The 2025 New York Film Festival has added the premiere of Scott Cooper‘s Bruce Springsteen biopic, Deliver Me From Nowhere, starring Jeremy Allen White as the iconic musician, as its Spotlight Gala selection.
The film, adapted from Warren Zanes’ 2023 best-selling book of the same name, is set in the early ’80s at a key time in Springsteen’s career as he was recording the personal, acoustic songs that would make up his Nebraska album while also working on demos for Born in the U.S.A. and navigating his growing fame. Cooper directs from his own script. In addition to White, Deliver Me From Nowhere stars Jeremy Strong as Springsteen’s longtime manager Jon Landau as well as Marc Maron, Stephen Graham, Gaby Hoffman, Paul Walter Hauser, David Krumholtz and Odessa Young. Cooper, Ellen Goldsmith-Vein, Eric Robinson and Scott Stuber produce, with Tracey London and Zanes executive producing. 20th Century Studios is set to release Deliver Me From Nowhere in theaters Oct. 24.
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere will have its New York Film Festival premiere Sunday, Sept. 28, with Cooper, White, Strong, Young and Springsteen, himself, all expected to be in attendance.
“The New York Film Festival has always felt like a spiritual home for the kind of cinema I believe in,” Cooper said in a statement. “To now arrive with a film about Bruce Springsteen — an artist whose music shaped not just a country but my own sense of storytelling — is something I could never have imagined. Getting to know Bruce, to explore his world and his spirit, has been one of the most profound creative experiences of my life. To share that experience with New York audiences, in a city that defines artistic possibility, is both an honor and a responsibility I hold with deep gratitude.”
NYFF artistic director Dennis Lim added, “Taking its cue from the stark majesty of Bruce Springsteen’s classic album Nebraska, Scott Cooper’s Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere has an intimacy and immediacy that eludes most film biographies. Anchored by Jeremy Allen White’s revelatory performance, this year’s Spotlight Gala selection is a fitting tribute to a living legend.”
The NYFF previously announced its currents lineup and main slate, including its opening-night film, Luca Guadagnino’s Julia Roberts starrer After the Hunt, which also features Ayo Edebiri and Andrew Garfield; centerpiece film Jim Jarmusch’s Father Mother Sister Brother; and closing night film Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?
Additional highlights from the 34-film main slate include Jafar Panahi’s Cannes’ Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, Kathryn Bigelow‘s A House of Dynamite, Noah Baumbach‘s George Clooney and Adam Sandler starrer Jay Kelly, Kelly Reichardt‘s The Mastermind, the Laura Poitras- and Mark Obenhaus-directed Seymour Hersh documentary Cover-Up, and Mary Bronstein’s Rose Byrne and Conan O’Brien starrer If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.
The 63rd New York Film Festival, presented by Film at Lincoln Center, is set to run Sept. 26 to Oct. 13.