Now in its 63rd year, Film at Lincoln Center’s New York Film Festival (aka NYFF) can boast proudly about being one of the longest-running film festivals within the United States and even North America. When it began in 1963, it was looking to Europe, where film festivals like Cannes, Berlin (Berlinale), and Venice (Bienalle) were thriving, introducing the world to many great filmmaking legends. The first New York Film Festival launched with Luis Buñuel’s Exterminating Angels, and for over a decade, European filmmakers would tend to get the Opening Night slot.

That’s certainly the case this year, as the whole shebang kicks off on Friday, September 26 with the North American premiere of Italian master Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, and Ayo Edebiri from The Bear. In the film, Roberts plays philosophy professor, Dr. Imhoff, who gets caught up in a scandal at her college when her protégée Maggie (Edebiri) accuses her friend and colleague Hank (Garfield) of sexual assault. This film debuted last month at the Venice Film Festival (aka Bienalle), so NYFF will be its North American premiere, but it’s Guadagnino’s second year in a row with a film at the fest.

Another Biennalle debut, Jim Jarmusch’s latest, Father Mother Sister Brother, had the honor of being this year’s recipient of the Golden Lion for best film, and the frequent NYFF attendee’s film is receiving the prestigious Centrepiece slot on October 3 with Jarmusch on-hand for a QnA and intro. Despite the title, the cast is mostly made up of women, but the cast includes Adam Driver, Cate Blanchett, Charlotte Rampling, Vicky Krieps, Mayim Bialik, Tom Waits, and Sarah Greene, as it looks at the story of estranged siblings, who are reunited to face their relationships with their parents.

Bradley Cooper’s previous film, Maestro, received a major boost from its debut at NYFF, so it makes sense for him to bring its follow-up, Is This Thing On?, to Lincoln Center, this time as the Closing Night film, and as one of the festival’s World Premieres ahead of its December 19 release by Searchlight Studios. The movie stars Will Arnett as Alex, a middled-aged stand-up comic whose being divorced by his wife Tess, played by Laura Dern.

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, Scott Cooper’s biopic starring The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White as the film’s titular Jersey rock icon, will be receiving its New York premiere as a Spotlight Gala, the movie having only played at the Telluride Film Festival so far. White is already being heralded as a potential Oscar frontrunner for his performance, which shouldn’t be surprising, since Jeff Bridges won the Oscar after starring in Cooper’s Crazy Heart. White is joined by recent Emmy winner and Oscar nominee Jeremy Strong as Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau, Emmy winners Stephen Graham and Paul Walter Hauser, Gaby Hoffman, David Krumholtz, and Odessa Young.

The New York Film Festival isn’t generally known for having many World Premieres, since it falls so much later than Venice, Telluride, and the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). There are definitely exceptions and besides Bradley Cooper’s film, this year’s World Premieres are a veritable family affair, including Anemone, the directorial debut by Ronan Day-Lewis, starring his father Daniel Day-Lewis, who has been such a regular staple at Lincoln Center from Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread – neither which were at NYFF but premiered at Lincoln Center – as well as Spielberg’s Lincoln, which did premiere at NYFF.

If that wasn’t enough, Ronan’s mother, Rebecca Miller, will be world premiering the entirety of her doc mini-series, Mr. Scorsese, on October 4, about another one of  New York’s luminaries ahead of its debut on Apple TV+. Ben Stiller takes the familial connections even further by using the NYFF for the World Premire of his doc Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost on October 5, about his beloved comedian parents, Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, which will also be on Apple TV+.

Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow returns with her latest film, A House of Dynamite, her first feature film in eight years, this one for Netflix and written by Noah Oppenheim. With an ensemble cast that includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, and Tracy Letts, it’s a political thriller involving a military outpost that detects an unidentified incoming missile. It’s Bigelow’s return to NYFF for the first time in thirty years, when her film Strange Days was the festival’s Centrepiece. (A House of Dynamite review by Adriano Ercolani)

Filmmaker Noah Baumbach is such a NYFF regular that his last two movies, Marriage Story and White Noise, were the Centrepiece and Opening Night galas respectively, so it’s little surprise that his latest, Jay Kelly, will have its New York premiere on Monday, September 29. Baumbach’s new movie for Netflix stars George Clooney as the title character, the last great movie star who is going through a crisis, and it reunites Baumbach with Adam Sandler, who plays Kelly’s long-time manager. (Jay Kelly review)

Richard Linklater has not one but two movies at this year’s NYFF, not too long after his film Last Flag Flying was the Opening Night film at NYFF55. Blue Moon reunites Linklater with his long-time collaborator, Ethan Hawke, playing lyricist Lorenz Hart, whose collaborations with Richard Rodgers contributed greatly to the Great American Songbook. To be released by Sony Pictures Classics in October, the film co-stars Andrew Scott, Margaret Qualley, and Bobby Cannacale. Literally a day later, Linklater’s black-and-white Nouvelle Vague will get its New York premiere, this one looking at the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless with French actor Guillaume Marbeck playing Godard and Zoey Deutch playing Jean Seberg. This one will be released by Netflix and will actually get a one-week run at Film at Lincoln Center starting October 31, screening in 35mm.

Linklater isn’t the only American filmmaker turning to France as Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life stars Jodie Foster in what NYFF is calling her “first French-language performance” – wasn’t she in Jeunet’s A Very Long Engagement? (I honestly can’t remember if she spoke English in that one). The crime-thriller has Ms. Foster playing neurotic American  psychoanalyst, Dr. Lilian Steiner, whose patient commits suicide in a suspicious manner. Also starring NYFF regular Mathieur Amalric, it plays on October 5 and 6 at Lincoln Center following its Venice debut. Sony Pictures Classics will release that movie on November 26.

Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice has already been playing a number of other festivals, but NYFF presents its U.S. Premiere of Director Park’s follow-up to Decision to Leave, which played NYFF60. His new thriller stars Lee Byung-hun (Squid Game) as a middle-aged family man who has been laid off from his job at a paper manufacturing company, who goes far to win over a potential new employer. It’s based on Donald E. Westlake’s novel, The Ax, and NEON will release the movie later this year.

Kelly Reichardt returns to NYFF with The Mastermind, her follow-up to Showing Up, which also played at NYFF60. This one stars Josh O’Connor as a family man living in ‘70s Framingham, Massachusetts, who decides to stage a heist of the local art museum. Also starring Bill Camp, Hope Davis, Gaby Hoffman, and John Magaro, this will also screen at FilmLinc via MUBI beginning October 17. Former NYFF director Kent Jones shifted over to filmmaking, and he’s bringing his latest film Late Fame to this year’s fest, working from a script by Samy Burch (who wrote last year’s fest opener, May December) with Willem Dafoe playing a long-forgotten New York poet who has encounters with two young admirers, played by Edmundo Donova and Greta Lee (Past Lives).

Laura Poitras’ documentary All The Beauty and the Bloodshed played at the NYFF a few years after she won the Oscar for Citizenfour, her Edward Snowden doc, which also premiered at NYFF. Co-directed with Mark Obenhaus, Poitras’ new doc Cover-Up continues its festival run with its look at political journalist Seymour Hersh, whose reporting has shined a lot on constitutional wrongdoings and cover-ups from Vietnam to Abu Ghraib. Another doc to keep an eye out for come Oscar season is Geeta Gandbhir’s The Perfect Neighbor, which premiered at Sundance and has been playing various festivals all year. Ms. Gandbhir’s film is about a disagreement between two Florida neighbors that turns deadly due to the state’s “stand your ground” laws. The New York Film Festival might be its last festival stop before streaming on Netflix starting October 17.

Since Cinema Daily US is a Japanese-run movie site, I’d be remiss not to mention some of the films from the land of the Rising Sun, which includes both animated and live action films. Anime filmmaker Mamoru Hosoda’s Belle played at NYFF59, and he returns with the animated Scarlet, an animated fantasy epic that Sony Pictures Classics will release in December, following its opening in Japan. Mamoru Oshii’s gorgeous 1985 animated film  Angel’s Egg will be receiving a 4k restoration re-release by GKIDS on November 19, but Filmlinc is including it as part of NYFF63’s “Revivals” section. Also of interest, Masao Adach’s Escape, plays as part of NYFF’s “Currents” section, as the filmmaker celebrates six decades of making movies.

The New York Film Festival often showcases Cannes award winners and other festival favorites, many of which have been selected for their country’s representation in the Oscars’ International Feature category. That’s the case with The Secret Agent, the latest film from Kleber Mendonça Filho, whose film Bacurau played NYFF six years ago, with it being Brazil’s selection following the country’s first Oscar win earlier this year. The film stars Wagner Moura of last year’s Civil War, who won a Best Actor award at Cannes, while Filho won Best Director.

Long in conflict with his home country, who once legit banned him from making films, Persian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s Cannes Palme d’Or-winning film, It Was Just an Accident, will be submitted by France instead, and it’s thought to have decent odds to win. Its biggest competition will be Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, Norway’s selection, which has also won some festival awards going back to the same Cannes. Working in its favor at the Oscars are its better-known Scandinavian stars, including Stellan Skarsgård and Renate Reinsve from The Worst Person in the World, as well as American Elle Fanning.

The Philippines’ selection is Lav Diaz’s biopic Magellan, starring Gael Garcia Bernal as the famed Portugese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, following his 16th Century journey to Southeast Asia. Janus Films will release the movie eventually after its festival run. Another country whose submissions will play at this year’s NYFF is Oliver Laxe’s Sirât, Spain’s submission, which will also get a one-week run at Film at Lincoln Center, beginning November 14. 

Oddly, Italy has not decided on its Oscar selection just yet, so Paolo Sorrentino’s latest, La Grazia, which won a number of awards at Venice, may receive that honor, since Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty won the Oscar for his country and another of his films received an Oscar nomination after that. Picking La Grazia makes sense, and MUBI will be releasing that movie as well.

Following his two previous movies (Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn) screening at NYFF, Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude returns to NYFF with his nearly three-hour take on Dracula, who for those who don’t know, was Romanian. This is not an adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel but more of a comedy with a few guest appearances, notably by the likes of Francis Ford Coppola. Resurrection, the latest film from Bi Gan (Long Day’s Journey into Night), has received quite a bit of praise since debuting at Cannes in May, said to be a love letter to cinema with an anthology of stories in different genres.

French filmmaker Claire Denis is another decades-long FilmLinc staple, and her new film The Fence, which stars Isaach de Bankolé from last year’s The Brutalist as a West African whose brother was killed in a work accident at a white-run construction site, and he demands the body back from the site’s foreman, played by Matt Dillon. Two other returning filmmakers to NYFF are Spanish filmmaker Carla Simón with Romería and Argentina’s Lucrecia Martel with Nuestra Tierra (Landmarks), both which have reached much critical praise from their previous festival screenings.

It’s not often when movies that premiere at Sundance in January end up screening at NYFF, but filmmaker Ira Sachs (Passages) is a FilmLinc regular, and his new movie, Peter Hujar’s Day, feels like such a New York City movie, it made perfect sense for it to be shown. It stars Ben Whishaw as photographer Hujar as he’s being interviewed by Rebecca Hall’s Linda Rosenkrantz in 1974 for a book she’d write, essentially covering a day in the life of the gay artist. (You can read Cinema Daily US’ review from Sundance here.) Another Sundance premiere at this year’s NYFF is Mary Bronstein’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, which has been getting attention for Rose Byrne’s appearance all year, and it will hit theaters on October 10.

And of course, FilmLinc director Dennis Lim has programmed the latest film from South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo, What Does That Nature Say to You, as part of this year’s festival, because those two must have grown close during the book that Lim wrote. 

Note that many NYFF screenings have already sold out, but if you have the time and energy to stand in line, it’s always good to get into the standby line early. Also, as in recent years, many of this year’s NYFF films will be playing at venues all over Manhattan and the other boroughs, so sometimes a little travelling might pay off. Check out the respective film pages of any movies you’re interested in seeing and be among the first New Yorkers to see many of these movies. And if you do miss any of the above, some of the movies will eventually be playing at Lincoln Center before year’s end.

The 63rd New York Film Festival runs from Friday, September 26, until October 13. Look for more reviews and interviews over the coming weeks, and also, check out the trailer for the 63rd New York Film Festival below: