New York Film Festival Is Now Just Rich People Arguing

The New York Film Festival wrapped up this week, and if you weren't there, congratulations—you saved roughly $400 and three hours of your life you'll never get back. For everyone else, the 61st edition of NYFF delivered exactly what you'd expect: a bunch of extremely serious people in extremely expensive coats, nodding thoughtfully at movies that will never, ever play at a theater near you. Let's start with the obvious. NYFF is not really a film festival anymore. It's a status symbol. It's the cultural equivalent of owning a Peloton you never ride. You go, you post a grainy photo of a Q&A panel, and you tell your group chat you "discovered" a Romanian director whose name you can't pronounce. Meanwhile, the rest of America is watching *Fast & Furious* sequels on an airplane tray table, and honestly? They're winning. This year's lineup was, as always, a masterclass in cinematic suffering. There was a three-hour black-and-white epic about a goat herder's existential crisis. There was a documentary about a forgotten 1970s folk singer that made two people cry and 200 people check their phones. And there was, of course, the obligatory "surprise" screening that everyone pretended not to know about for three weeks. Spoiler: it was the new Scorsese. It's always the new Scorsese. The real entertainment, though, wasn't on screen. It was in the lobby. That's where you could witness the true NYFF experience: a 45-year-old man in a scarf explaining to a stranger why *Barbie* is "actually a critique of late-stage capitalism" while his wife silently calculates the cost of their babysitter. Meanwhile, a college student who snuck in with a borrowed press badge tried to Instagram a plate of complimentary cheese cubes. The cheese cubes, for the record, were the most universally beloved thing at the festival. Nobody complained about the cheese cubes. Tickets, if you could get them, ranged from "reasonable" to "did you take out a second mortgage?" A single screening of a film that will be on Netflix in six weeks cost $35. A "premium" pass—which gets you into the same screenings but with a lanyard—was $2,500. That lanyard, I'm told, is made of recycled ocean plastic and smugness. And let's talk about the Q&As. Nothing says "I love cinema" like watching a director dodge every question with "I think the film speaks for itself" for 20 minutes. One attendee asked a simple question about the ending of a certain thriller. The director responded with a five-minute monologue about the "liminal space between memory and desire." The attendee nodded, then turned to their friend and whispered, "So… did she die or not?" Look, I get it. NYFF is important. It's where *The Irishman* premiered. It's where *Parasite* built its Oscar buzz. It's where you can see a movie before everyone else and feel briefly superior. But somewhere along the way, it stopped being about the movies and started being about being seen at the movies. It's a red carpet for people who claim to hate red carpets. It's a film festival for people who haven't paid for a movie ticket since 2011 because they "know a guy." The good news? You don't have to go. You can wait six months, stream the whole thing on Criterion, and complain about the subtitles from your couch. You'll save money, you'll save time, and you won't have to pretend to understand why the goat herder's crisis was "actually about climate change." **The Verdict:** NYFF is a beautiful, insufferable, occasionally brilliant circus. Go once for the bragging rights. Then stay home and watch *Paddington 2* like a normal person. The goat herder will understand.