The New York Film Festival’s best movies are a preview of a major fall movie season

17.10.2023 - 17:53 / polygon.com / New / Best / Of A

Yes, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes halted production on a lot of TV and movies this year. But the last few months of 2023 will still be packed with major releases, many of which got initial screenings at this year’s New York Film Festival. Polygon crammed in as many of these new releases as we could during the festival, and we’re here with a preview of upcoming movies worth noting — the standouts, good and bad, from the next few months of major movie releases.

It can be easy to remember the purely charming bits of Hayao Miyazaki’s work — the large, fluffy forest spirits, the big hugs that envelop you after a dangerous journey, the globs of delicious food plopping on a plate. The Boy and the Heron certainly has these charms, but it’s a bit pricklier than some of Miyazaki’s classics — and, in that way, it’s a fascinating look at what an auteur like him is capable of, even this late in his career.

The synopsis, should you choose to read it (and not just go in totally blind, which the film’s lack of promotion has certainly suggested): 11-year-old Mahito moves to the countryside after losing his mother in a Tokyo fire. There, he’s frequently ambushed by a large heron, and he finds dark corners of the estate that pull him into a world far beyond our own.

Even at its most tranquil, The Boy and the Heron feels like a bird ruffling its feathers, preparing for something bigger. The worlds of the film are living things, and not always clean ones, with mold and insects infecting biomes just as often as water oozes or grass dances in the wind. Like all of Miyazaki’s work, it’s filled to the brim with great shots and knotty themes. It’s the best kind of watch: the one that immediately rings a bell in your head to see this again, hopefully soon. —Zosha Millman

The Boy and the Heron will debut in theaters on Dec. 8.

The Zone of Interest, the new film from Under the Skin director Jonathan Glazer, is one of 2023’s most difficult films, but also one of its best and most essential.

The film is set mere feet from the walls of Auschwitz, at the home of Commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel) and his family, who make up the movie’s main characters and cast. The Höss family builds their life in this small estate, with a fancy house and Mrs. Höss’ carefully curated garden, all with the walls of the concentration camp and its horrible sounds and smoke around them.

This is a decidedly different kind of Holocaust movie than almost any ever made. Glazer’s camera never really goes inside the camp, or shows the prisoners huddled there or their actual fates. Rudolf is careful to never speak about his job while at home.

This may sound like it sidelines the tragedy and horror of the Holocaust, centering the story on the