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New York Film Festival 2016 lineup revealed featuring Cannes and Sundance favourites alongside world premieres

Personal Shopper, I, Daniel Blake and Manchester by the Sea are all included on the main slate

Wednesday 10 August 2016 09:01 BST

Kristen Stewart takes the lead in ghostly fashion world thriller Personal Shopper

Film festival favourites I, Daniel Blake, Manchester by the Sea and Paterson are among this year’s New York Film Festival line-up with three world premieres bagging its highest profile slots.

Mike Mills’s 20th Century Women, about three women exploring love and freedom in late 1970s South California, is the event’s centerpiece, while Ava DuVernay’s US prison system documentary The 13th will open the festival. James Gray’s adventure biopic The Lost City of Z, about British explorer Percy Fawcett’s 1925 journey into the Amazon jungle, is the closing night film.

Plenty of Cannes hits feature including Ken Loach’s Palme d’Or winner I, Daniel Blake, about a middle-aged man struggling to secure state benefits after falling ill with heart disease; Paterson, starring Adam Driver as a bus driver port; controversial black comedy Elle, about a highly successful woman who refuses to see herself as a victim after being raped; Kristen Stewart’s ghost story thriller Personal Shopper; and Critics’ Prize winner Toni Erdmann, a moving comedy about a hippie dad trying to reconnect with his grown-up daughter.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Show all 19

1/19Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

La La Land

Whiplash director Damien Chapelle opens this year’s Venice Film Festival with this original musical starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling as a couple of dreamers trying to make it big in Hollywood: she, a lonely aspiring actress; he, a cocky jazz pianist. The trailer promises a neon-soaked, dreamy take on the classic Golden Age musical, all big-hearted romance and wholesome glamour. Expect La La Land to explore some darker emotional territory alongside all the toe-tapping, too. In cinemas here on 13 January.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Silence

Martin Scorsese’s passion project since 1991 is yet to receive a release date but rumours abound that it will be out in time for the Oscars. Based on a novel of the same name by Japanese author Shusaku Endo, the story centres on two Jesuit missionaries sent to 17th century Japan to spread Christianity and find their mentor Once there, they endure brutal persecution at the time of Kakura Kirishitan (‘Hidden Christians’) following the defeat of the Shimabara Rebellion. Silence sounds weighty, intense and full of hard-hitting promise.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi director Ang Lee has narrowly missed out on a Best Picture win twice now but this adaptation of Ben Fountain’s acclaimed novel could be the film that finally wins him some overdue glory. The cast includes Kristen Stewart and Vin Diesel with newcomer Joe Alwyn in the lead as 19-year-old soldier Billy, who is brought home for a victory tour after serving in Iraq. Told in flashbacks, the drama reveals the horror of what really happened to his squad in contrast to America’s flashy, patriotic perceptions. Out here 6 January.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

A United Kingdom

Oyelowo plays Prince Seretse Khama, inaugural Botswana president from 1966 to 1980, in this follow-up to 2015’s Belle. Films about real life people often hold clout with the Academy when done well and with Gone Girl’s Rosamund Pike playing Khama’s eventual wife Ruth Williams, A United Kingdom should pull in cinemagoers. Khama sparked a global stir when he married the white Londoner in the late Forties and the first pictures from the movie promise beautiful costumes and cinematography. A United Kingdom will open the London Film Festival before its general release on 25 November.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Loving

Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton star as Mildred and Richard Loving in this historical drama about an interracial couple sentenced to prison in Virginia in 1958 for the crime of getting married. Out here just in time for the Oscars on 3 February. Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, Loving earned positive reviews from critics when it competed for the Palme d’Or at Cannes and received a standing ovation for understated, strong performances.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Manchester by the Sea

One of the best scripts co-producer Matt Damon had ever read, this tragedy about an uncle who is forced to take care of his teenage nephew after the boy’s father dies while trying to reconcile with his ex-wife stars Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams and newcomer Lucas Hedges. It was bought at Sundance by Amazon for $10 million and arrives in the UK on 13 January.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Nocturnal Animals

Designer Tom Ford has cinematic strings to his bow, as proved with 2009’s Venice premiere The Single Man. He’s back in the chair for this drama-thriller starring Amy Adams as a remarried art gallery owner whose ex-husband’s violent new book begins to haunt her. Jake Gyllenhaal, Isla Fisher and Armie Hammer also star. Due in UK cinemas on 4 November.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

The Light Between Oceans

Michael Fassbender stars alongside last year’s Best Supporting Actress winner Alicia Vikander in the big screen adaptation of ML Stedman’s 2012 novel of the same name. Derek Cianfrance is the man behind the camera for this story about a lighthouse keeper war veteran who rescues a baby girl with his wife after she washes up on an adrift rowboat. Then, in steps another Oscar winner, Rachel Weisz, as the woman who threatens to break their happy family apart. Out in the UK on 4 November - bring tissues.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

American Pastoral

Ewan McGregor makes his directorial debut with this period adaptation of Philip Roth’s novel American Pastoral. The drama - set in the 60s - centres on a successful businessman (McGregor) whose missing daughter (Dakota Fanning) is accused of a violent bombing in post-war America. Out in the UK on 11 November.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Queen of Katwe

Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding) is the director behind this long-awaited biopic of Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi. That Mutesi is played by 12 Years a Slave Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o is reason enough to anticipate this Disney-produced film, out here 21 October.

Disney

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Free Fire

Ben Wheatley’s new action thriller will close the London Film Festival. Set in Massachusetts in the late Seventies, Free Fire stars Oscar-winning Room actress Brie Larson in the lead alongside Cillian Murphy. It follows the ‘heart-stopping game of survival’ after shots are fired during a meeting between Justine, two Irishmen and two arms dealers who are selling them a stash of guns. Expect ‘blood, sweat and irony’ with bravura filmmaking from the High-Rise director. Reaches UK cinemas sometime in 2017.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Paterson

Jim Jarmusch’s Palme d’Or contender sees Adam Driver take the lead as a bus driver poet from Paterson, New Jersey. Each night after work, he has dinner with his wife Laura before walking his dog (2016’s Palm Dog winner) to the bar for one beer. Then one day, a small disaster strikes.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

The Founder

Michael Keaton has starred in the last two Best Picture winners Spotlight and Birdman. Here, he takes on the role of ruthless McDonald’s founder Ray Kroc, with the film telling the story of the fast food empire’s origins. The ambitious entrepreneur on a journey to theme didn’t end so well for last year’s Joy, so it remains to be seen whether The Founder can live up to expectations as an Oscars contender. Out here 30 September.

The Weinstein Company

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Sully

Clint Eastwood returns with Sully: Miracle on the Hudson, about the hero pilot who, in 2009, successfully landed his plane along the Hudson River after it was disabled by a flock of geese, saving all 155 crew and passengers. Tom Hanks takes the lead as Chesley Sullenberger in a biopic that sounds like it could tick a lot of Oscars boxes. Based on the autobiography Highest Duty, the thriller marks Eastwood’s first directorial effort since 2014’s American Sniper. Out 2 December.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Jackie

Pablo Larrain directs Oscar winner Natalie Portman as late first lady and fashion icon Jacqueline Kennedy in what he has promised will not be another ‘classic biopic’. Set in the days immediately after John F Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, the film sparked great excitement among distributors after a seven-minute promo screened at Cannes. Release date unknown at this stage.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

The Girl on the Train

The Help’s Tate Taylor is in the director’s chair for ‘this year’s Gone Girl’ about a troubled woman who becomes embroiled in a murder case after developing a fixation on a beautiful couple from her commuter train. Expect a film pulsating with creepy, voyeur vibes, a la Rear Window, based on Paula Hawkins’ bestselling thriller. Out in the UK on 7 October.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Florence Foster Jenkins

Meryl Streep has been widely praised for her turn as the 1940s New York heiress who couldn’t sing (and we mean really couldn’t sing) yet somehow became an opera singer with the help of her patient husband St Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant) and pianist Cosme McMoon (Simon Helberg). Directed by two-time Academy nominee Stephen Frears, the film proved heartwarming and inspiring upon its release earlier this year and was embraced by both film lovers and critics.

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Christine

Rebecca Hall set Sundance ablaze in January, earning five-star reviews for ‘the performance of her career’ in Christine, about the news anchor who killed herself live on air in 1974 after suffering from depression. Yet to receive a UK release date, Christine arrives in US cinemas in October, with Antonio Campos also one to watch for directorial accolades come awards season.

Courtesy of Sundance Institute

Early Oscars 2017 contenders

Arrival

Paramount Pictures

Sundance tragedy Manchester by the Sea, about an uncle forced to take care of his teenage nephew while trying to reconcile with his ex-wife, lines up alongside Things to Come from Berlin’s best director Mia Hansen-Love, starring Isabelle Huppert as a philosophy teacher forced to contend with a string of troubles.

Elsewhere, Barry Jenkins returns with Moonlight, which follows the life of a gay African-American man in War on Drugs era Miami and is expected to debut on Telluride’s as-yet-unannounced line-up.

The New York Film Festival main slate:

Aquarius, dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho

Certain Women, dir. Kelly Reichardt

Elle, dir. Paul Verhoeven

Fire at Sea (Fuocoammare), dir. Gianfranco Rosi

Graduation (Bacalaureat), dir.Cristian Mungiu

Hermia and Helena, dir. Matias Pineiro

I, Daniel Blake, dir. Ken Loach

Julieta, dir. Pedro Almodovar

Manchester by the Sea, dir. Kenneth Lonergan

Moonlight, dir. Barry Jenkins

My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea, dir. Dash Shaw

Neruda, dir. Pablo Larraín

Paterson, dir. Jim Jarmusch

Personal Shopper, dir. Olivier Assayas

The Rehearsal, dir. Alison Maclean

Sieranevada, dir. Cristi Puiu

Son of Joseph (Le fils de Joseph), dir. Eugene Green

Staying Vertical (Rester vertical), dir. Alain Guiraudie

Things to Come (L’Avenir), dir. Mia Hansen-Love

Toni Erdmann, dir. Maren Ade

The Unknown Girl, dir. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

Yourself and Yours, dir. Hong Sang-soo

The New York Film Festival kicks off on 30 September and runs until 16 October, with further screenings to be announced in the coming weeks.

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