‘Bridge of Spies’ by Steven Spielberg to premiere at NY Film Festival

The 53rd New York Film Festival made exciting news by announcing the debut Steven Spielberg‘s Cold War thriller, Bridge of Spies, the Film Society of Lincoln Center announced Wednesday.

The announcement comes three years after Spielberg brought Lincoln to NYFF via a “secret screening.”

“Bridge of Spies” refers to the Glienicke Bridge, which crosses the Havel River and the area that was once the border between East and West Germany.

Tom Hanks stars with Mark Rylance and Amy Ryan. Rylance plays convicted Soviet agent Rudolph Abel, who won his freedom through a 1962 spy swap with the American pilot Francis Gary Powers. Hanks plays Abel’s lawyer, James Donovan, who negotiated the exchange of prisoners.

The screenplay is by Joel and Ethan Coen, and Matt Charman.

Other films premiering at this year’s NYFF, which runs Sept. 25-Oct. 11, include Laura Israel’s documentary Don’t Blink: Robert Frank, and as previously announced, Robert Zemeckis‘s The Walk, about the high-wire artist Philippe Petit, and Don Cheadle‘s biopic Miles Ahead, about Miles Davis.

The festival includes a number of features that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, including Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin, Todd Haynes’s Carol, and Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Lobster.

Michael Moore’s new documentary, Where to Invade Next, which will premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, will also screen at NYFF, as will Rebecca Miller’s Maggie’s Plan, a rom-com starring Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke, Julianne Moore, Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph.

The main feature of the festival is Danny Boyle’s Steve Jobs, starring Michael Fassbender.