Slowly but surely, we’re getting word of the New York Film Festival’s 2023 lineup. This year’s Currents lineup includes a broad smattering from the contemporary cinema landscape, including new works from documentary auteur Wang Bing, the late Jean-Luc Godard, and Joanna Arnow’s provocative Cannes feature debut, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed. The Revivals selection includes the thematically appropriate North American premiere of an Agnès Varda documentary starring herself and rebellious filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini taking a walk through Times Square while in town for the fourth New York Film Festival. Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film, The Boy and the Heron, will have its U.S. premiere in the festival’s Spotlight selection, together with the world premiere of Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie’s The Curse. Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, which he co-wrote, directed, and stars in as the late composer Leonard Bernstein, is the festival’s Spotlight Gala selection. Elsewhere down the bill, Michael Mann’s Ferrari is the closing-night selection of the festival. Adam Driver and Penélope Cruz star in Mann’s biopic about the race-car manufacturer Enzo Ferrari’s mounting success and marriage troubles.
Todd Haynes’s Cannes hit, May December, will open its 61st edition, making its North American premiere at Alice Tully Hall on September 29. The news arrived just before SAG-AFTRA officially went on strike and promised the cast and director in person. The former will likely not be in attendance if the studios fail to make a deal with the actors’ union in time — so we’ll miss the electric duo that is Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore talking about the film, which tells the story of a woman’s unkosher relationship with a much younger man (Charles Melton) and the actor who’s playing her onscreen. Fine, we were robbed of that post-screening conversation, but at least we’ll get to see Priscilla, Sofia Coppola’s Tumblr-ready passion project that compelled her to open an Instagram account. It’s a Priscilla Presley biopic starring Cailee Spaeny in the title role and Euphoria’s Jacob Elordi as Elvis, serving as NYFF’s Centerpiece selection on October 6.
The full slate also includes Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things starring Emma Stone, Annie Baker’s directorial debut, as well as Perfect Days, the latest from Wim Wenders. Below, the 2023 New York Film Festival Main Slate, Spotlight, Revivals, and Currents feature selections.
Main Slate
May December (Opening Night), directed by Todd Haynes
Priscilla (Centerpiece), directed by Sofia Coppola
Ferrari (Closing Night), directed by Michael Mann
About Dry Grasses, directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
All Salt Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, directed by Raven Jackson
All of Us Strangers, directed by Andrew Haigh
Anatomy of a Fall, directed by Justine Triet
The Beast, directed by Bertrand Bonello
La Chimera, directed by Alice Rohrwacher
Close Your Eyes, directed by VÃctor Erice
The Delinquents, directed by Rodrigo Moreno
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, directed by Radu Jude
Eureka, directed by Lisandro Alonso
Evil Does Not Exist, directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Fallen Leaves, directed by Aki Kaurismäki
Green Border, directed by Agnieszka Holland
Here, directed by Bas Devos
In Our Day, directed by Hong Sangsoo
In Water, directed by Hong Sangsoo
Janet Planet, directed by Annie Baker
Kidnapped, directed by Marco Bellocchio
Last Summer, directed by Catherine Breillat
Music, directed by Angela Schanelec
Orlando, My Political Biography, directed by Paul B. Preciado
Perfect Days, directed by Wim Wenders
Pictures of Ghosts, directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho
Poor Things, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
La Práctica, directed by MartÃn Rejtman
The Settlers, directed by Felipe Gálvez
The Shadowless Tower, directed by Zhang Lu
Youth (Spring), directed by Wang Bing
The Zone of Interest, directed by Jonathan Glazer
Spotlight
Maestro (Spotlight Gala), directed by Bradley Cooper
AGGRO DR1FT, directed by Harmony Korine
Preceded by: Four Unloved Women, Adrift on a Purposeless Sea, Experience the Ecstasy of Dissection, directed by David Cronenberg
Bleat, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
The Boy and the Heron, directed by Hayao Miyazaki
The Curse, directed by Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie
Foe, directed by Garth Davis
Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, directed by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson
Hit Man, directed by Richard Linklater
Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros, directed by Frederick Wiseman
Occupied City, directed by Steve McQueen
The Pigeon Tunnel, directed by Errol Morris
Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus, directed by Neo Sora
Strange Way of Life, directed by Pedro Almodóvar
The Sweet East, directed by Sean Price Williams
The Taste of Things, directed by Trân Anh Hùng
Revivals
Abraham’s Valley, directed by Manoel de Oliveira
The Dupes, directed by Tewfik Saleh
Household Saints, directed by Nancy Savoca
Preceded by: Renata, directed by Nancy Savoca
Pressure, directed by Horace Ové
Return to Reason: Short Films by Man RayÂ
Preceded by: Pier Paolo Pasolini – Agnès Varda – New York – 1967, directed by Agnès Varda
La Roue, directed by Abel Gance
The Stranger and the Fog, directed by Bahram Beyzaie
The Strangler, directed by Paul Vecchiali
Tell Me a Riddle, directed by Lee Grant
Preceded by: The Stronger, directed by Lee Grant
Un rêve plus long que la nuit, directed by Niki de Saint Phalle
The Woman on the Beach, directed by Jean Renoir
Currents
The Human Surge 3 (Currents Opening Night), directed by Eduardo Williams
ALLENSWORTH, directed by James Benning
Preceded by: Air Force Two and Boyd v. Denton, directed by Kevin Jerome Everson
The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed, directed by Joanna Arnow
Preceded by: Unhappy Hour, directed by Ted Fendt
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, directed by Thien An Pham
Last Things, directed by Deborah Stratman
Preceded by: Laberint Sequences, directed by Blake Williams
Mambar Pierrette, directed by Rosine Mbakam
The Night Visitors, directed by Michael Gitlin
Preceded by: When We Encounter the World, directed by Leonardo Pirondi and Zazie Ray-Trapido
Nowhere Near, directed by Miko Revereza
A Prince, directed by Pierre Creton
Jean-Luc Godard + Wang Bing + Pedro Costa
Mangosteen + We Don’t Talk Like We Used To
This is a developing story.