The 2025 New York Film Festival (NYFF) Announces The Spotlight Lineup

Film at Lincoln Center has announced the 63rd New York Film Festival (NYFF63) Spotlight lineup. A complement to the NYFF63 Main Slate, Spotlight showcases a selection of 12 significant and anticipated features, including three world premieres, two U.S. premieres, and six New York premieres, as well as nine short films shown in two programs. Presented by Film at Lincoln Center in partnership with Rolex, NYFF63 takes place September 26th through October 13th at Lincoln Center and in venues across the city.  

This year’s Spotlight selection presents five compelling feature-length portraits of iconic artists and entertainment figures. Acclaimed director Richard Linklater returns to NYFF for the sixth time with two inventive works: “Blue Moon,” capturing a pivotal night in the life of lyricist Lorenz Hart, as Oklahoma! opens on Broadway, and “Nouvelle Vague,” a playful reimagining of the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. In “Mr. Scorsese,” filmmaker Rebecca Miller (“Maggie’s Plan,” NYFF53) delivers a definitive five-part portrait of Martin Scorsese, told through his own words and new interviews with collaborators and family. Ben Stiller (“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” NYFF51 Centerpiece) explores his roots in “Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost,” about the lives and legacy of his parents, comedy icons Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. Rounding out the program is the Spotlight Gala selection “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” Scott Cooper’s moving biographical drama that captures the early-’80s period when Bruce Springsteen created the raw, acoustic songs that became his landmark album “Nebraska.”

Two powerful documentaries in Spotlight, utilizing everyday media and technologies, reveal urgent global issues. “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk,” directed by Sepideh Farsi, unfolds through smartphone communications and offers a harrowing portrait of photojournalist Fatma Hassouna, who documented life under siege in Gaza. The Perfect Neighbor, from Geeta Gandbhir, reconstructs a racially motivated crime in Florida using police body-cam footage and firsthand witness testimonies, creating an unflinching, intimate account of violence and justice in America.

Additional Spotlight selections feature a vibrant mix of acclaimed international films and emerging talent. Fresh from the Venice Film Festival is the Italian festival’s opening night feature, “La Grazia” by Paolo Sorrentino, and “Scarlet,” a visually striking animated fantasy film by Mamoru Hosoda (“Belle,” NYFF59). Following its debut at the Cannes Film Festival is the dark comedy-mystery “A Private Life,” directed by Rebecca Zlotowski and starring Jodie Foster, who delivers her first performance entirely in French. The section also showcases two impressive debuts: the world premiere of “Anemone” by Ronan Day-Lewis, featuring the acting return of Daniel Day-Lewis, and the New York premiere of “Pillion” by Harry Lighton, which won Best Screenplay at Cannes Un Certain Regard and received wide critical acclaim.

Two programs of short films will be featured. Spotlight Shorts includes new work by filmmakers previously featured in NYFF and New Directors/New Films: Radu Muntean’s “Index, Gabriel Abrantes’s Arguments in Favor of Love,” Abdellah Taïa’s “Cairo Streets,” and Alice Diop’s “Fragments for Venus;” and New York Shorts features films by directors with ties to New York: Bingham Bryant’s “Doomed and Famous,” Eve Liu’s “Nervous Energy,” Mary Rose McClain’s “February Omen,” Nathan Silver’s “Carol & Joy,” and David Cardoza’s “Turtle Sandwich.”

NYFF63 films are screened at Lincoln Center and at four venues across the city: Alamo Drafthouse Cinema (Staten Island), AMC Bay Plaza Cinema (Bronx), BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) (Brooklyn), and the Museum of the Moving Image (Queens). 

The NYFF Main Slate and Spotlight selection committee is chaired by Dennis Lim, NYFF Artistic Director, and includes Florence Almozini, Justin Chang, K. Austin Collins, and Rachel Rosen. Violeta Bava, Michelle Carey, Leo Goldsmith, and Antoine Thirion are NYFF program advisors. Aily Nash and Tyler Wilson are head shorts programmers for NYFF. The New York Shorts program is programmed by Katie Zwick.

NYFF63 is generously supported by Festival Co-Chairs Susan and John Hess, Imelda and Peter Sobiloff, and Nanna and Dan Stern; Vice-Chairs Susannah Gray and John Lyons, and Tara Kelleher and Roy Zuckerberg; and Supporters Hillary Koota Krevlin and Glenn Krevlin, Ronnie Planalp, and Ari Rifkin.

The New York Film Festival is an annual celebration of the most significant films from around the world. Since its inception in 1963, NYFF has played a pivotal role in shaping film culture, presenting a curated selection of bold and remarkable works by acclaimed directors alongside emerging talents.

Secure your tickets with Passes, with limited quantities on sale now and final discounts available through this Thursday, August 14th. NYFF63 single tickets will go on sale to the general public on Thursday, September 18th at noon ET, with pre-sale access for FLC Members and Pass holders prior to this date. Become an FLC Member by August 29th to secure NYFF63 pre-sale access and discounted tickets year-round. NYFF63 Press and Industry accreditation is now openthrough August 18th.

Explore the NYFF63 lineup and sign up for forthcoming announcements, including Revivals and Talks.

SPOTLIGHT FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS

Spotlight Gala
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
Scott Cooper, 2025, U.S., 120mJeremy Allen White inhabits a legend and lays bare his beating heart in this graceful, exceptionally moving film about a very specific part of peerless American rock icon Bruce Springsteen’s life. Scott Cooper’s “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” adapted from Warren Zanes’s 2023 best-selling chronicle of the same title, is set at an early-’80s crossroads in Springsteen’s career when, still negotiating the transformative waves of his rising fame, he crafted the intensely personal acoustic songs that would become his mythic album “Nebraska”—at the same time that he was recording the demos for “Born in the U.S.A.,” which would catapult him to global superstardom. This biographical drama focuses with gratifying specificity on the nitty-gritty of Springsteen’s songwriting, while never shying away from the realities of his familial traumas and personal depression. It’s more than just a tour de force for its incandescent star—it’s a reminder that the reason we love this seemingly larger-than-life hero is because he’s always been palpably human. Featuring a superior supporting cast, including Jeremy Strong (as Springsteen’s longtime manager and co-producer Jon Landau), Stephen Graham and Gaby Hoffmann (as Bruce’s parents), Paul Walter Hauser, David Krumholtz, and Odessa Young. The film is produced by Cooper, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Eric Robinson, and Scott Stuber. Tracey Landon and Zanes executive produce. A 20th Century Studios release.

Anemone
Ronan Day-Lewis, 2025, U.K., 121m
World PremiereThree-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis roars back to the screen for his first role in eight years in this absorbing family drama directed by Ronan Day-Lewis about lives undone by seemingly irreconcilable legacies of political and personal violence. Co-written by father and son, the Northern England–set “Anemone” begins as a middle-aged man (Sean Bean) sets out from his suburban home on a journey into the woods, where he reconnects with his estranged hermit brother (Day-Lewis). Bonded by a mysterious, complicated past, the men share a fraught, if occasionally tender relationship—one that was forever altered by shattering events decades earlier. An emotional powerhouse, this directorial debut is assured in both small details and grand gestures as it charts the path toward familial redemption against all odds. In addition to its unflinching lead performances, “Anemone” features standout supporting work from Samantha Morton and Samuel Bottomley, and sensationally expressive widescreen cinematography by Ben Fordesman. A Focus Features release.

Blue Moon
Richard Linklater, 2025, U.S./Ireland, 100m
New York PremiereThe lyricist Lorenz Hart’s contributions to the Great American Songbook cycle, collaborations with composer Richard Rodgers, are the stuff of legend. Yet, in 1943, only months before he died from pneumonia, a consequence of heavy drinking, Hart’s partnership with Rodgers was on the rocks. Rodgers had first paired up with Oscar Hammerstein II, and their musical “Oklahoma!” had reinvigorated and all but reinvented narrative musical theater. Richard Linklater’s (“Hit Man,” NYFF61) luminous, erudite drama imagines a loquacious Hart (an astonishing tour de force by Ethan Hawke) on the night of “Oklahoma!’s” premiere, holed up at Sardi’s and moving through various stages of grief and acceptance—and blistering wit—when faced with Broadway’s new world order. Also featuring stellar supporting work from Andrew Scott (who won the Silver Bear for best supporting performance at the Berlinale), Margaret Qualley, and Bobby Cannavale, “Blue Moon” is a surprising yet entirely fitting addition to the Linklater canon: a film about the inevitable passage of time and the feeling of being left behind by those stuck in its folds. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

La Grazia
Paolo Sorrentino, 2025, Italy, 128m
Italian with English subtitles
New York PremiereOscar winner Paolo Sorrentino returns to the baroque world of presidential politics in his native Italy, but in a departure from the feverish exposés of “Il Divo” and “Loro,” he has crafted an elegantly restrained portrait of a fading ruler’s reckoning with age, power, and moral obligation. “La Grazia” centers around Presidente Mariano De Santis (played with exquisite composure by Sorrentino regular Toni Servillo), whose term is nearly up. Disparagingly nicknamed “Cemento armato” (reinforced concrete) for his intractable nature and overly careful approach to politics, he has grown lonely in the echoing halls of the presidential palace, mourning the loss of his wife and listening to hip-hop. Before returning to civilian life, De Santis must make a series of bold decisions—a pair of presidential pardons and a groundbreaking policy bill—that will cement his legacy. Sorrentino’s film does the unexpected for our moment, infusing a fictional portrait of government affairs with a refreshing dose of humanity. A MUBI release.

Mr. Scorsese
Rebecca Miller, 2025, U.S., 285m
World PremiereThe unflaggingly vital American cinema legend gets the definitive portrait his epochal, profoundly personal career deserves in this five-part documentary from director Rebecca Miller (“Maggie’s Plan,” NYFF53). Told through his own words, as well as those of a discerning, incisive series of creative collaborators and family members, Miller’s documentary functions almost like a Martin Scorsese film itself, a full-throttle rocketing through an American century and 60-plus years of moviemaking that transformed Hollywood cinema and will continue to inspire untold generations of artists and cinema advocates. Featuring probing film analyses, personal reflections, and unprecedented access to private moments, “Mr. Scorsese” does justice to an unparalleled body of work relentlessly focused on sinners and saints, highlighted by new interviews with, among others, Jay Cocks, Daniel Day-Lewis, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Rodrigo Prieto, Isabella Rossellini, Thelma Schoonmaker, Steven Spielberg, and Sharon Stone. We are pleased to screen Miller’s documentary in its entirety as a cinematic experience. An Apple TV+ release.

Nouvelle Vague
Richard Linklater, 2025, France, 106m
French with English subtitles
New York PremiereThe spirit of cinematic revolution is alive and well in Richard Linklater’s (“Last Flag Flying,” NYFF55 Opening Night) affectionate and wildly entertaining passion project, which transports the viewer back to a creative landmark: the 1959 making of Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless.” Played with uncanny Proustian precision by the extraordinary Guillaume Marbeck, Godard desires to make his own mark as a filmmaker, envious of the big-screen success of his fellow “Cahiers du cinéma” critics François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol. Working from—if only gesturing to—Truffaut’s noir-inspired script treatment, Godard embarks on his runaway production on the streets of Paris, determined to make a work of intellectual honesty and moral integrity, while fending off the frustrations of producer Georges de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürst), playfully sparring with star Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin), and ignoring the bemused protestations of leading lady Jean Seberg (a winsome Zoey Deutch). Shot on film in black-and-white and edited with a restless elegance that echoes the Nouvelle Vague ethos that “Breathless” all but created, Linklater’s film is a buoyant expression of the importance of artistic freedom and ingenuity from one of contemporary American cinema’s true independent souls. A Netflix release.

The Perfect Neighbor
Geeta Gandbhir, 2025, U.S., 96m
New York PremiereIn June 2023, on a typical suburban street in Marion County, Florida, a white woman named Susan Lorincz fired a handgun through her front door, killing her neighbor, Ajike Owens, a Black mother of four. Lorincz claimed she felt she was in danger, defending herself using the state’s Stand Your Ground law. In reality, as Geeta Gandbhir’s film documents with precision and mounting dread, the killing was the culmination of months of escalating conflicts between Lorincz and her neighbors, whom she treated as unwanted invaders of her space. Brilliantly edited into a gripping and devastating narrative almost entirely from police body-cam footage, “The Perfect Neighbor” is an intimate account of an appalling, racially motivated crime. Rather than sensationalize a story that’s already been through the media grist mill, Gandbhir has made a humane documentary that speaks to lingering national traumas, the deadly consequences of biased policing laws, and one specific instance of profound loss. A Netflix release.

Pillion
Harry Lighton, 2025, U.K., 107m
New York PremiereIn his unorthodox queer romance, first-time feature director Harry Lighton has fashioned something highly improbable: a film about a sadomasochistic relationship that is both transgressive and disarming. Harry Melling plays the mild Colin, whose gayness is happily accepted by his parents (Lesley Sharp and Douglas Hodge) and who is most extroverted when singing in a barbershop quartet. When this sweet-natured square catches the eye of strapping, leather-clad biker Ray (Alexander Skarsgård) at the local pub, he finds himself entering a submissive role—both domestic and erotic—for the inscrutable beauty who brings him both satisfaction and confusion, pain and pleasure. As their affair continues, Colin must decide what he wants and needs—and who he really is. Comic without ever descending into judgment of its characters, “Pillion” is a beguiling inquiry into the social and sexual performances of masculinity, featuring fearless work from Melling and Skarsgård. An A24 release.

A Private Life / Vie privée
Rebecca Zlotowski, 2025, France, 103m
French with English subtitles
New York PremiereJodie Foster is entrancing in her first French-language performance, playing an American psychoanalyst in Paris whose tightly knit world begins to unravel after the sudden death of a patient. In the midst of her own familial and professional crises, Foster’s neurotic Dr. Lilian Steiner takes it upon herself to investigate the circumstances around this patient’s alleged suicide, which she begins to suspect might have been a murder. Director Rebecca Zlotowski (“Other People’s Children”) masterfully balances the sinister and the playful, and surrounds Foster with a veritable who’s who of French movie stars, including Daniel Auteuil as Lilian’s affectionate ex-husband, who gets coerced into her dangerous inquiries; Vincent Lacoste as her semi-estranged grown son; Virginie Efira as the late patient Paula, seen in flashback; and Mathieu Amalric as Paula’s grieving, rage-filled husband. Unpredictable and loose-limbed, “A Private Life,” like its incandescent star in her most dexterous role in years, is a complete delight. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk
Sepideh Farsi, 2025, France/Palestine/Iran, 113m
English, French, and Arabic with English Subtitles
U.S. PremiereDriven to make a film that would bear witness to the escalating violence against Palestinian civilians by the Israeli military following October 7th, but unable to enter Gaza, filmmaker and photographer Sepideh Farsi decided to turn her camera on one woman. Seen entirely in smartphone correspondence, photojournalist Fatma Hassouna becomes the subject of this documentary and our guide to the horror of living under siege. Embodying improbable fortitude, warmth, and calm in the eye of the storm, Fatma is an unforgettable screen presence, followed over the course of a year as she experiences one loss after another. Visually spare yet emotionally expansive, “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk” intercuts the evolution of Sepideh and Fatma’s relationship with footage of the destruction on the ground in Gaza. It’s a work of great intimacy that will stand, now and always, as an unerasable record of a life. A Kino Lorber release.

Scarlet / 果てしなきスカーレット
Mamoru Hosoda, 2025, Japan, 111m
Japanese with English subtitles
U.S. PremiereAnimator-director Mamoru Hosoda (“Belle,” NYFF59) transports viewers to jaw-dropping fantasy worlds that exist in the dazzling space between two- and three-dimensional realms. In his towering new achievement, Hosoda conjures a phantasmal riff on “Hamlet:” after attempting to avenge the brutal death of her father at the hands of her power-hungry uncle Claudius in 16th-century Elsinore, the princess Scarlet awakes in the Land of the Dead. In this forbidding purgatory of mountains and desert, governed by a powerful godlike dragon, Scarlet must fight for her own soul and body while still vowing to defeat Claudius. Yet her plans are complicated by the presence of the handsome Hijiri, a saintly hospital nurse from our contemporary world who refuses to accept that he’s dead—or that revenge can end history’s cycles of violence. Combining weighty Shakespearean themes with wondrous anime imagery, Hosoda has made an epic fantasy that weighs the human impulse for revenge against the need for care, forgiveness, and survival. A Sony Pictures Classics release.

Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost
Ben Stiller, 2025, U.S., 97m
World PremiereIn the most personal film of his career, Ben Stiller (“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” NYFF51 Centerpiece) tells the story of his parents: the groundbreaking husband-and-wife comedy duo of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, whose television and theater appearances were a beloved mainstay of 1960s and ’70s American culture. After Anne and Jerry passed away in 2015 and 2020, respectively, Stiller dug into the vast treasure trove of recordings, footage, letters, and other ephemera with which they documented their personal and professional lives. These extraordinary archives are the foundation of this immensely moving—and, of course, very funny—documentary, beautifully directed by Stiller and edited by Adam Kurnitz (“The Velvet Underground,” NYFF59), which charts, with love and candor, the challenges and insecurities that are part of any show-business family’s essential makeup. Though featuring perceptive interviews with such friends and collaborators as Christopher Walken and John Guare, “Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost” is above all a true multigenerational family project, made with the collaboration of Stiller’s sister, Amy Stiller; his wife, Christine Taylor Stiller; and children Ella and Quinlin Stiller. An Apple Original Films release.

Spotlight Shorts
79m

This shorts program includes Radu Muntean’s Index, Gabriel Abrantes’s “Arguments in Favor of Love,” Abdellah Taïa’s “Cairo Streets,” and Alice Diop’s “Fragments for Venus.”

Index
Radu Muntean, 2025, Romania, 29m
No dialogue
North American Premiere

Radu Muntean (“Întregalde,” NYFF59) returns with a fine-tuned short about a forest ranger who spots disturbing activity on his closed-circuit surveillance system and takes up an investigation that pushes him toward an uncertain fate. Splitting the difference between landscape film and horror movie, “Index” conjures a suggestive atmosphere with gorgeous widescreen images and a dense sound mix.

Arguments in Favor of Love
Gabriel Abrantes, 2025, Portugal, 10m
U.S. Premiere

Gabriel Abrantes (“Diamantino,” NYFF56) draws the dying stages of a relationship with bracing candor and concision. Though dressed as ghostly sheets, “Arguments’” players are all too human—their fights comprise petty accusations, rage-filled confessions, and a sorrowful departure, punctuated by heartfelt musical interludes—while the film’s animation registers every emotion in a spare, painterly set of expressions.

Cairo Streets
Abdellah Taïa, 2025, France, 19m
Arabic with English and French subtitles
U.S. Premiere

Cairo, 2007. Abdellah searches for Omar, his old companion, who has disappeared among the city’s busy streets. A visit with the legendary Youssef Chahine, a nighttime film shoot at the pyramids, and maritime revelry are all captured on nostalgia-textured video while Omar—a brilliant structuring absence—haunts proceedings until, during a final encounter, comfort is found in cinema and personal touch alike.

Fragments for Venus
Alice Diop, 2025, France/Italy, 21m
French with English subtitles
New York Premiere

Continuing the meditations that shaped “Saint Omer” (NYFF60), Alice Diop’s new short indexes centuries-old artistic representation in the Louvre before observing womanhood on the streets of contemporary New York. Running between refined and loose—Miu Miu costumes complement quotidian streetwear, while the museum’s silent halls are juxtaposed with metropolitan clamor—”Fragments for Venus” poses difficult questions while celebrating everyday living’s basic pleasures.

New York Shorts
78m

This shorts program includes Bingham Bryant’s “Doomed and Famous,” Eve Liu’s “Nervous Energy,” Mary Rose McClain’s “February Omen,” Nathan Silver’s “Carol & Joy,” and David Cardoza’s “Turtle Sandwich.”

Doomed and Famous
Bingham Bryant, 2025, U.S., 10m
World Premiere

New York’s Miguel Abreu Gallery is at the center of Bingham Bryant’s short, which follows Adrian Dannatt across his eponymous exhibit while observing works from, among others, Pablo Picasso, Guy Debord, Nan Goldin, Damien Hirst, and Duncan Hannah. Each is captured by cinematographer Sean Price Williams in appropriately textured images while a studious, amusing voice-over jumps between biography and philosophy.

Nervous Energy
Eve Liu, 2025, U.S., 15m
English, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and French with English subtitles
New York Premiere

Eve Liu’s short, executive produced by Spike Lee, is shot and edited with an exuberance that never betrays rich character psychology. “Nervous Energy’s” caustic, cutting humor and formal jazziness are so potent as to dominate an end-credits sequence that seemingly wraps up this tale of romantic uncertainty, only to leave us wanting even more—from these characters and Liu alike.

February Omen
Mary Rose McClain, 2025, U.S., 5m
New York Premiere

“If you eat meat, it’s bad luck. If you see the meat without eating, that’s fine.” This is the superstition (or wisdom?) offered by director Mary Rose McClain’s grandmother, heard in hypnotic voice-over accompanied by a Can-esque score from Programmique. A marvel of compression, “February Omen’s” five lo-fi, high-texture minutes connect familial histories, carnal tastes, and metropolitan industrialization.

Carol & Joy
Nathan Silver, 2025, U.S., 39m
New York Premiere

Reuniting after last year’s “Between the Temples,” director Nathan Silver and star Carol Kane shift focus to the actress’ 98-year-old mother, Joy Kane—a music teacher and former dancer who lives with Carol on the Upper West Side, and who regales them (and us) with fascinating cultural histories and piano performances over the course of a single afternoon. “Carol & Joy” is a documentary replete with love, pain, and texture: a close-quarters view of artistic vocation, mother-daughter bonds, and two women’s journeys through one century and into another.

Turtle Sandwich
David Cardoza, 2025, U.S., 10m
World Premiere

A child runs across well-worn pavement while a subway races above, nearly apocalyptic in its roar—there is no doubt what city we’re in. But for all of “Turtle Sandwich’s” ground-level grit and classic schoolyard insults—plus some youth-versus-adult mischief that harkens back to silent one-reelers—David Cardoza’s video-game fantasies and meta touches create a more formally sophisticated affair.

Tickets will go on sale to the general public on Thursday, September 18th at noon ET, with pre-sale access for FLC Members prior to this date. Become an FLC Member by August 29th to secure NYFF63 pre-sale access and discounted tickets year-round. NYFF63 press and industry accreditation is now open through August 18th.

Sign up for forthcoming NYFF announcements, including Spotlight, Revivals, and Talks.