Lights Up at Lincoln Center, NYFF Returns!

The New York Film Festival returns to Lincoln Center for its 64th edition, running from September 25 through October 12. The lineup pulls together new features, documentaries, and restored classics from directors working around the world. Many titles play their first New York screening here before any wider release, and the main slate anchors the schedule at the Walter Reade Theater and Alice Tully Hall. Sidebar programs add shorts, experimental work, and revivals across the same campus.

Screenings often bring the people who made the film into the room. Directors, actors, and programmers take the stage for moderated conversations after select showings, and the festival records many of these talks. You can plan a night around a premiere and stay for the Q&A that follows, then move between venues on the Lincoln Center campus. Check each screening page for the guests attached. Not every showing includes a talk, and the popular ones fill fast.

The festival opens Friday, September 25, and runs through Monday, October 12, at Lincoln Center on the Upper West Side. Single tickets and passes go on sale ahead of opening, and the biggest premieres sell out first. Members of Film at Lincoln Center get an earlier window to book seats, which matters for the marquee nights. Plan for evening screenings on weekdays and fuller schedules on weekends. It suits anyone after new cinema and filmmaker talks, rather than a quiet neighborhood movie night.