What To Expect At The 2024 New York Film Festival

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Who's on the line-up?

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Tickets are on sale now for the 62nd annual New York Film Festival (NYFF) – though we’re sure the Letterboxd fans in the room are well aware. Here’s exactly what to expect in 2024.

Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore in The Room Next Door

What Is The New York Film Festival?

New York Film Festival (NYFF) is an annual film festival hosted by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. It was founded in 1963 by film critics Richard Roud and Amos Vogel, who wanted to bring the world’s best cinema to New York audiences, emphasising artistic excellence over commercial appeal. From the beginning, NYFF has showcased works by both established and emerging filmmakers alike, so you can expect a varied roster each year. International films, independent cinema and innovative works pushing the boundaries of filmmaking all appear on the slate every year.

Unlike many other of the world’s prestigious film festivals, NYFF is not a competition, focussing entirely on creativity and artistic achievements rather than quantifiable awards.

What’s On The NYFF Schedule For 2024?

The New York Film Festival line-up is split into the following categories: Main Slate, Spotlight, Currents and Revivals.

Saoirse Ronan in Blitz

Main Slate

Thirty-two films make up NYFF’s 2024 Main Slate, representing 24 countries, with 18 directors making their debut in this section. These films make up the core of the Festival, featuring the line-up’s most prestigious films handpicked from across the globe. ‘The festival’s ambition is to reflect the state of cinema in a given year, which often means also reflecting the state of the world,’ says the Festival’s artistic director Dennis Lim. ‘The most notable thing about the films in the Main Slate […] is the degree to which they emphasise cinema’s relationship to reality. They are reminders that, in the hands of its most vital practitioners, film has the capacity to reckon with, intervene in, and reimagine the world.’

The 2024 Main Slate includes:

Nickel Boys, directed by RaMell Ross – Opening Night
The Room Next Door, directed by Pedro Almodóvar – Centerpiece
Blitz, directed by Steve McQueen – Closing Night
All We Imagine as Light, directed by Payal Kapadia
Anora, directed by Sean Baker
April, directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili
The Brutalist, directed by Brady Corbet
By the Stream, directed by Hong Sangsoo
Caught by the Tides, directed by Jia Zhangke
Dahomey, directed by Mati Diop
The Damned, directed by Roberto Minervini
Eephus, directed by Carson Lund
Grand Tour, directed by Miguel Gomes
Happyend, directed by Neo Sora
Hard Truths, directed by Mike Leigh
Harvest, directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari
Misericordia, directed by Alain Guiraudie
My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow, directed by Julia Loktev
No Other Land, directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor
Oh, Canada, directed by Paul Schrader
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, directed by Rungano Nyoni
Pepe, directed by Nelson Carlos de los Santos Arias
The Seed of the Sacred Fig, directed by Mohammad Rasoulof
The Shrouds, directed by David Cronenberg
Stranger Eyes, directed by Yeo Siew Hua
Suburban Fury, directed by Robinson Devor
Transamazonia, directed by Pia Marais
A Traveler’s Needs, directed by Hong Sangsoo
Việt and Nam, directed by Trương Minh Quý
Who by Fire, directed by Philippe Lesage
Youth (Hard Times), directed by Wang Bing
Youth (Homecoming), directed by Wang Bing

Daniel Craig in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer

Spotlight

In the Spotlight line-up, find a curated selection of films expected to make a splash, whether that’s thanks to big-name directors or stars, or films that have generated buzz at other festivals during the season. In short, while the Main Slate features work attracting film auteurs and artistically significant flicks, the Spotlight brings attention to higher profile works you might even get to see in the cinema. This year, that includes:

The US premiere of Luca Guadagnino’s Queer based on William S. Burroughs’ Beat Generation work and starring Daniel Craig
Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra’s bullfighting documentary, Afternoons of Solitude
Pablo Larraín’s Maria starring Angelina Jolie as legendary opera singer Maria Callas in her final days
North American premiere of Pavements, Alex Ross Perry’s anti-biodoc about indie rock band Pavement
North American premiere of TWST/Things We Said Today, Andrei Ujică’s archival film about the Beatles’ in NYC for their sold-out 1965 Shea Stadium concert
US premiere of Elton John: Never Too Late, directed by R.J. Cutler and David Furnish
Jacques Audiard’s Cannes Jury Prize winner Emilia Pérez, starring Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz
Petra Costa’s Apocalypse in the Tropics looking at the chilling rise of the far right in Brazil
Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here, a political drama telling the true story of a woman’s search for the truth about her husband’s kidnapping by the Brazilian government
Brett Story and Stephen Maing’s documentary Union, following the day-to-day struggles of the Amazon Labor Union and the events leading up to its historic 2022 vote
Rumours, Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson’s sci-fi satire of world leaders at the annual G7 summit
Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, starring Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin as cousins trying to reconnect on a pilgrimage to the Polish hometown of their grandmother, a Holocaust survivor
US premiere of Jean-Luc Godard’s Scénarios, two years after his death
US premiere of Leos Carax’s It’s Not Me
The Friend, Scott McGehee and David Siegel adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s novel of the same name starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray

A still from Jem Cohen’s Little, Big, and Far

Currents

This section of the Festival brings 12 more feature films to the line-up as well as 28 short films, with work spanning more than 20 countries. The idea is to complement the Main Slate, showcasing the state of contemporary cinema and emphasising new voices and innovative forms. The Centrepiece is Jem Cohen’s Little, Big, and Far, a stargazing documentary centred on an Austrian astronomer named Karl who journeys to a Greek island in search of the darkest sky against which to view the cosmos. You can see the full Currents line up here.

Hellraiser by Clive Barker

Revivals

Revivals at the New York Film Festival is all about classics that have been newly remastered, restored or preserved, featuring classics, rarities and (re)discoveries that were groundbreaking in their time. In 2024, the line-up includes:

Bona by Lino Brocka, 1980, Philippines
Camp de Thiaroye by Ousmane Sembène & Thierno Faty Sow, 1988, Senegal/Algeria/Tunisia
Compensation by Zeinabu irene Davis, 1999, US
The Fall of Otrar by Ardak Amirkulov, 1991, Kazakhstan/USSR
Four Nights of a Dreamer by Robert Bresson, 1971, France
Hellraiser by Clive Barker, 1987, UK
Model by Frederick Wiseman, 1981, USA
La Musica by Marguerite Duras & Paul Seban, 1966, France
Nightshift by Robina Rose, 1981, UK
Northern Lights by John Hanson & Rob Nilsson, 1978, USA
Reporters by Raymond Depardon, 1981, France
The Sealed Soil by Marva Nabili, 1977, Iran