The 62nd edition of the New York Film Festival will kick off with RaMell Ross’s “Nickel Boys,” an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Nickel Boys.”
Film at Lincoln Center made the announcement early Monday and notably didn’t specify a premiere designation for the film, perhaps an indication that “Nickel Boys” will have its world premiere at another festival such as the Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, or Venice Film Festival.
“What an absolute honor for ‘Nickel Boys’ to open the 62nd New York Film Festival… a daydream really, for the crew, the cast, and team who’ve committed so wholeheartedly to its vision,” Ross said in a statement. The filmmaker’s debut documentary, “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” was previously screened at the 2018 edition of New Directors/New Films at New York City’s Lincoln Center. Ross called his debut feature “Nickel Boys” being chosen by the New York Film Festival a “full-circle moment.” He added, “The New York Film Festival in particular constellates much of what one aspires toward through filmic production. Since just after my undergrad when I was wooed by the still and moving image, it has been an extraordinary compendium for global aesthetics.”
“‘Nickel Boys’ signals the emergence of a major filmmaking voice,” said Dennis Lim, the artistic director of the New York Film Festival. “RaMell Ross’s fiction debut, like his previous work in photography and documentary, searches for new ways of seeing and, in so doing, expands the possibilities of visual language. It’s the most audacious American movie I have seen in some time, and we are excited and honored to open the New York Film Festival with it.”
“Nickel Boys” is an early Oscar contender according to the Gold Derby odds. The film, which Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM will release in theaters on October 25, stars Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson with supporting performances from Oscar nominee Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Tony winner Daveed Diggs, Hamish Linklater, and Fred Hechinger. “Rare is the film of a major book that maintains the power and precision of its source material while also generating its own singular aesthetic. Yet RaMell Ross’s extraordinary realization of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize–winning 2019 novel, about two Black teenagers who become wards of a barbaric juvenile reformatory in Jim Crow–era Florida, achieves just this,” reads an unattributed statement in the New York Film Festival press release. “In breakout performances that cut to the bone, Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson play Elwood and Turner, whose close friendship helps sustain their hope even as the horrors mount around them at the Nickel Academy, which becomes a microcosm of American racism in the mid-20th century.”
Ross adapted Whitehead’s novel with Joslyn Barnes. Other craft contributions include cinematography by Jomo Fray (“All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt”) and editing by Nicholas Monsour (“Nope”). “Nickel Boys” is produced by Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, David Levine, and Barnes.
“Nickel Boys” will open the New York Film Festival on September 27. This year’s event run from September 27 to October 14.
Last year, “May December” was selected as the opening night film. The year before, it was “White Noise.” Below, find every opening night film in New York Film Festival history.
2024 Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross, US)
2023 May December (Todd Haynes, US)
2022 White Noise (Noah Baumbach, US)
2021 The Tragedy of Macbeth (Joel Coen, US)
2020 Lovers Rock (Steve McQueen, UK)
2019 The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, US)
2018 The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, Ireland/UK/US)
2017 Last Flag Flying (Richard Linklater, US)
2016 13TH (Ava DuVernay, US)
2015 The Walk (Robert Zemeckis, US)
2014 Gone Girl (David Fincher, US)
2013 Captain Phillips (Paul Greengrass, US)
2012 Life of Pi (Ang Lee, US)
2011 Carnage (Roman Polanski, France/Poland)
2010 The Social Network (David Fincher, US)
2009 Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, France)
2008 The Class (Laurent Cantet, France)
2007 The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, US)
2006 The Queen (Stephen Frears, UK)
2005 Good Night, and Good Luck (George Clooney, US)
2004 Look at Me (Agnès Jaoui, France)
2003 Mystic River (Clint Eastwood, US)
2002 About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, US)
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, US)
1997 The Ice Storm (Ang Lee, US)
1996 Secrets & Lies (Mike Leigh, UK)
1995 Shanghai Triad (Zhang Yimou, China)
1994 Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, US)
1993 Short Cuts (Robert Altman, US)
1992 Olivier Olivier (Agnieszka Holland, France)
1991 The Double Life of Véronique (Krzysztof Kieślowski, Poland/France)
1990 Miller’s Crossing (Joel Coen, US)
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, US)
1985 Ran (Akira Kurosawa, Japan)
1984 Country (Richard Pearce, US)
1983 The Big Chill (Lawrence Kasdan, US)
1982 Veronika Voss (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany)
1981 Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson, UK)
1980 Melvin and Howard (Jonathan Demme, US)
1979 Luna (Bernardo Bertolucci, Italy/US)
1978 A Wedding (Robert Altman, US)
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, US)
1968 Capricious Summer (Jiri Menzel, Czechoslovakia)
1967 The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy/Algeria)
1966 Loves of a Blonde (Milos Forman, Czechoslovakia)
1965 Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, France)
1964 Hamlet (Grigori Kozintsev, Soviet Union)
1963 The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, Mexico)
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