The exploitation of the poor guy by corporations is a universal affliction. So is the desire to make art about it. No filmmaker today tackles the subject with as much gusto as Romanian auteur Radu Jude. While other directors make grand gestures about societal inequities, dating themselves with their stories and form, Jude is happy to launch a Molotov cocktail at everything that came before him. He is one of the freest filmmakers working right now—unencumbered by rules, politesse, or good taste.

Continue reading ‘Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World’ Review: A Thrillingly Vivid Look At Modern Malaise [NYFF] at The Playlist.

With SAG and WGA strikes and little talent to promote them, the deep worry about this fall was that festival season would suffer. And guess again, as the 2023 New York Film Festival proves, anything is but the case. The 61st edition of NYFF announced the inclusion of Bradley Cooper’s much-anticipated “Maestro” to lead its Spotlight section, and today, the complete Spotlight section has been announced, and it’s fantastic.

Continue reading Full 2023 NYFF Spotlight: Emma Stone Leads With The Safdies & Nathan Fielder’s ‘Curse,’ & New Yorgos Lanthimos Short & More at The Playlist.

The SAG and WGA strikes threatened to really ruin the fall film festival season for a minute there. And while some films eventually did bail, not wanting to risk the idea of now acting talent there to promote it— “Challengers” and “Dune 2” for two examples—despite the challenges of promotion and worries around it, the 2023 fall film festival selections have been excellent at all of the festivals.

Continue reading ‘Maestro’: Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein Epic Will Make Its North American Premiere At NYFF 2023 at The Playlist.

With a formalist’s eye for visual symmetry, an architect’s sense of structure, and a poet’s ability to stoke the passions raging inside his precisely balanced frames, Park Chan-wook makes ferociously controlled films about ferocious, uncontrollable impulses. Ever since his international breakthrough with 2003’s “Oldboy,” remembered most for the oft-imitated hallway sequence in which a hammer-wielding Choi Min-sik lays waste to enemy waves in a righteous bid for freedom, the South Korean filmmaker has been widely associated with operatic bursts of sexuality and extreme violence, the kind often considered a signature of the New Korean Cinema. 

Park has hardly shied from this notoriety, even binding “Oldboy” together with “Sympathy for Mr.

Continue reading ‘Decision To Leave’ Director Park Chan-Wook On His Romantic Detective Noir & “Opening Your Eyes Within The Mist” [NYFF] at The Playlist.

Martin Scorsese was at the New York Film Festival last night to introduce his new documentary with David Tedeschi, “Personality Crisis: One Night Only,” about the legendary proto-punk band The New York Dolls. Scorsese in his hometown at NYFF? That’s awesome enough. But IndieWire reports that the director had more than just a conventional intro to his film to share with audience members. On top of that, Scorsese also sounded off on the state of moviegoing, with its “repulsive” emphasis on box office numbers over artistic vision.

Continue reading Martin Scorsese Laments The Film Industry’s “Repulsive” Obsession With Box Office Numbers At The NYFF Premiere Of His New Doc at The Playlist.

About twenty minutes into “Till” — the 1955 story of Emmett Till’s brutal murder — a moment encapsulating this conventional, elegantly rendered biopic’s greatest asset arises. An anxious Mamie Till-Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler), the mother of 14-year-old Emmett (she affectionately calls her son Bo), plays poker in the living room of her Chicago home with two of her girlfriends. The camera circles around the outside of their table as her friends chide Mamie to reveal what’s ailing her.

Continue reading ‘Till’ Review: Danielle Deadwyler Delivers A Visceral Performance In Chinonye Chukwu’s Urgent Pursuit Of Justice [NYFF] at The Playlist.

A24 has several highly anticipated new films on their fall slate, including Darren Aronofsky’s “The Whale” and Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter.” The third world premiere you should be paying attention to is Elegance Bratton‘s narrative directorial debut, “The Inspection.” And not just because the autobiographical elements from Bratton’s life it features on screen.

READ MORE: NYFF 2022 Adds World Premieres: “She Said,” and New Docs By Martin Scorsese, Elvis Mitchell, and more

Set to debut at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and close the 2022 New York Film Festival, “The Inspection” centers on Ellis (Tony and Emmy Award nominee Jeremy Pope), a gay, black man who decides to join the Marines might be the only hope he has in life.

Continue reading ‘The Inspection’ Trailer: Gabrielle Union & Jeremy Pope Star In A24’s Fall Fest Surprise at The Playlist.

Yes, we premiered the trailer for the 60th New York Film Festival—which runs September 30–October 16, 2022—this morning, but there’s more. Film at Lincoln Center announced the Spotlight section for NYFF today and added a few world premieres in the line-up while there were at it.

READ MORE: NYFF 2022 Exclusive Teaser: Noah Baumbach, Claire Denis, Paul Schrader & More Lead The 60th Edition Of The Event

The highlight of these world premieres is Maria Schrader’s drama “She Said,” starring Zoe Kazan and Carey Mulligan, detailing the New York Times investigation that uncovered decades of sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood and took down former studio mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Continue reading NYFF 2022 Adds World Premieres: ‘She Said,’ & New Docs By Martin Scorsese, Elvis Mitchell & More at The Playlist.

Vincent Lindon is the heart of “Titane.” Since French director Julia Ducournau’s provocative new film premiered at Cannes Film Festival, making her the second woman to win the coveted Palme d’Or, similar to her first film “Raw,” it’s developed a near-mythical reputation as one of the wildest films ever. However, this wild movie is also a tender story, one concerning the love and loneliness felt by a mourning father. That father, Vincent, is portrayed by Lindon. 

READ MORE: ‘Titane’: The New Flesh Is Thriving, Living Rent-Free in Julia Ducournau’s F*cked Up Metallica Brain [Cannes Review]

In “Titane,” Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) is a well-known, terse showgirl dancing in an automotive showroom.

Continue reading ‘Titane’: Vincent Lindon On Finding Heart In Absurdism, Hating Dancing & Comparing The Wild Film To ‘The Shape Of Water’ [NYFF] at The Playlist.

South Korean film director Hong Sang-soo is cinema’s reigning poet of strained politeness, awkward confrontation, and space-filling chatter. In film after film—there are two Hongs at this year’s New York Film Festival, which is about average for the prolific South Korean—characters meet in the street or on a beach, in restaurants or hotels, and talk about the weather or the food in front of them, in banal and repetitious dialogue.

Continue reading ‘Introduction’ Is Hong Sang-Soo Stripping Down His Artistry To its Simplest, Most Telling Gestures [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

“When I write, I always write about the image first,” explains French director Julia Ducournau. It’s her indelible, singular use of imagery that made her previous film, “Raw,” about a vegetarian who becomes a cannibal, a movie that led to an audience member fainting during a 2016 screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. Her same magic with the image, when words may come up short, is apparent in her follow-up, the intoxicating love story: “Titane.” 

READ MORE: ‘Titane’: The New Flesh Is Thriving, Living Rent-Free in Julia Ducournau’s F*cked Up Metallica Brain [Cannes Review]

“Titane” is one of those movies where even if someone explained the plot to you, you still wouldn’t be spoiled because seeing is truly believing.

Continue reading ‘Titane’: Julia Ducournau Talks Her Provocative New Film, ‘The Macarena’ & More [NYFF Interview] at The Playlist.

Premiering this week at the New York Film Festival, filmmaker Jane Campion’s mesmerizing neo-Western “The Power Of The Dog” is one of the year’s most anticipated films. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the cruel and fiercely repressed rancher Phil Burbank, it gracefully lays bare the emotion and agony of those living alongside him on a Montana cattle ranch in the 1920s. Through his fraught relationships with brother George (Jesse Plemons), his new wife Rose (Kirsten Dunst), and her delicate son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Campion’s story builds in force until it accrues the grand, gratifying weight of a Greek tragedy. 

READ MORE: New York Film Festival 2021: The 17 Most Anticipated Films

“I see this film as a departure from my other films, but it’s perhaps a nice bookend to ‘The Piano,’ which is from the feminine perspective,” said Campion during a Friday NYFF press conference in New York.

Continue reading ‘Power Of The Dog’: Jane Campion & The Cast Talk The “Violent Beauty Of The Masculine Myth” [NYFF] at The Playlist.

Let’s get this out of the way out front: Yes, the Romanian film “Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn,” winner of the Golden Bear at the 2021 Berlinale, opens with about three and a half minutes of hardcore pornography. Teacher Emilia (Katia Pascariu) and her husband Eugen go at it on digital video, complete with a little light flagellation, porn-informed dirty talk, and unsimulated oral and penetrative intercourse.

Continue reading ‘Bad Luck Banging Or Loony Porn’ The Golden Bear Winner Delivers The Goods [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

Unfolding like an arthouse version of that joke about what you get when you play a country song backward (you wife, your truck, and your dog come back), Miguel Gomes and Maureen Fazendeiro’s “The Tsugua Diaries” chronicles a fictional 2020 film shoot abandoned due to a COVID protocol breach, in a backward-running narrative. An opening title card reads “Day 22,” and, eventually, a sequence at a time, “The Tsugua Diaries” rewinds to Day 1, the film-within-the-film gets its sound guy back, gets its permits back, and its shared sense of artistic purpose returns…

READ MORE: New York Film Festival 2021: The 17 Most Anticipated Films

With its inward-turned focus and quasi-incestuous relationships, every film shoot is a “bubble” to use the era-appropriate term.

Continue reading ‘The Tsugua Diaries’: Miguel Gomes & Maureen Fazendeiro Deconstruct Filmmaking In A Meta-Arthouse ‘Tenet’ [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” Just as the witches anticipate Macbeth’s arrival at their heath, so too do audiences await the world premiere of Joel Coen‘s “The Tragedy Of Macbeth” at the New York Film Festival later this week. The new film debuts on the opening night of the festival’s 59th iteration; there’s nothing quite like a gloomy tale of murder, madness, and corruption to kick off proceedings.

Continue reading ‘The Tragedy Of Macbeth’ Trailer: Something Wicked This Way Comes For Denzel Washington & Frances McDormand On Dec 25 at The Playlist.

After not hearing too much about the film except the cast and filmmaker involved, with today’s NYFF Spotlight announcement, we got our first real look at “C’mon C’mon,” including a new image and a detailed synopsis of the feature.

READ MORE: NYFF 2021 Adds ‘Dune,’ ‘French Dispatch’ & Mike Mills’ ‘C’mon, Cmon’ With Joaquin Phoenix & More

For those that haven’t been following along, a lot of buzz surrounds the new film from Mike Mills.

Continue reading Mike Mills’ ‘C’mon C’mon’ First-Look & Details: Joaquin Phoenix Stars In New A24 Drama Screening At NYFF 2021 at The Playlist.

The 59th edition of New York Film Festival is taking shape and today Film at Lincoln Center announced Pedro Almodóvar’s latest drama “Parallel Mothers“ starring Penélope Cruz, as the Closing Night selection of the festival. “Parallel Mothers” will make its North American premiere on October 8 at Alice Tully Hall. Sony Pictures Classics will release “Parallel Mothers” in theaters on December 24.

Continue reading Pedro Almodóvar’s ‘Parallel Mothers’ Will Close The 59th New York Film Festival at The Playlist.

Following news of the 2021 Venice Film Festival line-up, announced yesterday morning and including Jane Campion‘s “The Power Of The Dog” as a world premiere, Film at Lincoln Center announces Campion’s latest as the Centerpiece selection for the 59th New York Film Festival, making its New York premiere at Alice Tully Hall on October 1. Take a first look at the movie below.

Continue reading Jane Campion’s ‘The Power Of The Dog’ Will Premiere As New York Film Festival’s Centerpiece Movie at The Playlist.

A Tragedy of Manners. This is how bestselling author Patrick DeWitt’s satirical novel “French Exit” was billed upon its publishing in 2018. That description is also spot-on for this elegant, droll, and heartbreaking screen adaption, directed with crafty command and confident style by Azazel Jacobs. Scripted by DeWitt himself with the authority of a wordsmith possessed by his own material, the fiendishly disarming “French Exit” widely and nonchalantly grins out its death-tinted tragedy throughout, but with a fake smile, a severe code of conduct, and not a hair out of place.

Continue reading ‘French Exit’: With No F*cks To Give, Michelle Pfeiffer Sets An Icy World Of Privilege Ablaze [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

One of the great joys of the New York Film Festival has been watching Steve McQueen’s new film anthology “Small Axe.” Composed of five works set between the late-’60s and early-’80s, the two recently screened films — “Lovers Rock” and “Mangrove” — are intimate slices of life of a little-represented community, British Black folks from the West Indies, resiliently thriving amidst a racially hostile environment.

Continue reading ‘Red, White And Blue’: John Boyega Is Superb In Steve McQueen’s Challenging, And Unafraid ‘Small Axe’ Film [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

Philippe Lacôte understands the cyclical nature of human conflict and how invaluable the stories people tell about their collective past are. In the remarkable “Night Of The Kings,” the Ivorian director’s follow-up to the political turmoil drama “Run,” oral tradition enlivens a chaotic microcosm that’s suspended somewhere between an ancient saga and contemporary unrest.

READ MORE: NYFF 2020: 12 Most Anticipated Films You Need See

Under its own code of conduct and lore, La MACA, a prison nestled in a lush forest in the West African nation of Ivory Coast, is a kingdom onto itself where veteran inmate Blackbeard (Steve Tientcheu) governs.

Continue reading ‘Night Of The Kings’ Is A Striking Tribute To The Power Of Storytelling Set In An Ivorian Prison [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

Yep, festival season is a little weird this year, but if the currently-ongoing Venice Film Festival and just-started Toronto International Film Festival are any indication, the 58th New York Film Festival is going to be just as good, albeit enjoyed from a safe distance. The festival has a terrific line-up that includes movies from Steve McQueen (three films from his “Small Axe” anthology, Chloe Zhao‘s “Nomadland” starring Frances McDormand, “David Byrne’s American Utopia” from director Spike Lee, “The Human Voice” from Pedro Almodóvar, Orson Welles’ doc “Hopper/Welles,” “On the Rocks” from Sofia Coppola,” and so much more.

Continue reading NYFF 2020 Trailer Teases Looks At Steve McQueen’s ‘Small Axe,’ Sofia Coppola’s ‘On The Rocks’ & More at The Playlist.

Following her brilliant and tender breakout feature “The Rider,” Chloé Zhao’s next move has been hotly anticipated – making moves at Marvel Studios as well as working on her followup film, “Nomadland,” starring Frances McDormand. Thankfully, the wait to see it won’t be long, as today it was unveiled that Zhao’s third film has been set to world premiere on September 11 on the Lido, with a simultaneous screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, both of which will feature virtual introductions by producer, writer, editor, and director Zhao, and producer and actor McDormand.

Continue reading Chloé Zhao’s Next Film ‘Nomadland’ To Premiere Simultaneously At TIFF And Venice & Play NYFF As Centerpiece Film at The Playlist.

“Martin Eden” opens with a revelation: “So, the world is stronger than me.” The impetus behind the whispered truth slowly comes into focus as the story unfolds, cynicism and celebrity impounding hope and humility. Amidst the voiceover, the class struggle at the film’s core is depicted through the warped, incinerating lens of archival celluloid footage of the proletariat in early twentieth century Naples, Italy—an odd surprise for anyone expecting scenery of Oakland, California, the original location of Jack London’s 1909 novel of the same name.

Continue reading ‘Martin Eden’: Pietro Marcello’s Latest Is Luminous Cinema & Luca Marinelli Is A Star In The Making [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.

Filmmaker Angela Schanelec is an acquired taste. Her latest, “I Was At Home, But…” sees her continue to hone her highly unique, emotionally oblique, and gently radical style, which frustrates some with its lack of a unitary “meaning,” but delights others for the multiplicity of possible meanings that “lack” engenders. Schanelec is often thought of in the Berlin School, but her latest film eschews that group by minimizing any specifically German aspects of the setting, instead, exploring more universal notions of the domestic; likewise the contemporary is minimized in favor of the classical, finding frequent reference points in both Shakespeare and old master paintings.

Continue reading ‘I Was At Home, But…”: Angela Schanelec’s Enigmatic Domestic Portrait [NYFF Review] at The Playlist.