James Gray‘s Paper Tiger will get its North American premiere as the opening night film at the 2026 New York Film Festival.
The crime thriller, which is set for a gala screening on Sept. 25, stars Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson. The film had its world premiere at Cannes and will be released by Neon in November.
Gray’s latest semi-fictionalized take on his family life growing up in the 1980s in Queens stars Johansson and Teller as parents Hester and Irwin when Irwin’s flashy brother, Gary (Adam Driver), pulls Irwin into a shady moneymaking endeavor involving the Russian mafia, endangering Hester and Irwin’s sons.
In his Cannes review, The Hollywood Reporter‘s chief film critic David Rooney calls Paper Tiger, “a drama of almost overwhelming power.”
“Calling it a sequel would be reductive, but the haunting drama is a companion piece to Gray’s 2022 film, Armageddon Time, again rooted in the director’s childhood. But it’s closer both thematically and tonally to his brooding 1994 debut feature, Little Odessa,” Rooney writes. “That lends Gray’s ninth and arguably best film a gratifying full-circle symmetry.
Paper Tiger is Gray’s fourth film selected by the NY Film Festival, following The Immigrant, The Lost City of Z and Armageddon Time.
“I’m immensely grateful to be welcomed back to this remarkable festival,” Gray said in a statement. “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. Thank you to the entire New York Film Festival team. It is an honor.”
Paper Tiger was originally set to star Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong in the Johansson and Teller roles in an Armageddon Time reunion, but scheduling conflicts caused Hathaway and Strong to drop out. Instead, Johansson and Driver are reuniting after 2019’s Marriage Story, though the two only share a handful of scenes.
“James Gray has been a fixture at the New York Film Festival for many years, and we are thrilled to welcome him back as our opening night filmmaker with a career-best achievement,” said NYFF artistic director Dennis Lim. “Paper Tiger is a movie of immense emotional power, at once lovingly realistic and grandly mythic, and it confirms that James is one of the great New York filmmakers — one of the great filmmakers, period — of our time.”
Speaking about the film to THR prior to Cannes, Johansson called it “a big story inside of a small story.”
“I liked the idea of Hester being feminine and soft and graceful because she has a lot of chutzpah inside her,” Johansson added of her character. “She loves fashion magazines and going to the movies — she loves romantic comedies and all things romantic — and window shopping. All of those things are such an important part of who she is and how she presents herself.”
Johansson was unable to attend the Cannes premiere because she was filming Mike Flanagan’s new take on The Exorcist, but Gray tried to call her during the standing ovation.
The 64th New York Film Festival is set to run from Sept. 25-Oct. 12.
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