James Gray’s latest film, Paper Tiger, opened the 64th New York Film Festival. Like his previous film, 2022’s Armageddon Time, it’s another immensely personal story, drawing from fragments of the director’s own childhood. Set in New York City in 1986, the film feels particularly at home at NYFF, capturing the look, texture, and atmosphere of the city during that time period.

David Freyne’s Eternity is one of the most creative and thought-provoking romance films in recent memory. It boasts an inventive premise involving the afterlife that feels evocative of films such as Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (1946), Albert Brooks’ Defending Your Life (1991), and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s After Life (1998), yet Freyne and co-writer Pat Cunnane’s screenplay still feels refreshingly original.