AwardsWatch - New York Film Festival

NYFF Review: Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s 3-hour ‘Drive My Car (ドライブ・マイ・カー)’ is a detailed and meticulous ride that will quietly reward your patience [Grade: B+]

Kevin L. Lee October 10, 2021

There’s something inherently fascinating about taking a short story and extending it to a feature film that asks for a three-hour runtime. You can sit... Read More

NYFF Review: ‘Unclenching the Fists’ in an uncompromising tale of female resistance from Cannes winner Kira Kovalenko [Grade: B]

Maria Garcia October 6, 2021

Kira Kovalenko’s Unclenching of the Fists is set in North Ossetia, in the Russian Caucasus, the site of the horrific Beslan School attack of 2004.... Read More

NYFF Review: Radu Jude’s subversive ‘Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn’ is a sex tape satire with an explosive climax [Grade: A-]

Amelia Merrill October 4, 2021

Watching the beginning of Radu Jude’s new film, you have to remind yourself that it’s not really porn. There is actual sex on screen, but... Read More

NYFF Review: Not everything is black and white in ‘Passing,’ the feature directorial debut of Rebecca Hall [Grade: B-]

Maria Garcia October 1, 2021

Passing, Rebecca Hall’s debut film as a writer-director, is a studied adaptation of Nellallitea “Nella” Larsen’s eponymous 1929 novel set in Harlem, New York. The... Read More

NYFF Review: Radu Muntean’s Transylvanian horror ‘Întregalde’ finds true terror in the seemingly mundane [Grade: A-]

Amelia Merrill September 29, 2021

The landscape of Întregalde pierces you with a cold so persistent, you can’t help but shiver with the characters onscreen. Radu Muntean’s drama turns the... Read More

NYFF Review: ‘Belle’ (竜とそばかすの姫) will make your heart sing [Grade: A-]

Kevin L. Lee September 27, 2021

The virtual world in Belle is called “U,” as in it specializes in “you” and what makes each and every person distinctively them. Though the... Read More

NYFF Review: Cinema just took a huge dose of adrenaline with ‘Titane’ and gasped for air [Grade: A]

Kevin L. Lee September 27, 2021

It’s probably better for you as a moviegoer to just take my word for it and go see Titane as blind as possible. There are... Read More

NYFF Review: Engrossing ‘Prism’ doc examines how photographic technologies favor white skin, questions the “neutral camera” [Grade: A]

Maria Garcia September 25, 2021

Eléonore Yameogo, An van Dienderen, Rosine Mbakam’s Prism may spark an entirely new conversation about racial bias in filmmaking, namely the “problem” of calibrating non-white skin tones.... Read More

‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’ NYFF review: A beautiful film, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing [Grade: B]

Amelia Merrill September 24, 2021

Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth premiered at the New York Film Festival with little fanfare—a morning screening, a press conference with COVID-induced microphone restrictions,... Read More