James Gray brings Paper Tiger home to New York: Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, and Miles Teller open NYFF on Sept. 25 at Alice Tully Hall.
There is a specific kind of night that New York does better than anywhere else on earth. The air has that early-autumn snap that makes you want to dress up a little. You are walking into Alice Tully Hall. The lights are going down. And the film you are about to see was made by a man who grew up twenty minutes away in Queens, starring people you have watched for years, set in the exact borough where half the audience spent their childhoods. That is September 25. That is Paper Tiger opening the 64th New York Film Festival. And honestly? It sounds like a really good night.
James Gray’s crime thriller had its world premiere in competition at Cannes in May, where it earned a six-minute standing ovation and reviews that used words like “overwhelming” and “mythic.”
Gray’s Armageddon Time also premiered at Cannes in 2022 — that film was similarly rooted in his Queens upbringing, similarly personal, and similarly the kind of movie that makes critics reach for superlatives they usually hold back.
The NYFF slot, in North American premiere, is where the film comes home. And there is something genuinely moving about that, if you let yourself feel it.
The Cast That Makes This a Night Out
Adam Driver. Scarlett Johansson. Miles Teller. Set in 1986 Queens and Brooklyn, chasing Russian mafia money down by the Gowanus Canal. If you are trying to convince a friend to come with you on a Thursday night in late September, that sentence does a lot of the work.
Driver plays Gary Pearl, a former NYPD cop who thinks he has spotted an angle, a scheme involving Russian criminals dumping oil by the canal, a way to make real money fast. His brother Irwin, played by Teller, is the family man, the engineer, the one who just wants a comfortable life for his wife Hester (Johansson) and their two sons. Gary pulls Irwin in. Things go very wrong very fast.
The Gowanus Canal has since been designated a Superfund site. The film may be set in 1986 but the canal was already giving people accurate information about the neighborhood’s trajectory.
Johansson and Driver are reuniting on screen for the first time since Marriage Story in 2019 — though the film reportedly keeps their scenes together spare, which means when they do share the frame, the room will feel it. Johansson couldn’t make the Cannes premiere; she was in production on Mike Flanagan’s new Exorcist film. She is expected to be at Alice Tully Hall in September.
What James Gray and NYFF Mean to Each Other
Gray has been bringing films to this festival for over a decade. The Immigrant screened as an official Main Slate selection in 2013. The Lost City of Z closed the festival in 2016. Armageddon Time returned to the Main Slate in 2022, screening as part of the festival’s 60th anniversary.
Paper Tiger marks the first time Gray has opened the New York Film Festival, four films in, after more than a decade of appearances, he’s finally getting the opener slot in his own hometown.
NYFF Artistic Director Dennis Lim called it “a career-best achievement,” which from a programmer of Lim’s caliber is not a phrase he throws around.
Gray himself put it plainly: “This deeply personal film is rooted in New York City; from my upbringing to life-changing family experiences. To be here, at the heart of art and cinema, with our cast and crew — many of whom are New Yorkers — is a privilege.”
That kind of statement can read as boilerplate from some directors. From Gray, who has spent thirty years making Queens feel like the center of the known universe, it reads like he means every word.
The Film That Got Here
Paper Tiger is being released by Neon, a distributor that has developed something of a reputation for knowing what to do with a Cannes film in awards season.
Neon’s track record includes Parasite (2019 Palme d’Or, Best Picture Oscar), Passages (2023 Sundance), and Longlegs (2024) — they are not a company that picks up prestige festival films and lets them sit quietly.
A limited theatrical opening is set for November 13, expanding wide November 20. The NYFF slot puts Paper Tiger directly in the conversation heading into that release window, with the awards season just opening up behind it.
Thirteen of the 64 films selected to open NYFF between 1963 and 2025 have gone on to earn Academy Award nominations for Best Picture. That is not a guarantee. It is, however, a notable pattern for a Thursday night at Alice Tully Hall.
The 64th New York Film Festival runs September 25 through October 12. Tickets go on sale to the general public September 15 at noon ET, with presale access for Film at Lincoln Center members and pass holders before that date.
If you have been to NYFF before, you already know the feeling of walking out of Alice Tully Hall after an opening night film. The city is right there, and you have just been reminded of something you already knew about it. Paper Tiger sounds like exactly that kind of night.
FAQ
What is Paper Tiger about and when does it open NYFF?
Paper Tiger is a crime thriller written and directed by James Gray, set in 1986 Queens and Brooklyn. The film follows brothers Irwin (Miles Teller) and Gary (Adam Driver), whose involvement in a scheme with the Russian mafia endangers Irwin’s family, including his wife Hester (Scarlett Johansson). It opens the 64th New York Film Festival on September 25 at Alice Tully Hall in its North American premiere.
When will Paper Tiger be released in theaters?
Neon is releasing the film in limited theaters on November 13, 2026, with a nationwide expansion on November 20. The NYFF screening on September 25 is a gala preview ahead of that theatrical run.
Is Paper Tiger connected to James Gray’s earlier films about New York?
Yes. Gray grew up in Queens and has returned to that world across his career — most directly in Armageddon Time (2022), which was similarly autobiographical and also premiered at Cannes. Paper Tiger is his fourth film to screen at the New York Film Festival, and his first to open the festival.
