Todd Haynes’s ‘May December’ to open 2023 New York Film Festival

This year’s New York Film Festival will open with the North American premiere of Todd Haynes’s new film “May December,” festival organizers announced on Tuesday. 

“‘May December’ is a tour-de-force of writing, acting, and directing: a film built on moment-to-moment surprise, as thought-provoking as it is purely pleasurable,” said Dennis Lim, the artistic director at the New York Film Festival, in a press release. “It cements Todd Haynes’s place as one of American cinema’s most brilliant mischief-makers and as an all-time great director of actors. Todd has been a consistent presence at the New York Film Festival for almost his entire career, and we are very excited to open this edition with one of his most dazzling achievements.”

“We are all so proud and moved to have been invited to open the New York Film Festival with the North American premiere of ‘May December,’” Haynes said in a statement of his own provided to the press. “It is a festival that plays a role in my work and life like no other in the world, since it enshrines the cultural life of this city, which is both my creative home as a filmmaker and, as ever, the eternal site of artistic possibility.”

Haynes has been a frequent presence at the New York Film Festival throughout his career. His films “Velvet Goldmine,” “I’m Not There,” “Carol,” “Wonderstruck,” and his documentary on The Velvet Underground have all screened at the prestigious gathering of film’s elite. 

“May December,” which Netflix acquired out of the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, is expected to be a major player on the awards circuit throughout the 2024 Oscars season. The film stars former Best Actress winners Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, both of whom received strong reviews after its Cannes debut. Here’s a bit of what to expect, provided by the New York Film Festival and Netflix:

“In ‘May December,’ Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), a popular television star, has arrived in a tight-knit island community in Savannah. Here, she will be doing intimate research for a new part, ingratiating herself into the lives of Gracie (Julianne Moore), whom she’ll be playing on-screen, and her much younger husband, Joe (Charles Melton), to better understand the psychology and circumstances that more than 20 years ago made them notorious tabloid figures. As Elizabeth attempts to get closer to the family, the uncomfortable facts of their scandal unfurl, causing difficult, long-dormant emotions to resurface. From the sensational premise of first-time screenwriter Samy Burch’s brilliantly subtle script, director Todd Haynes (Safe, Carol) has constructed an American tale of astonishing richness and depth, which touches the pressure and pleasure points of a culture obsessed equally with celebrity and trauma. It’s a feat of storytelling and pinpoint-precise tone that is shrewd in its wicked embrace of melodrama while also genuinely moving in its humane treatment of tricky subject matter. Boasting a trio of bravura, mercurial performances by Moore, Portman, and Melton, ‘May December’ is a film about human exploitation, the elusive nature of performance, and the slipperiness of truth that confirms Todd Haynes’s status as one of our consummate movie artists.”

Netflix plans to release “May December” theatrically on November 17 before a debut on the streaming service starting December 1.

The news that “May December” will have its “North American premiere” at the New York Film Festival is a little significant for those who pay attention to such designations in these early stages of festival season. It likely means “May December” will skip both the Telluride Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival; a screening at the Venice Film Festival, however, cannot be ruled out at the moment.

“May December” will open the New York Film Festival on September 29 with its premiere at Alice Tully Hall in Manhattan. The festival runs through October 15.

For fun, here’s every single New York Film Festival opening night film in history. Bookmark this to impress your friends!

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)

PREDICT the 2024 Oscar nominees through January 23

Make your predictions at Gold Derby now. Download our free and easy app for Apple/iPhone devices or Android (Google Play) to compete against legions of other fans plus our experts and editors for best prediction accuracy scores. See our latest prediction champs. Can you top our esteemed leaderboards next? Always remember to keep your predictions updated because they impact our latest racetrack odds, which terrify Hollywood chiefs and stars. Don’t miss the fun. Speak up and share your huffy opinions in our famous forums where 5,000 showbiz leaders lurk every day to track latest awards buzz. Everybody wants to know: What do you think? Who do you predict and why?

SIGN UP for Gold Derby’s free newsletter with latest predictions