New York Film Festival Unveils Spotlight Lineup: Godzilla, Herzog, and a Cannes Palme d'Or Winner
The 64th New York Film Festival has revealed its Spotlight section — 13 features and 10 shorts spanning a Godzilla blockbuster, a Werner Herzog return after four decades, and the Cannes Palme d'Or winner. Variety published the full lineup on August 11, 2026. NYFF64 runs September 25 through October 12 at Lincoln Center and venues across all five boroughs.
Takashi Yamazaki's Godzilla Minus Zero lands the Spotlight Gala slot on September 26, giving the festival its most overtly commercial centrepiece. Yamazaki's previous Godzilla entry, Godzilla Minus One, became a surprise global hit and won the visual-effects Oscar in early 2024.
Cristian Mungiu's Fjord, starring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan, arrives fresh from winning the Palme d'Or — the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival — earlier in 2026. Mungiu previously won at Cannes with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days in 2007. Fjord marks his return to that rarefied company.
Tom McCarthy's A Statement brings a sizeable ensemble to the section: Paul Giamatti, John Turturro, Paul Rudd, Amy Ryan, Evan Peters and Tatiana Maslany. The film, set for release through Sony Pictures Classics, centres on a pivotal 1980 conference on the threat of climate change. McCarthy won the screenwriting Oscar for Spotlight in 2016.
Werner Herzog's Bucking Fastard will have its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival before reaching New York. It stars real-life sisters Kate and Rooney Mara and marks Herzog's first festival appearance in more than four decades — since Fitzcarraldo closed a festival in 1982. That gap alone makes the film an event.
Jonathan Glazer, fresh off his Oscar-nominated The Zone of Interest, returns with Joy of Joys, a documentary chronicling the recording of a star-studded charity album for children in conflict zones. The film reunites Glazer with composer Mica Levi and hands London schoolkids cameras to capture the making of War Child Records' benefit album HELP (2) at Abbey Road Studios.
Jesse Eisenberg's musical The Debut stars Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti — the latter pulling double duty across the Spotlight section. John Turturro does the same, appearing in both A Statement and Noah Segan's The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.
Jordan Firstman makes his directorial debut with Club Kid, a New York-set comedy. Louis Clichy's hand-painted animated feature Iron Boy arrives after winning the Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize at Cannes — a section that recognises distinctive, smaller-scale work outside the main competition.
The documentary slate carries its own weight. André Gregory, now in his 90s, performs Samuel Beckett alongside Larry Pine and Gerry Bamman in One More Time, which he co-directed with Cindy Kleine. Making Marie Antoinette is the late Eleanor Coppola's behind-the-scenes account of daughter Sofia's 2006 feature, which premiered at NYFF 20 years ago. Maiken Baird's Edward Said: Between Worlds is an archival portrait of the literary critic. Albert Serra's Sixteen Moments of My Life captures Ingrid Caven in concert in Paris.
Short films get their own spotlight. Kleber Mendonça Filho debuts South of Tehran, the inaugural film of NYFF's new Encounters initiative, in Spotlight Shorts. Charlotte Wells, whose Aftersun was one of the most acclaimed debut features of 2022, returns with the world premiere of New York Never Let Me Down in the New York Shorts program.
The Main Slate was announced a week earlier, on August 4, 2026, by Film at Lincoln Center. Film at Lincoln Center
For audiences, the Spotlight section often functions as the festival's sweet spot — films with bigger names and broader appeal than the avant-garde-leaning Main Slate, but still carrying the curatorial seal that separates a festival selection from a routine theatrical release. The mix of a Godzilla film, a Herzog premiere, a Palme d'Or winner and a hand-painted animation from Cannes captures that range in one section.
