New York Film Festival Opens With Films That Have 'Oomph'

The New York Film Festival has returned to Lincoln Center, and its latest edition arrives with unusual force. Films by Ava DuVernay, Tony Gilroy and Luca Guadagnino set a high bar at the event, according to the festival's early reception — a lineup that one assessment summarized as movies with genuine "oomph."

That word carries weight at a festival long known for its curatorial seriousness. The New York Film Festival, presented annually at Lincoln Center, has historically privileged auteur-driven cinema over premiere spectacle. This year's selection suggests the two are not in tension. DuVernay, Gilroy and Guadagnino represent three distinct strains of contemporary filmmaking, and their presence together on the same slate signals the festival's ambition.

Ava DuVernay arrives as one of the most closely watched American directors working today. Her films have consistently paired formal ambition with public-facing urgency, and her inclusion reinforces the festival's role as a stage for directors whose work circulates well beyond the art-house circuit. For Lincoln Center, booking DuVernay is both a programming decision and a statement about reach.

Tony Gilroy brings a different pedigree. Best known for work that bridges sharp screenwriting and large-scale entertainment, Gilroy occupies the territory where studio craft meets authorial control. His appearance in the festival lineup indicates that the event continues to treat genre fluency and popular storytelling as serious cinema — a stance not every major festival adopts.

Luca Guadagnino, meanwhile, contributes the international prestige dimension. The Italian director's films have become reliable fixtures of the global festival circuit, prized for their sensuality and formal risk. His latest showing at Lincoln Center places the New York Film Festival in direct conversation with Venice, Telluride and the other autumn gatherings where awards-season narratives take shape.

The verdict delivered on this edition — movies with "oomph" — is not a throwaway compliment. It implies films with kinetic force, with the confidence to hold a room. And the claim that DuVernay, Gilroy and Guadagnino "set a high bar" suggests the festival's programmers have assembled a top tier strong enough to define the conversation around the whole event.

For audiences, the stakes are straightforward. The New York Film Festival functions each autumn as a first look at the films that will dominate critical discussion through the end of the year. A lineup anchored by three directors of this caliber positions Lincoln Center once again as the place where that conversation starts.

How the rest of the program measures against the standard these three have set will become clear as the festival continues — but on the evidence of its opening strength, this edition has already raised expectations for what follows, in New York and across the season's awards race.