13 Movies to Watch at New Directors/New Films 2025

      Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Christopher Nolan, Spike Lee, Chantal Akerman, Theo Angelopoulos, Lynne Ramsay, Tsai Ming-liang, Michael Haneke, Lee Chang-dong, Terence Davies, Shōhei Imamura, Bi Gan, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Jia Zhangke, Wong Kar-wai, Yorgos Lanthimos, Denis Villeneuve, Céline Sciamma, Guillermo del Toro, Kelly Reichardt, and RaMell Ross are just a few of the directors who have been introduced to New York audiences at New Directors/New Films over the past fifty years.

      Now in its 54th edition, the festival will return to Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art from April 2-13, featuring a lineup of 33 new films that include acclaimed selections from Berlinale, Cannes, Locarno, Sundance, Rotterdam, and others. As the festival approaches next week, we’ve compiled a list of recommended films to watch, and you can find the complete lineup and schedule here.

      **Blue Sun Palace (Constance Tsang)**

      Primarily filmed in Queens, Blue Sun Palace delves into a concealed culture and environment. The story follows Amy and Didi, two friends working at a massage parlor, who face violence that disrupts their lives. Director Constance Tsang, a New York native, brings an authentic touch to the script. Alongside Lee Kang-sheng, portraying a Taiwanese immigrant seeking connection, the cinematographer Norm Li emerges as the true highlight, giving the film's settings—massage parlors, fast-food establishments, and convenience stores—an unmistakable universality, relevant in Korea, Mexico, and the U.S. – Daniel E.

      **CycleMahesh (Suhel Banerjee)**

      The shortest feature in this year’s New Directors/New Films lineup is also one of the most formally exciting. Based on the true story of a construction worker who navigates India by bike during COVID-19 lockdowns, Suhel Banerjee’s IDFA Best First Feature winner CycleMahesh offers a remarkable, dreamlike depiction of movement and resilience. With stunning cinematography that showcases a variety of landscapes, CycleMahesh serves as a tribute to endurance and exploration, while also hinting at the countless stories that go unnoticed daily. – Jordan R.

      **Drowning Dry (Laurynas Bareiša)**

      Memories can be elusive. In the middle of Laurynas Bareiša’s captivating second film, Ernesta (Gelminė Glemžaitė) and Juste (Agnė Kaktaitė), sisters vacationing with their families, begin to dance to a Donna Lewis song in what seems like an old routine composed of half-remembered moves and muscle memory. This spellbinding sequence is interrupted when their children ask to go swimming, during which one child appears to drown. The narrative then jumps forward, revealing Ernesta visiting a man whose life was saved by one of her late husband’s organs. Before learning how he passed, the story shifts back: the same holiday, the same sisters, the same dance, but this time with Lighthouse Family. “When you’re close to tears, remember,” Tunde Baiyewu sings, “someday it’ll all be over.” – Rory O. (full review)

      **Familiar Touch (Sarah Friedland)**

      In a sunlit California kitchen, Ruth prepares a sandwich with the effortless skill acquired over a lifetime. Bread is toasted and set aside; dill is efficiently picked and chopped; sour cream, radish, and salmon are arranged to resemble a blooming flower. After stepping away to ge ready, she serves it to a man named Steve (H. Jon Benjamin), whom she does not seem to recognize. When he states he is an architect, she replies, “My father builds homes. Maybe you’ll meet him one day.” Caught off guard, her son can only offer a warm smile and say, “I’d like that.” This ambiguous space—part clarity, part uncertainty—is the focus of Sarah Friedland’s heartfelt debut feature, Familiar Touch. – Rory O. (full review)

      **Fiume o morte! (Igor Bezinović)**

      As I learned about Gabriele D’Annunzio’s 16-month occupation of Fiume in Igor Bezinović’s new documentary, Tiger Award-winning Fiume o Morte!, I thought of Yukio Mishima. While D’Annunzio’s life didn’t conclude in such a dramatic fashion, both men—celebrated authors and hyper-nationalists with extravagant military aspirations and similarly disputed legacies—shared a penchant for the quixotic and tumultuous. Was D’Annunzio a fascist colonizer, as some in Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) assert, or was he a romantic dreamer, akin to his poetry