I say it every year because it only becomes more true: one of the greatest perks of living in New York is the opportunity to attend the New York Film Festival (NYFF) at Lincoln Center, where some of the most innovative and exciting new films are screened. This year, a few exceptional titles have emerged, starting with the opening-night film “Nickel Boys,” an evocative, expressionistic adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Nickel Boys,” directed by RaMell Ross. Also standing out is “All We Imagine as Light,” the first narrative feature by documentarian Payal Kapadia, a gentle yet profoundly moving exploration of the lives of three women in Mumbai, India.
Another noteworthy film is Mati Diop’s “Dahomey,” a sharp and timely documentary on the repatriation of African art. Meanwhile, renegade auteur Jacques Audiard brings “Emilia Pérez,” a fever dream set in Mexico following four remarkable women in pursuit of their own paths to happiness. Emilia, a fearsome cartel leader (Karla Sofía Gascón), enlists Rita (Zoe Saldaña), a lawyer stuck in a dead-end job, to help her fake her own death so that Emilia can finally live as her true self. Written and directed by the double Cannes-winning Audiard (“Rust and Bone,” “A Prophet”), the film also stars Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, and Edgar Ramírez.
It’s a significant achievement to be selected for the NYFF’s main lineup or the Spotlight section, which consistently offers a rich mix of films from across the globe, often positioning emerging filmmakers alongside more established voices. This year’s most talked about films on critics’ lists include Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” and Wang Bing’s documentary trilogy about young people in China — “Youth (Hard Times)” and “Youth (Homecoming)” — which together span an impressive 378 minutes.
The 2025 Oscar race is already heating up, with early buzz surrounding “Blitz,” a World War II period piece directed by Steve McQueen. The film focuses on love and survival during the Nazi Blitz on London and takes a nuanced look at race, centering on a white mother (Saoirse Ronan) and her young Black son (Elliott Heffernan) who are separated early on in the story.
Among this year’s 73 features, the documentary “No Other Land,” by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham, and Rachel Szor, has captured attention. This Palestinian-Israeli group of activists and filmmakers chronicles five years of life in Masafer Yatta, a Palestinian community in the occupied West Bank, where residents struggle to remain on their land despite relentless pressure from the Israeli military, whose bulldozers raze homes and reduce them to rubble.
In a continued effort to make film accessible across the city, the NYFF has expanded screenings to all five boroughs, featuring a wider range of genres and films.
For more on what the New York Film Festival has to offer, visit filmlinc.org and embark on a cinematic journey through time, place, and the world’s most exciting storytellers.