New Orleans Film Festival 2026
This year's New Orleans Film Festival added some exciting additions to its lineup, including some heavyweight Oscar contenders.
"We're excited to bring some of the most talked about films of the fall festival season to New Orleans," said Clint Bowie, artistic director of the New Orleans Film Society. "These are films that have been making waves from Cannes and Venice to Telluride and Toronto, and we can't wait to share them with our audiences. It's a great feeling to bring that energy home to New Orleans and give people here the chance to see these films on the big screen at NOFF."
The two centerpiece films are La Bola Negra and Wild Horse Nine. La Bola Negra won the Best Director prize at Cannes for its directors Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi. It's an exploration of the gay experience through three stories from three different eras. It will screen on Saturday, October 24 at 8 p.m. at the Contemporary Arts Center.
The other centerpiece film is Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine, which received a 14-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival. John Malkovich has emerged as a frontrunner in the Best Actor race for his role as an aging CIA agent coming to terms with his mortality while on a mission in early-1970s Chile. McDonagh's previous efforts include In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and The Banshees of Inisherin. It will screen on Monday, October 26 at 7:30 p.m. at the Prytania Uptown.
Spotlight films include Jesse Eisenberg's The Debut, his directorial follow-up to 2024's Oscar-winning A Real Pain. Julianne Moore is the odds-on favorite in the Best Actress race in her role as a shy, put-upon housewife who tries community theater and encounters the tough-love approach of the director (Paul Giammati). She takes some of his method-acting lessons to ridiculous extremes in this dramedy. It will screen at 1 p.m. at the Contemporary Arts Center on Sunday, October 25; the Saints play in Paris at 8:30 a.m. local time, so it's possible to watch both!
Also on Sunday, October 25 at 1 p.m., but at the Prytania Theater (Uptown), is Tender Loving Care, which is likely to be the final film in the distinguished career of British director Mike Leigh. Kate O'Flynn of the hit Apple TV show Widow's Bay plays a London social worker simultaneously navigating a painful breakup and the increasing demands of her job.
Peter Farrelly, who won an Oscar for 2018's Green Book, which also played at the NOFF, returns to the festival with I Play Rocky, based on the true story of Sylvester Stallone's efforts to get his legendary underdog story made. It will screen on Saturday, October 24 at 4:45 p.m. at the Prytania Uptown.
Screening just before I Play Rocky at the Prytania Uptown at 2:15 p.m. on the 24th is Gentle Monster, a film about a woman (Lea Seydoux) who discovers her husband may be guilty of an unthinkable crime.
A Talent for Murder casts Helen Mirren as author Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley) in a fictionalized tale of her playing mind games with a young publishing executive (Alden Ehrenreich) who wants her to bring the Ripley character back for one last novel. It will screen on Friday, October 23, at the Prytania Uptown.
For
more information about tickets and the full schedule of films, visit neworleansfilmsociety.org.
