BLUE MOON to Make New York Premiere at NYFF 2025

Blue Moon, Richard Linklater's new biographical portrait of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart, will be featured as a Spotlight selection at the 63rd New York Film Festival this September. This marks the New York premiere of the movie, which will hit theaters on October 17, 2025 in Los Angeles and New York, before expanding nationwide on October 24, 2025. 

Other notable titles at the festival include Nouvelle Vague (also from Linklater), a five-part documentary about filmmaker Martin Scorsese, and Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere, the new biopic of music icon Bruce Springsteen starring Jeremy Allen White. 

The New York Film Festival is an annual celebration of the most significant films from around the world. NYFF63 single tickets will go on sale to the general public on Thursday, September 18 at noon ET, with pre-sale access for FLC Members and Pass holders prior to this date. The 2025 festival takes place September 26 through October 13 at Lincoln Center and in venues across the city.

Blue Moon movie profiles the final days of Lorenz Hart, part of the hit songwriting team Rodgers & Hart, and is set primarily in Sardi’s Restaurant on March 31, 1943, the opening night of Oklahoma!, Rodgers’ first collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein II as Hart’s replacement.

In addition to Academy Award nominee Ethan Hawke as Hart, the movie stars Margaret Qualley, Bobby Cannavale, and Andrew Scott as Richard Rodgers. The movie had its world premiere at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival, where it received rave reviews, as well as the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance for Andrew Scott. Find out what critics thought of the film here.

Linklater produced the film alongside Mike Blizzard and John Sloss. The film is a Detour/Renovo production in association with Wild Atlantic Pictures, Under The Influence and Cinetic Media. Additional EPs include Wild Atlantic’s Macdara Kelleher, Donna Eperon and John Keville, Renovo Media Group’s David Kingland, Lisa Crnic and Aaron Wiederspahn, and Cinetic’s Steven Farneth.

Additional notable film creatives include Director of Photography Shane F. Kelly, Production Designer Susie Cullen, Oscar®-nominated Editor Sandra Adair, and three-time Academy Award® nominee, Costume Designer Consolata Boyle.

Rodgers and Hart helmed such musicals as Babes in Arms and Pal Joey, in addition to the 1934 hit ballad "Blue Moon," from which the film gets its title. Rodgers and Hammerstein went on to create several hits themselves, with South Pacific, The King and I, and The Sound of Music among them.

In addition to this project, Richard Linklater is also working on a film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along. The cast includes Ben Platt, Beanie Feldstein, and Paul Mescal, and is being filmed every couple of years over the course of 20 films. The 2023 Broadway revival won 4 Tony Awards. 

Watch the trailer for Blue Moon below: