Category: Film Appreciation
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More Highlights of the 63rd New York Film Festival
The 63rd New York Film Festival concludes on Monday, October 13, 2025. I managed to see 31 features—some were disappointing, a few I actively hated, but the majority were well worth the trip from Brooklyn to Lincoln Center. Here are four favorites. The most delightful (yet very naughty) surprise was Pillion, just your average comedy-romance about…
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Movies on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Screenings at the New York Film Festival have provided a welcome escape from each day’s appalling headlines. And counterintuitively, some of the best escapes have been films focusing on characters riddled with anxiety. Perhaps it’s a sign of the times, but it’s been gratifying to enter the lives of protagonists you’d never trade places with.…
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New York Film Festival Spotlights Artists and Performers
By my count, the 2025 edition of the New York Film Festival offers no less than 15 features about artists or performers, including documentaries about Martin Scorsese and the comedy team of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara. That emphasis on the arts will no doubt have strong appeal for the Lincoln Center demographic. The most…
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New York Film Festival Welcomes Cannes Award Winners ‘The Secret Agent’ and ‘It Was Just an Accident’
The 63rd New York Film Festival opens at Lincoln Center on September 26, 2025. Thanks to early press screenings, I’ve already seen 12 out of the 74 features being screened through October 13—and I can make some strong recommendations. I had the pleasure of interviewing Brazilian director Kleber Mendonça Filho for Boxoffice magazine in 2019 about his…
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Tribeca Fest Spotlights Jayne Mansfield, Barbara Walters—and an Amazonian Activist
Mariska Hargitay has had a remarkable TV run as the Emmy-winning star of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” over a record-breaking 26 seasons. Many of the show’s younger fans may not know that she’s the daughter of a movie icon, the buxom 1950s sex symbol Jayne Mansfield. Hargitay was only three years old when…
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Tribeca Fest Premieres Dark Dramas ‘Inside’ and ‘Dragonfly’
I’m certain there are some feel-good films at the Tribeca Festival—The Best You Can with Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, and She Dances with Steve Zahn and his daughter Audrey both look promising—but somehow I’ve wound up watching two undeniable feel-bad films. Each may be a hard sell, but they’re worth checking out for their deft performances. Inside,…
Kevin Lally on Film 