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New York Film Festival · 2026

New York Film Festival 2026

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Programme

34 films · 10 reviews

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14th

Consideration of the 14th amendment.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Ava DuVernay; Stars: Sherrilyn Ifill, Stacey Abrams, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jeff Flake, Hasan Piker, Alex Padilla, Anna Paulina Luna, David Blight, Eric Foner, Carla Hayden, Robert S. Chang, Donald T. Critchlow)

9 Temples to Heaven

A family of nine takes their grandmother to 9 temples in 1 day, hoping to prolong her life. But the trip takes an unexpected turn.

(Country: Thailand, Norway, France, Singapore; Year: 2026; Director: Sompot Chidgasornpongse; Stars: Amara Ramnarong, Surachai Ningsanond, Jirawut Chiwaruck, Yaneenan Jiraphatjittrin, Klaichan Phunman, Sompop Songkampol, Sirapop Sanhabhakdi, Yada Karnjanisakorn, Nichmon Shintadapong)

All Of A Sudden (Soudain)

Review preview for All Of A Sudden

Hamaguchi’s most pointed provocation is not that the nursing home becomes excessive in its care, but that ordinary neglect has trained us to see basic tenderness as excess.

Edin Custo · 3.5 out of 5
The director of a nursing home in Paris has an encounter with a terminally ill Japanese playwright that transforms her life.

(Country: Japan, France, Belgium, Germany; Year: 2026; Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi; Writer: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Léa Le Dimna; Stars: Virginie Efira, Tao Okamoto, Kyōzō Nagatsuka, Kodai Kurosaki, Jean-Louis Garçon, Marie Bunel, Jean-Charles Clichet, Margot Maricot, Lazare Gousseau, Jérôme Chappatte, Evelyne Istria, Elisabeth Tamaris, Aurélia Petit, Heidi Becker-Babel)

Full review

Artificial

Propels the viewer through the two decades of machine learning research and technocratic recklessness that have brought us to our current AI crisis point.

(Country: Italy, UK, US; Year: 2026; Director: Luca Guadagnino; Writer: Simon Rich; Stars: Andrew Garfield, Yura Borisov, Jason Schwartzman, Cooper Koch, Cooper Hoffman, Monica Barbaro, Billie Lourd, Zosia Mamet, Chris O'Dowd, Will Angus, Thaddea Graham, Nicholas Hamilton, Angus Imrie, Will Price, Mark Rylance)

Behemoth!

Portrait of a gifted cellist's complex life.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Tony Gilroy; Writer: Tony Gilroy; Stars: Pedro Pascal, Olivia Wilde, Eva Victor, Will Arnett, Hank Azaria, Alexa Swinton, Kaya Ralls, Erik Griffin, JoBeth Williams, Margarita Levieva, Matthew Lillard, Adam Rose, Vincent Oppido, Eden Epstein, Miles Anderson)

Bitter Christmas

Melodrama featuring parallel stories asks what right a filmmaker has to plunder reality of those close to them for their work.

(Country: Spain; Year: 2026; Director: Pedro Almodóvar; Writer: Pedro Almodóvar; Stars: Bárbara Lennie, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, Victoria Luengo, Patrick Criado, Milena Smit, Quim Gutiérrez, Rossy de Palma, Carmen Machi, Antonio Araque, Diogo Belizario, Nourdin Batán, Laura Ledesma, Tusti de las Heras, Gloria Muñoz)

Clarissa

A modern reimagining of the Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Chuko Esiri, Arie Esiri; Writer: Chuko Esiri; Stars: Sophie Okonedo, David Oyelowo, India Ria Amarteifio, Ayo Edebiri, Toheeb Jimoh, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Jude Akuwudike, Kehinde Cardoso, Ogranya, Danny Sapani, Fortune Nwafor, Modesinuola Ogundiwin, Joy Sunday, Chioma Omeruah, Joke Silva)

Dao

A wedding in Paris and a ceremony in Guinea-Bissau are intertwined in this consideration of family and heritage.

(Country: France, Guinea-Bissau, Senegal; Year: 2026; Director: Alain Gomis; Writer: Alain Gomis; Stars: Katy Correa, Katy Correa, D'Johé Kouadio, Samir Guesmi, Mike Etienne, Nicolas Gomis, Fara Baco)

The Day She Returns

She has just finished the shoot of an independent film and now has to give three interviews about it. Afterwards, in her acting class, her teacher asks her to reenact the interviews. But for some reason, she is unable to remember them.

(Country: South Korea; Year: 2026; Director: Hong Sang-soo; Writer: Hong Sang-soo; Stars: Song Sun-mi, Cho Yun-hee, Park Mi-so, Kim Seon-jin, Oh Yun-su, Kang So-yi, Ha Seong-guk, Shin Seok-ho)

The Diary Of A Chambermaid

A young Romanian woman who has come to work for a French family takes part in an amateur theatre troupe preparing an adaptation of Octave Mirbeau's Diary Of A Chambermaid.

(Country: France, Romania; Year: 2026; Director: Radu Jude; Writer: Radu Jude; Stars: Ana Dumitrașcu, Vincent Macaigne, Mélanie Thierry, Amélie Prévot, Louve Proust)

Double Freedom (La libertad doble)

Misael, 25 years on from La Libertad, continues to live alone, wielding his axe to fell trees deep in the forest, far from the presence of others. His quiet freedom is disrupted when he’s forced to care for his older sister, and the familiar rhythm of his days in the wilderness begins to unravel

(Country: Chile, Argentina, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy, Uruguay, UK; Year: 2026; Director: Lisandro Alonso; Writer: Lisandro Alonso; Stars: Misael Saavedra)

The Dreamed Adventure

n the border region between Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, a woman agrees to a deal to help an old acquaintance with dangerous consequences.

(Country: Germany, France, Austria, Bulgaria; Director: Valeska Grisebach; Stars: Syuleyman Alilov Letifo, Yana Radeva, Velko Frandev)

Everything Else Is Noise

A middle-aged composer allows her friend to use her apartment to film a television interview, opening up a quietly revealing space.

(Country: Mexico, Germany; Year: 2026; Director: Nicolás Pereda; Writer: Nicolás Pereda, Juan Francisco Maldonado; Stars: Teresa Sánchez, Rosa Estela Juárez Vargas, Luisa Pardo, Gabino Rodríguez, Francisco Barreiro, José Rodríguez López)

Everytime

A tragedy brings a mother, daughter, and teenage boy together.

(Country: Austria, Germany; Year: 2026; Director: Sandra Wollner; Writer: Sandra Wollner; Stars: Birgit Minichmayr, Tristán López, Lotte Keiling, Carla Hüttermann)

Fatherland

Review preview for Fatherland

The way Zischler and Hüller play their relationship is so wonderfully real and subtle and appropriately opaque for all us non-Mann family members, that it at times brought tears to my eyes.

Anne-Katrin Titze · 5 out of 5
Drama focusing on Thomas Mann's post-war life, as he and his daughter embark on a road-trip across Germany.

(Country: Poland, Germany, Italy, France; Year: 2026; Director: Pawel Pawlikowski; Writer: Pawel Pawlikowski; Stars: Sandra Hüller, Hanns Zischler, August Diehl, Anna Madeley, Devid Striesow, David Menkin, Joachim Meyerhoff, Enno Trebs, Theo Trebs, Waldemar Kobus, Daniel Wagner, Fritzi Haberlandt, Milan Peschel, Joanna Kulig, Christophe Falconnet)

Full review

La Gradiva

Review preview for La Gradiva

Pompeii becomes a place where fantasy is tested against historical violence, and where looking too closely can break the story one came to preserve.

Edin Custo · 4 out of 5
A group of French high-school students travel to Naples on a school trip to discover the ruins of Pompeii and the bodies petrified by Vesuvius. There, they are drawn into a dizzying descent.

(Country: France, Italy; Year: 2026; Director: Marine Atlan; Writer: Marine Atlan, Anne Brouillet; Stars: Antonia Buresi, Julie Sokolowski)

Full review

I Deserve A Lover Whose Every Rise Sets Fiery Dooms Raging Across The Skies

Profile of Nasser Bakhshi.

(Country: Iran; Year: 2026; Director: Mani Haghighi)

I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming

The love of Olya and Oleh, a young queer Ukrainian couple, is put to the test when one partner’s gender transition collides with Russia's full-scale invasion.

(Country: Germany, Ukraine; Year: 2026; Director: Isabelle Stever; Writer: Anna Melikova; Stars: Tania Myronyshena, Markus Bright, Iryna Mak, Viktor Zhdanov, Maiia Sobolevska, Maria Myronyshena, Oleksandr Rudynskyi)

The Loneliest Man In Town

Al Cook lives surrounded by memories. His apartment is packed with books, video tapes and vinyl records: remnants of a life that he once lived to the full. Here time seems to have stopped, while outside the world carries on without him. When his home is slated for demolition by a ruthless estate agency, they strip him of his refuge. As Al is forced to part with his treasures one by one, he asks himself a painful question: how do you move forward when memories are all you have left?

(Country: Austria; Year: 2026; Director: Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel; Writer: Tizza Covi; Stars: Alois Koch, Brigitte Meduna, Alfred Blechinger, Flurina Schneider, Sarah Morrissette, Natascha Hiermann, Ingrid Schaffernack)

A Long Winter

Review preview for A Long Winter

Worse than incomplete, Haigh's film lacks a fully developed soul. This is in spite of striking aesthetic moments and sharply written scenes complemented by strong performances from the cast.

Paul Risker · 2.5 out of 5
Returning to his childhood home deep in the mountains, Mike is drawn back into the quiet rituals of family life as the clan prepares for the winter ahead.

(Country: UK, Canada; Year: 2026; Director: Andrew Haigh; Writer: Andrew Haigh; Stars: Fred Hechinger, Caitríona Balfe, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Kit Connor, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, David Furr, Susan Serrao, Anthony Timpano, Geoff Gustafson, Camille Sullivan, Martin Freeman)

Full review

The Man I Love

Musical fantasy set against the backdrop of New York's AIDs epidemic in the 1980s.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Ira Sachs; Writer: Ira Sachs, Mauricio Zacharias; Stars: Rami Malek, Rebecca Hall)

A Man Of His Time (Notre Salut)

Review preview for A Man Of His Time

There exists no safe ground when you are part of a regime that uses fear and threats as casual tools.

Anne-Katrin Titze · 3 out of 5
Historical drama set against a backdrop of Vichy France as a man strives to help France's renewal.

(Country: Belgium, France; Year: 2026; Director: Emmanuel Marre; Writer: Emmanuel Marre; Stars: Swann Arlaud, Sandrine Blancke, Mathieu Perotto)

Full review

Minotaur

Review preview for Minotaur

Zvyagintsev handles this material with his familiar control: psychological realism, cold visual restraint and an aversion to overt flourish.

Edin Custo · 3 out of 5
A high-powered executive's meticulously controlled existence begins to unravel.

(Country: France, Germany, Latvia; Year: 2026; Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev; Writer: Andrey Zvyagintsev, Simon Lyashenko; Stars: Dmitriy Mazurov, Iris Lebedeva, Varvara Shmykova)

Full review

Misty Green

A story about the extremes one Black actor goes to to keep both her career and brother alive.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Chris Rock; Writer: Chris Rock; Stars: Rosalind Eleazar, Adam Driver, Daniel Kaluuya, Anna Kendrick, Chris Rock)

My Undesirable Friends: Part II - Exile

Following the Russian independent journalists who fled Russia in Last Air In Moscow as they continue their lives in exile.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: Julia Loktev; Writer: Julia Loktev)

My Wife Cries (Meine Frau Weint)

A normal working day on a construction site. Thomas, a 40-year-old crane operator, receives a call from his wife asking him to pick her up from the hospital. He finds her crying.

(Country: Germany, France; Year: 2026; Director: Angela Schanelec; Writer: Angela Schanelec; Stars: Agathe Bonitzer, Birte Schnöink, Vladimir Vulević, Pauline Rebmann, Clara Gostynski, Ninel Skrzypczyk, Thorbjörn Björnsson, Laure-Lucille Simon, Theodore Vrachas, Ben Carter)

NAZA

Review preview for NAZA

Abraham and Szor’s approach is systematic and sobering.

Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
Reveals the systems behind Israel’s bombing of Gaza and its mass killing of Palestinian civilians.

(Country: US, UK; Year: 2026; Director: Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor; Stars: Yuval Abraham)

Full review

Nowhere To Lay My Eyes (Nun Dul Dega Eomne)

With her brother, Sang-hee visits her mother on Jeju Island. It’s been 10 years. Her mother's restaurant has become a hit. Her stepfather is making a film about a "grass tomb". His daughter has just started painting. Previously unknown facts, needless advice and cheap compliments are passed back and forth. On the morning of her departure, the other family members watch one of Sang-hee’s films.

(Country: South Korea; Year: 2026; Director: Hong Sang-soo; Writer: Hong Sang-soo; Stars: Kim Min-hee, Choi Myung-gil, Kwon Hae-hyo, Shin Seok-ho, Park Mi-so)

Once Upon A Time In Harlem

A decade after his death, genre-defying filmmaker William Greaves has one last trick up his sleeve with what he considered the most important event he captured on film: a 1972 party he engineered with the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance.

(Country: US; Year: 2026; Director: William Greaves, David Greaves)

Paper Tiger

Review preview for Paper Tiger

The issue is that if you strip out the elevated craft and A-list performances, what is left is the sort of bread-and-butter plot arc Cagney & Lacey used to rely on back in the day.

Amber Wilkinson · 3 out of 5
Two brothers pursue the American Dream but get entangled in a dangerous Russian mafia scheme.

(Country: US, Italy, Brazil; Year: 2026; Director: James Gray; Writer: James Gray; Stars: Adam Driver, Miles Teller, Scarlett Johansson, Joel Marsh Garland, Raphael Corkhill, Meredith Holzman, Cindy Katz, Patrick Murney, Jeff Adler, Rosslyn Luke, Dimiter D Marinov, Yelena Solovey, Yavor Vesselinov)

Full review See: James Gray, Miles Teller and Adam Driver in conversation on Paper Tiger

Possible Love (Ga-neung-han sa-rang)

A story of two married couples - a laid-off worker and his spouse, and a documentary filmmaker and her spouse - crossing paths to film a documentary and facing their different lives and hidden desires.

(Country: South Korea, US; Year: 2026; Director: Lee Chang-dong; Writer: Lee Chang-dong, Oh Jung-mi; Stars: Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Zo In-sung, Cho Yeo-jeong, Jo Yu-ri)

Rose

Review preview for Rose

Apart from setting the tone and maintaining it, the strongest point of Schleinzer’s filmmaking is casting and directing the actors' interactions between one another and the environment.

Marko Stojiljkovic · 4 out of 5
A woman disguises herself as a man in 17th Century Germany.

(Country: Austria, Germany; Year: 2026; Director: Markus Schleinzer; Writer: Markus Schleinzer, Alexander Brom; Stars: Sandra Hüller, Caro Braun, Marisa Growaldt (voice), Godehard Giese, Maria Dragus, Augustino Renken, Robert Gwisdek, Sven-Eric Bechtolf, Rainer Egger, Maurice Leonhard, Bastian Trost)

Full review

Tender Loving Care

Review preview for Tender Loving Care

Tender Loving Care is all about the little bits of conversation that make the world a bit more comfy for others.

Amber Wilkinson · 4.5 out of 5
In contemporary London, social workers Amy and Rosie navigate the stressors and joys of life together, be that work, family or messy dating lives.

(Country: UK, US, Singapore; Year: 2026; Director: Mike Leigh; Writer: Mike Leigh; Stars: Kate O'Flynn, Alice Bailey Johnson, Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson)

Full review See: Mike Leigh and the Tender Loving Care cast on humanity and looking out for one another

The Unknown (L'inconnue)

Fantasy based on a graphic novel that sees a photographer wake up in the body of a stranger.

(Country: France, Italy; Year: 2026; Director: Arthur Harari; Writer: Arthur Harari, Vincent Poymiro, Lucas Harari, Justine Triet; Stars: Léa Seydoux, Niels Schneider, Victoire du Bois, Lilith Grasmug, Valérie Dréville, Shanti Masud, Alexandre Pallu)