Coming up in less than two weeks on October 22 is Los Angeles’ premiere film festival – The AFI FEST of American Film Institute Film Festival presented by Canva. There are seven “Red Carpet Gala” world premieres in the AFI FEST 2025.
There is much buzz about Oscar pretentions for Nuremberg, written and directed by James Vanderbilt. Nuremberg chronicles the true story of the war crimes trials held by the Allies against the defeated Nazi regime. The film centers on American psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Oscar® winner Rami Malek), who is tasked with determining whether Nazi prisoners are fit to stand trial for their atrocities and finds himself in a complex battle of wits with former Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring (Oscar® winner Russell Crowe), Hitler’s right-hand man. It screens at TCL Chinese Theatre on Thursday, October 23, at 7:30 pm. For passes and tickets to film at this year’s AFI FEST, go to: https://fest.afi.com/passes.
Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere at TCL Chinese Theatre on 10/22, 7:30 pm, chronicles the making of Bruce Springsteen’s 1982 album “Nebraska” when he was a young musician on the cusp of global superstardom, struggling to reconcile the pressures of success with the ghosts of his past. Recorded on a four-track recorder in Springsteen’s New Jersey bedroom, the album marked a pivotal time in his life and is considered one of his most enduring works — a raw, haunted acoustic record populated by lost souls searching for a reason to believe. Based on Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska by Warren Zanes, the film is written and directed by Scott Cooper, and stars Jeremy Allen White as the Boss.
Jay Kelly, at the TCL Chinese Theatre on Friday, October 25 at 7:30 pm, is the new film from writer/director Noah Baumbach. The film follows famous movie actor Jay Kelly (George Clooney) and his devoted manager Ron (Adam Sandler) as they embark on a whirlwind and unexpectedly profound journey through Europe. Along the way, both men are forced to confront the choices they’ve made, the relationships with their loved ones, and the legacies they’ll leave behind. The ensemble cast includes Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough, Grace Edwards, Stacy Keach, Jim Broadbent, Patrick Wilson, Eve Hewson, Greta Gerwig, Alba Rohrwacher. Noah Baumbach is known as his Marriage Story, The Squid and the Whale, and was a co-writer of Barbie.
With Christy, director David Michôd tells the gripping true story of a sporting icon who refused to be defeated — both in and out of the ring. Sydney Sweeney delivers a career-defining performance as Christy Martin, the trailblazing boxer who became a household name in the 1990s, publicly transforming women’s boxing while privately enduring unimaginable hardships. When we meet Sweeney’s Christy, she is a headstrong young woman fighting “Toughwoman” contests in small-town West Virginia just for kicks, until a promoter spots her raw talent for knocking down an opponent with one right hook. Christy soon begins an unlikely rise from obscurity to national boxing stardom as the infamous “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” but behind her public triumphs and unflappably tough exterior lie harrowing personal battles, as her relationship with coach-turned-husband Jim Martin (Ben Foster) becomes a dark and controlling force, entangled with addiction, abuse and secrecy around her sexual identity as a queer woman. Michôd’s unflinching direction — paired with a powerful script co-written with Mirrah Foulkes — both employs and subverts sports drama tropes to great effect, refusing to sensationalize Christy’s almost-unbelievable true story and instead offering a raw yet compassionate portrait of survival against the odds, infused with moments of humor and warmth. At TCL Chinese Theatre on Friday, October 25, 7:30 pm.
On Saturday, October 26 at 1:00 pm at The TCL Chinese Theatre is Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire, the incredible true story of an infamous 1977 kidnapping and ransom over a business deal gone bad, with the kidnapper (Bill Skarsgård) demanding restitution and an apology from the mortgage broker (Dacre Montgomery) whose company ripped him off. Skarsgård plays Tony Kiritsis, a would-be Indianapolis real estate developer, who has fallen behind on the payments for a plot of land he had hoped to lease to a supermarket chain. This ‘70s-set true crime story recalls the very best of the genre for its potent blend of high stakes tension and political subtext — most notably, Dog Day Afternoon with striking resonance for our own times.
Topping off Sunday, October 26 is animated adventure The SpongeBob Movie: Search for Squarepants, directed by Derek Drymon. Desperate to be a big guy, SpongeBob sets out to prove his bravery to Mr. Krabs by following The Flying Dutchman — a mysterious swashbuckling ghost pirate — on a seafaring comedy-adventure that takes him to the deepest depths of the deep sea, where no Sponge has gone before.
At 7:30 pm at the TCL Chinese on Sunday, October 26, will be the opening of Song Sung Blue, directed by Craig Brewer. Based on a true story, two down-on-their-luck musicians (Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson) form a joyous Neil Diamond tribute band, proving it’s never too late to find love and follow your dreams. Written, directed and produced by Craig Brewer, the film also features Michael Imperioli, Ella Anderson, King Princess, Mustafa Shakir, Hudson Hensley, Fisher Stevens and Jim Belushi.
Global Cinema Spotlights include films by Paolo Sorrentino, Werner Herzog, François Ozon, Kaouther Ben-Hania, Ildikó Enyedi, and Charlie Kaufman. There will also be World Premieres by William Means, Joan Bofill Amargós, as part of a program of more than 160 films. Official selections represent 56 Countries and include 19 Best International Feature Oscar® Submissions. Guillermo del Toro is serving as the Guest Artistic Direct of AFI FEST 2025. His film selections include Ridley Scott’s The Duellists, Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, and Pupi Avati’s Arcane Sorcerer.
