Starting today, New York Film Festival Favorites, a 40-film series featuring highlights from the previous six decades of the New York Film Festival, is now available to stream on The Criterion Channel. The series debuts today in advance of the 60th edition of the festival, which runs at Film at Lincoln Center and across all five boroughs of New York City from September 30 through October 16, 2022.

The series is programmed by Artistic Director of New York Film Festival Dennis Lim and Assistant Programmer Dan Sullivan. Dennis Lim said, “We are proud to partner with the Criterion Channel on this anniversary showcase of New York Film Festival highlights. For sixty years now, the NYFF has helped to shape film culture in New York and beyond with its annual survey of movies that matter. This selection is full of films that have defined the medium, and we hope it is a fitting testament to the festival’s longtime dedication to cinema as a vital art form.”

Highlights from the series includes Luis Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel (the Opening Night Selection of the 1st New York Film Festival), Jacques Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating (12th New York Film Festival), Claire Denis’ Beau Travail (37th New York Film Festival), and Lucrecia Martel’s La Cienaga (39th New York Film Festival), among many others.

All films in the series may be applied toward Film at Lincoln Center’s NYFF60 Letterboxd Watch Challenge. In honor of this year’s milestone anniversary, cinephiles are invited to watch as many of the previous NYFF Main Slate selections as they can, and to keep track of their viewing on their personal Letterboxd accounts. 

  1. On Letterboxd, create a list and tag your list and all of your logs/reviews with NYFF60challenge.
  2. Happy watching!
  3. On October 1 or 2, tweet us your Letterboxd list to enter.

Letterboxd members who watch the most NYFF Main Slate films through September 30 will have the chance to win tickets to the 60th New York Film Festival, official NYFF60 merch, and more. Bonus prizes to those that reach 60 and above. Merch prizes will be shipped in U.S. only.

Single tickets for the NYFF60 go on sale today at 12pm ET. You can purchase tickets here.

The full list of titles in the series includes:

An Autumn Afternoon, YasujirĹŤ Ozu, 1963 (Official Selection – 1st NYFF)
The Exterminating Angel, Luis Buñuel, 1963 (Opening Night – 1st NYFF)
Harakiri, Masaki Kobayashi, 1963 (Official Selection – 1st NYFF)
Knife in the Water, Roman Polanski, 1963 (Official Selection – 1st NYFF)
Muriel, or the Time of Return, Alain Resnais, 1963 (Official Selection – 1st NYFF)
Fists in the Pocket, Marco Bellocchio, 1965
Gertrud, Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1965
Au Hasard Balthazar, Robert Bresson, 1966
Loves of a Blonde, Miloš Forman, 1966 (Opening Night – 4th NYFF)
Masculin FĂ©minin, Jean-Luc Godard, 1966
The Battle of Algiers, Gillo Pontecorvo, 1967 (Opening Night – 5th NYFF)
Mandabi, Ousmane Sembène, 1969
Zorns Lemma, Hollis Frampton, 1970
Love in the Afternoon, Éric Rohmer, 1972 (Opening Night – 10th NYFF)
A Woman Under the Influence, John Cassavetes, 1974
Celine and Julie Go Boating, Jacques Rivette, 1974
India Song, Marguerite Duras, 1975
One Sings, the Other Doesn’t, Agnès Varda, 1977 (Opening Night – 15th NYFF)
The Marriage of Maria Braun, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1979 (Closing Night – 17th NYFF)
The Last Metro, François Truffaut, 1980 (Closing Night – 18th NYFF)
A nos amours, Maurice Pialat, 1984
Paris, Texas, Wim Wenders, 1984 (Closing Night – 22nd NYFF)
Down by Law, Jim Jarmusch, 1986 (Opening Night – 24th NYFF)
Distant Voices, Still Lives, Terence Davies, 1988
Sweetie, Jane Campion, 1989
The Match Factory Girl, Aki Kaurismäki, 1990
Privilege, Yvonne Rainer, 1990
Breaking the Waves, Lars von Trier, 1996
Irma Vep, Olivier Assayas, 1996
Secrets & Lies, Mike Leigh, 1996 (Opening Night – 34th NYFF)
The Sweet Hereafter, Atom Egoyan, 1997 (Centerpiece – 35th NYFF)
Taste of Cherry, Abbas Kiarostami, 1997
Flowers of Shanghai, Hou Hsiao-hsien, 1998
Beau Travail, Claire Denis, 1999
Rosetta, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 1999
In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-wai, 2000
Yi Yi, Edward Yang, 2000
La Cienaga, Lucrecia Martel, 2001
The World, Jia Zhangke, 2004
Western, Valeska Grisebach, 2017