From ‘Hamilton’ to ‘Julieta’: The New York Film Festival Is Back With the Best in Global Cinema

The arrival of fall means it’s festival season. And while perhaps not as glamorous as Cannes nor as audience-friendly as Toronto, the New York Film Festival arrives this week as a carefully curated “best of the fests” festival with a number of high-profile premieres. It’s here where you’ll first see Ava DuVernay’s documentary on mass incarceration and where you’ll catch (count them) three different Kristen Stewart projects, including the Ang Lee-directed Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

Most refreshingly, of course, is the amply represented Latino and Latin American contingent. In addition to a new restoration of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Cuban film Memories of Underdevelopment as well as an inadvertent companion piece, Olatz López Garmendia’s documentary Patria o Muerte: Cuba, Fatherland or Death, there are a number of great features coming from south of the border that remind us just how strong the region’s cinema is.

In addition to Pedro Almodóvar’s Julieta (an across-the-pond film we couldn’t not include in our must-watch list,) the New York Film Festival’s 54th edition is full of projects from established Latin American auteurs as well as up and comers who have already made waves in festivals around the world. Oh, and then there’s a documentary about arguably this century’s most buzzed-about Broadway musical that’s as much a celebration of American history as it is about Latino talent. Check out our top picks below and be sure to take advantage of one of the city’s most enviable cultural events of the fall.

New York Film Festival runs September 30-October 16, 2016