1. Hit the standby lines for tickets to the fest’s most star-studded films. 2. View our selection of the fest’s best shorts. 3. Buy tickets now to these three standouts—there were still seats available at press time.

Climates
October 12 and 14
Elegant Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a formidable triple threat in this ruminative romance, an award winner at Cannes. Writing, directing, and starring as a pent-up professor, Ceylan orchestrates a quiet mood piece, beautifully shot in HD against the green Aegean Sea.

Korean sensation The Host.   (Photo: Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures)

The Host
October 7 And 9
This South Korean blockbuster is one of the greatest monster movies ever made, and a spectacular mutant at that: a CGI popcorn thriller crossbred with a political parable about the outsize terror of fear itself. Athletically shot on a $15 million budget that looks like much more, it confirms the extraordinary talent of Bong Joon-ho, whose Beckettian Memories of Murder already stands as one of the best Korean films in years.

Fires of the Plain
October 23 to 25
“50 Years of Janus Films” screens 30 foreign classics brought to us by the invaluable New York film company—none more relevant than this ferocious and underrated 1959 war movie by Kon Ichikawa, the brutal tale of a desperate Japanese soldier stranded on a Philippines island during WWII.

Related:

• Archive: “Movie Features”
• Articles by Logan Hill
• Table of Contents: Oct 9, 2006 issue of New York | Subscribe!