The 64th New York Film Festival ran September 25 through October 12, 2026, with its Main Slate screening at Lincoln Center venues across New York City. Film at Lincoln Center's official announcement set the Main Slate at 32 films from 31 countries, including 17 directors making their Main Slate debut. The lineup paired starry Centerpiece and Closing Night selections with a Spotlight section built around world premieres, and critics covering the festival called the field unusually deep. This rundown covers who opened and closed the festival, what premiered, and what reviewers are saying before the wider public gets to see these films.
Table of Contents
- What opened and closed the festival?
- Which films premiered at NYFF64?
- What's in the Spotlight section?
- How is the festival being reviewed so far?
What opened and closed the festival?
Opening Night belonged to James Gray's "Paper Tiger," a crime drama set in Queens starring Adam Driver and Miles Teller, according to the Associated Press' report via ABC News. Gray has used New York City boroughs as settings throughout his career, and this placement signals the festival's continued pull toward filmmakers rooted in the city's own geography.
Closing Night went to Ava DuVernay's "14th," a Netflix documentary billed as a spiritual sequel to her Oscar-nominated "13th," per the same AP coverage. Pairing a hometown crime story at the start with a widely distributed documentary at the close gave the festival both a local anchor and a national talking point to send audiences out on.
Which films premiered at NYFF64?
The 64th Main Slate included three world premieres: Ava DuVernay's "14th," Tony Gilroy's "Behemoth!," and Mani Haghighi's "I Deserve a Lover Whose Every Rise Sets Fiery Dooms Raging Across the Skies," according to Film at Lincoln Center's Main Slate page. The slate also carried seven North American premieres and thirteen U.S.
premieres, meaning the bulk of the selection had already shown at other festivals before reaching New York. The Centerpiece film was Tony Gilroy's "Behemoth!," a Searchlight Pictures release starring Pedro Pascal, the AP reported via the Las Vegas Sun. Centerpiece slots at NYFF typically go to films with awards-season visibility, and a Searchlight title with Pascal in the lead fits that pattern heading into the fall release calendar.
What's in the Spotlight section?
NYFF64's Spotlight section was announced separately from the Main Slate and carried its own set of premieres, per Film at Lincoln Center's Spotlight listing. World premieres there included Tom McCarthy's "A Statement" and Jonathan Glazer's documentary "Joy of Joys." The section also folded in films that had already built festival buzz elsewhere.
The Playlist's coverage lists Cristian Mungiu's Cannes Palme d'Or winner "Fjord," starring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan, alongside Jesse Eisenberg's "The Debut," about a shy housewife cast in a local amateur-dramatics musical. Running Spotlight as a parallel track let the festival showcase a Palme d'Or winner and two filmmaker-driven comedies without diluting the Main Slate's focus on world and North American premieres.
How is the festival being reviewed so far?
Early reaction has been strongly positive. RogerEbert.com's festival coverage called the 64th edition one of the strongest in years, with its critic saying early press screenings alone could fill half of the site's 2026 year-end top-ten list.
That kind of early praise is worth weighing against the usual festival pattern: reactions out of press screenings skew toward whatever just played, and wider release dates for many Main Slate and Spotlight titles will stretch out over the following months. Readers tracking specific films should watch for distributor release announcements rather than assuming a festival screening date doubles as a theatrical one.