The Mastermind
Film at Lincoln Center announced today the 34 films that comprise the Main Slate of the 2025 New York Film Festival. The Opening Night film is Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt, and Jim Jarmusch’s latest, Father Mother Sider Brother is the Centerpiece. The Closing Night film, Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?, is a world premiere, and it joins others including Gavagai by Ulrich Köhler (In My Room, NYFF56), “an astute drama in which a film adaptation of Medea becomes the center of cross-cultural tensions.”
From Sundance there is Khalil Joseph’s BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions, from Venice Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus’s Seymour Hersh documentary, Cover-Up as well as Kent Jones’s Late Fame; from Cannes there is Kelly Reichardt’s Mastermind and Oliver Laxe’s Sirat, among others.
In a press release, NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim stated: “Anyone who cares about film knows that it is an art in need of defending, like many of our core values today. Across all sections of the festival, the movies we have selected this year suggest that this safeguarding can take many guises: acts of rejuvenation and refusal, expressions of unease and joy, feats of imagination and commemoration. I am particularly struck by the diversity of approaches and forms among the films in this Main Slate, which affirms that the art of cinema is more than capable of thriving, even in difficult times.”
The NYFF Main Slate 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.
The New York Film Festival runs from September 26 – October 13, 2025. Passes are on sale now. NYFF63 films are screened in theaters 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 complete list of films announced today follows.
Opening Night: After the Hunt (Luca Guadagnino)
Centerpiece: Father Mother Sister Brother (Jim Jarmusch)
Closing Night: Is This Thing On? (Bradley Cooper)
Below the Clouds (Gianfranco Rosi)
BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions (Kahlil Joseph)
Cover-Up (Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus)
The Currents (Milagros Mumenthaler)
Duse (Pietro Marcello)
The Fence (Claire Denis)
Gavagai (Ulrich Köhler)
A House of Dynamite (Kathryn Bigelow)
I Only Rest in the Storm (Pedro Pinho)
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Mary Bronstein)
It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi)
Jay Kelly (Noah Baumbach)
Kontinental ’25 (Radu Jude)
Landmarks (Lucrecia Martel)
Late Fame (Kent Jones)
The Last One for the Road (Francesco Sossai)
The Love That Remains (Hlynur Pálmason)
Magellan (Lav Diaz)
The Mastermind (Kelly Reichardt)
Miroirs No. 3 (Christian Petzold)
No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook)
Peter Hujar’s Day (Ira Sachs)
Resurrection (Bi Gan)
Romería (Carla Simón)
Rose of Nevada (Mark Jenkin)
The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho) (Joachim Trier)
Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier)
Sirât (Oliver Laxe)
Sound of Falling (Mascha Schilinski)
Two Prosecutors (Sergei Loznitsa)
What Does That Nature Say To You (Hong Sangsoo)