James Gray’s Paper Tiger has been selected by the New York Film Festival as the Opening Night selection for the 64th edition. This is film counts as number four to be selected by the festival. The film might have left Cannes empty-handed, but NEON are likely looking at different acting categories for awardage. In our Cannes ★★★★ review, our Nicholas Bell stamps this as one of Gray’s career best: “Paper Tiger is partially a film about ‘more money, more problems,’ but also, quite powerfully, a study on how the tantalizing facade of the American Dream is an express elevator to hell for anyone who desires to outstrip the fate of their economic realities.” Here is the fest synopsis and after the beat the full list of NYFF openers dating all the way back to Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel:
The gripping, exquisitely foreboding dramas of James Gray reside in the dark space between the American dream and gutting reality. His brilliant new thriller, set in 1986 Queens and Brooklyn, is an authentically drawn New York story and a master class in escalating tension, charting the tragic domestic fallout after family man and engineer Irwin (Miles Teller), who aspires to middle-class comforts, is pulled into a shady deal by his brother, Gary (Adam Driver), a former NYPD cop. Gary thinks he can make a killing on a scheme with Russian criminals dumping oil down by the Gowanus Canal, assisting them to work around regulations; instead Gary ends up endangering his brother, as well as Irwin’s sons (Gavin Goudey and Roman Engel) and wife Hester (Scarlett Johansson), who is going through her own private crisis. Torn between brotherly love and marital loyalty, Irwin discovers he’s ensnared in forces far beyond his control. With its vivid period detail and marvelous, deeply moving trio of lead performances, Paper Tiger is a frightening portrait of pollution in all forms—and the human bonds that can save us from the brink of despair. A NEON release.
New York Film Festival Opening Night Films
2026 Paper Tiger (James Gray, U.S.)
2025 After the Hunt (Luca Guadagnino, U.S.)
2024 Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, U.S.)
2023 May December (Todd Haynes, U.S.)
2022 White Noise (Noah Baumbach, U.S.)
2021 The Tragedy of Macbeth (Joel Coen, U.S.)
2020 Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen, U.K.)
2019 The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, U.S.)
2018 The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland/U.K./U.S.)
2017 Last Flag Flying (Richard Linklater, U.S.)
2016 13TH (Ava DuVernay, U.S.)
2015 The Walk (Robert Zemeckis, U.S.)
2014 Gone Girl (David Fincher, U.S.)
2013 Captain Phillips (Paul Greengrass, U.S.)
2012 Life of Pi (Ang Lee, U.S.)
2011 Carnage (Roman Polanski, France/Poland)
2010 The Social Network (David Fincher, U.S.)
2009 Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, France)
2008 The Class (Laurent Cantet, France)
2007 The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, U.S.)
2006 The Queen (Stephen Frears, U.K.)
2005 Good Night, and Good Luck (George Clooney, U.S.)
2004 Look at Me (Agnès Jaoui, France)
2003 Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, U.S.)
2002 About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, U.S.)
2001 Va savoir (Jacques Rivette, France)
2000 Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, Denmark)
1999 All About My Mother (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
1998 Celebrity (Woody Allen, U.S.)
1997 The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, U.S.)
1996 Secrets & Lies (Mike Leigh, U.K.)
1995 Shanghai Triad (Zhang Yimou, China)
1994 Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, U.S.)
1993 Short Cuts (Robert Altman, U.S.)
1992 Olivier Olivier (Agnieszka Holland, France)
1991 The Double Life of Véronique (Krzysztof Kieślowski, Poland/France)
1990 Miller’s Crossing (Joel Coen, U.S.)
1989 Too Beautiful for You (Bertrand Blier, France)
1988 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)
1987 Dark Eyes (Nikita Mikhalkov, Soviet Union)
1986 Down by Law (Jim Jarmusch, U.S.)
1985 Ran (Akira Kurosawa, Japan)
1984 Country (Richard Pearce, U.S.)
1983 The Big Chill (Lawrence Kasdan, U.S.)
1982 Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany)
1981 Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson, U.K.)
1980 Melvin and Howard (Jonathan Demme, U.S.)
1979 Luna (Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy/U.S.)
1978 A Wedding (Robert Altman, U.S.)
1977 One Sings, the Other Doesn’t (Agnès Varda, France)
1976 Small Change (François Truffaut, France)
1975 Conversation Piece (Luchino Visconti, Italy)
1974 Don’t Cry with Your Mouth Full (Pascal Thomas, France)
1973 Day for Night (François Truffaut, France)
1972 Chloe in the Afternoon (Eric Rohmer, France)
1971 The Debut (Gleb Panfilov, Soviet Union)
1970 The Wild Child (François Truffaut, France)
1969 Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (Paul Mazursky, U.S.)
1968 Capricious Summer (Jiří Menzel, Czechoslovakia)
1967 The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy/Algeria)
1966 Loves of a Blonde (Miloš Forman, Czechoslovakia)
1965 Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, France)
1964 Hamlet (Grigori Kozintsev, Soviet Union)
1963 The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, Mexico)