22 Movies to See at the 2023 New York Film Festival

On September 28, the 61st annual New York Film Festival begins, and brings with it some of the most anticipated movies of the awards season. Cinephiles can take in new projects from Steve McQueen, Sofia Coppola, Yorgos Lanthimos, Hayao Miyazaki, Todd Haynes, and Annie Baker among many others—but with all of the programming, which lasts through October 15, how will you know what to see? Use this T&C cheat sheet to enhance your viewing pleasure.

All of Us Strangers

Adapted from a novel by Taichi Yamada, this film—written and directed by Andrew Haigh—follows a lonely screenwriter named Adam (Andrew Scott) who lives in a practically deserted London high rise; he’s cut off from the rest of the world both figuratively and literally, that is until his one neighbor, Harry (Paul Mescal), knocks on his door. The relationship between the two develops as Adam habitually sneaks away to visit his childhood home, where he finds his late parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy) living as though they haven’t been dead for decades. So, sure, it’s a ghost story in a way but also a tender, touching meditation on loss and finding what we need in both the present and the past with knockout performances from all of its players.

Anatomy of a Fall

Did she or didn’t see? In director Justine Triet’s sharp, compelling Palme d’Or winner, a remarkable Sandra Hüller plays Sandra Voyter, a novelist whose husband is discovered dead outside of their home in the French Alps—and whose role in his death is the central question of the film. Anatomy is at once an edge-of-your seat courtroom drama, a portrait of a family in turmoil, and a meditation on guilt, envy, and forgiveness. Also worth noting: the film’s other big moment comes care of a border collie named Messi, who won Cannes’s Palm Dog award for his role as the family’s pooch, Snoop.

Bleat

Poor Things isn’t the only Yorgos Lanthimos-Emma Stone project at the festival. This short, silent, black-and-white film (presented by NEON and the Greek National Opera) follows Stone’s young widow as she goes through a very unexpected journey; the audience will get one of their own, as the NYFF screening is accompanied by a choir and musicians performing works by J.S. Bach, Knut Nystedt, and Toshio Hosokawa.

The Boy and the Heron

Any new film by Hayao Miyazaki—the Oscar-winning director of animated classics including Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke—is rightly considered an event, and this latest release from the 82-year-old legend is no different. The movie uses a 1937 novel by Genzaburō Yoshino as its jumping off point but goes on to tell an original story about a young boy, an abandoned tower, and a magical friendship that changes him forever. The film was a hit when it was released in Japan and has been earning raves on the international festival circuit, likely in part because it's said to be the director’s final release, but also for delivering what he so often does, an animated world that somehow shows us surprising and inspiring things about our own.

Ferrari

One could say that this latest drama from director Michael Mann is a racecar movie, but that would only be part of the story. Instead, his film is about the high-stakes game that Enzo Ferrari, the namesake founder of the Italian auto brand, finds himself play when faced with the very real possibility of losing his company—not to mention his very complicated marriage. Taking place over three months of 1957, the film—which stars Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz, and Shailene Woodley, among others—depicts not only one of the world’s most famous races but also the behind-the-scenes story of how one of the world’s most famous names almost sputtered out.

Foe

Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal star in this sci-fi drama set 40 years in the future as a couple living in a desolate farmhouse who receive an unexpected visitor with an offer that could change their lives—and perhaps even the fate of the world. The film is written and directed by Garth Davis (Lion) and adapted from the novel by Iain Reid, and asks big questions about the state of the world and the ways we can change it—if we haven’t already gone past the point of no return.

Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project

This documentary from directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson won the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the Sundance Film Festival this year, and it’s sure to pick up more accolades along its journey. The film digs deep into the life and work of the poet Nikki Giovanni, and explores not only her long and storied career, but also the singular way she views the world around her and the way her writing helps make sense of it.

Hit Man

Gary Johnson isn’t really a criminal; he just pretends to be one—usually. In this new dark comedy from director and co-writer Richard Linklater, Glen Powell plays Johnson, a philosophy professor who works with the New Orleans police posting as a professional killer to help catch real lawbreakers. When he falls for Madison (Adria Arjona), a woman trying to leave an abusive relationship, however, the line between his real life and the one he pretends to live blurs, and this (kind of) true story becomes as bizarre as it is thrilling. And not just for audiences; Netflix recently spent $20 million on the film after its rapturous reception at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Janet Planet

Theatergoers in New York City have recently been flocking to Annie Baker’s new play Infinite Life, which is playing at the Atlantic Theater Company before it moves to London. Cinephiles shouldn’t feel left out; the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer is showing her directorial film debut at the festival. Janet Planet is a keenly observed story of a mother and daughter (Julianne Nicholson and Zoe Ziegler) figuring out themselves and one another during a lazy summer in Western Massachusetts.

La Chimera

This latest film from the always-exciting Italian director Alice Rohrwacher (Happy as Lazzaro, The Wonders) stars Josh O’Conner as a lovelorn British ex-con who finds his way to a small town in the Italian countryside—and reconnects with a group of grave robbers who make use of his unique set of skills.

Last Summer

If anyone should know better, it’s Anne. She’s a lawyer whose practice focuses on matters of custody and consent, but when her teenage stepson moves into her house, she finds herself entangled in a relationship with him that defies her better judgement. Directed by the reliably provocative Catherine Breillat, the film stars Léa Drucker as Anne, and promises to raise thought-provoking questions about morality, fidelity, and the rules we choose to live by—or give ourselves permission to ignore.

Maestro

In his second film as a director, Bradley Cooper tells the story of the legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein in all of its complicated, glamorous, and heart-rending glory. Cooper himself plays Bernstein opposite Carey Mulligan as his formidable wife Felicia and leads an all-star cast chock full of New York theater actors to depict the inner life of a man who seemingly had it all, but nevertheless felt at times unseen. The film follows Bernstein’s professional ups and downs as well as those in his personal life, a famously complicated one that involved a seemingly truly loving marriage as well as not-so-secret relationships on the side, to present a careful and caring look at one of our most stories cultural titans and all the ways that he was also merely just one of us.

May December

Todd Haynes directs this unnerving story about actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) who steps outside her real life, and far beyond her comfort zone, to visit Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), the woman who inspired her next big part. The film within a film is about Yoo’s affair with (and eventual marriage to) a teenage boy, and while the scandal itself might be in the past, its ramifications are still clear and present in the lives of the players and nearly everyone around them. It’s a sly, slippery take on the stories we tell and what it is that actually constitutes the truth, with electric performances from Portman, Moore, and Charles Melton.

Occupied City

This documentary from Steve McQueen clocks in at more than four hours, but considering the ground it covers, that’s fast. The film explores life in Amsterdam during the World War II occupation but eschews archival footage for the newly shot; McQueen filmed in the city over the last three years, including during lockdowns, to draw powerful parallels between the world we see now and the horrors of its not-so-distant past.

Perfect Days

Koji Yakusho stars in this new film from director Wim Wenders—he won the Best Actor award in Cannes for his work—about a Tokyo man whose work as a cleaner brings him into contact with a variety of characters whose eccentricities serve to highlight his own calm demeanor. That is until he encounters someone from his own past whose appearance upsets his carefully calibrated existence.

The Pigeon Tunnel

Before the novelist John le Carré died in 2020, he sat for interviews with the filmmaker Errol Morris for this documentary that looks behind the mystique of the spy-novel master and examines the life that led him to literary acclaim. More than just an exercise in straight-ahead storytelling, however, this film also depicts a struggle between the director and his subject—forever a student of secrecy—over what information should see the light of day and what is best left lurking in the shadows.

Poor Things

To call this latest picture from Yorgos Lanthimos (The Lobster, The Favourite) a Frankenstein story might make it sound a bit too mundane. Instead, the fantastical film follows Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), a young woman reanimated by a mad scientist (Willem Dafoe) who goes out into the world to discover who it is she wants to be. Her misadventures range from the gruesome to the graphic—a stint in a Parisian brothel is among the most unforgettable experiments—and the daringly designed world that Lanthimos depicts helps audiences feel as though they’re seeing the world for the first time as well. It’s a razor-sharp investigation of gender roles and the true price of freedom that, while sometimes verging on avant-garde, delivers unforgettable punch and unforgettable performances from a cast also including Ramy Youssef, Mark Ruffalo, and Christopher Abbott.

Priscilla

Elvis had his turn, now it’s hers. In this new film co-written and directed by Sofia Coppola and based on the excellent memoir Elvis and Me, we leave the King in the background and focus instead on Priscilla—who he met and married when she was just a teenager. The dazzling Cailee Spaeny plays the title character, with Jacob Elordie as her husband, and takes audiences along on her whirlwind trip from regular girl to the most famous wife in the world, with all of the glamour, heartache, and trouble that comes with it. This isn’t the over-the-top Elvis experience of last summer’s blockbuster, but instead a more subdued (but no less powerful) and cerebral look at the life of someone who follows her heart to unexpected places, and how from them she manages to make her own way.

Strange Way of Life

This latest work from Pedro Almodóvar has all of the director’s trademark style and wit but fit into a quick 30 minutes. Here, a small-town sheriff played by Ethan Hawke is investigating a murder when an old flame, played by Pedro Pascal, moseys into town and makes things a lot more complicated. It’s a quick, smart story—with costumes by YSL’s Anthony Vaccarello—that gives the traditional Western an interesting, exciting twist.

The Sweet East

Talia Ryder, Eyo Edebiri, and Simon Rex star in this debut feature from director Sean Price Williams, which follows Ryder’s Lillian, a high schooler who splits off from a class trip to Washington, D.C. and ends up learning some unexpected lessons on her adventure.

The Taste of Things

Trân Anh Hùng won the Best Director prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for this period romance, starring the once-married actors Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel as longtime colleagues in a 19th-century French kitchen who finally acknowledge their feelings for one another.

The Zone of Interest

This year’s submission from the United Kingdom for the Oscars’s Best International Feature category, The Zone of Interest tells the story of a seemingly (and eerily) normal German family whose idyllic 1940s existence runs up against that of their neighbors: the people living in Auschwitz, where patriarch Rudolf Höss works. Directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Sandra Hüller and Christian Friedel, the film (based loosely on a Martin Amis novel) won the Grand Prix prize at Cannes and has buzzed-about chances of taking home more awards as the year rolls on.

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