barbaro, Cooper Hoffman and Jason Schwartzman also costar, and Damon Albarn provided the score.
That pairing gives the festival two different kinds of awards-season bait: a long-form documentary about a business scandal and a narrative built around the people who pushed AI into the center of public life. It also puts Guadagnino’s film under an extra layer of scrutiny, because the article presents the lineup as Oscar-worthy while also asking whether any AI was used in making the movie.
Jesse Eisenberg’s musical score
Julianne Moore plays a New Jersey housewife who finds new life in local theater, while Paul Giamatti plays the pretentious director running the show. Jesse Eisenberg is the writer-director-costar, and he crafted the central musical’s score and lyrics, which gives the comedy a rare level of authorship across acting, writing and music.
The comedy screens Oct. 7 at 8:30pm, Oct. 8 at 10am and 3:15pm, and Oct. 10 at 10:45am. Those multiple showings make it one of the easier titles for awards watchers to catch, and they turn Eisenberg’s music-heavy project into a more visible test case for how far a festival comedy can travel.
DuVernay and the 14th Amendment
Ava DuVernay returns after 13th with a new film about citizenship, due process and the many ways in which the 14th Amendment is being undermined in coldly systematic fashion. On the eve of Donald Trump’s first term, 13th arrived as a political benchmark; this new work keeps the legal frame but shifts the pressure to present-tense constitutional erosion.
Which of the 13 films will actually emerge as the strongest Oscar contenders is the real question now. NYFF is not handing out trophies, but it is clearly doing what the best fall festival does: sorting the films that will be discussed in the weeks that follow from the ones that will fade once the run from September 25 through October 12 ends.
