Top image: Still from ‘The Walk’ © Sony Pictures 2015

The 53rd annual New York Film Festival (NYFF) kicks off this weekend boasting a line-up bursting with scorching new flicks. We’ve curated a list of this year’s five must see films and whether you’re a fan of the genre-benders or the classics, it’s all here, from gravity defying stunts to Steve Jobs and a hotel only open to singles.

Here’s what not to miss if you’re in the big apple for this year’s festival, and if you aren’t there, don’t despair, these films will be hitting global cinema screens in the next few weeks, so plan your cinema visits in advance.

If you were to look upwards, around 1350 feet in the air, on the morning of Wednesday, 7th August, 1974, in Lower Manhattan, you would have witnessed one of the most iconic stunts of the 20^th Century. For this was the day that Philippe Petit chose to tightrope walk – as well as dance, kneel and lay down on the wire – between the north and south towers of the World Trade Centre, bar any safety equipment.

Based on Petit’s stomach-turning stunt Director Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk opens this year’s New York Film Festival, starring Joseph Gordon as the daredevil himself. The film follows Petit and his motley group of friends as he meticulously calculates every detail, the planning, the rehearsing, and the execution. Shot in live-action 3D it’ll leave you on the edge of your seat. Just don’t look down.

Having shown his zany 70s trip Inherent Vice at last year’s NYFF, Paul Thomas Anderson is back with a fresh angle for 2015. Junun follows Radiohead guitar maestro Jonny Greenwood as he records his new LP in northwest India with the Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur and regional musicians.

With a shared a passion for delving into unexplored territory Anderson and Greenwood have become frequent collaborators, the Radiohead musician has previously written the scores for Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, Inherent Vice, and The Master.

Making its world premiere at the festival as part of its Special Events section, Junun provides an interesting insight into Greenwood’s recording process as he seeks new sounds on a search for sonic inspiration.

Almost exactly four years after the death of Steve Jobs Director Danny Boyle’s latest project Steve Jobs is an ode to the Apple maverick. The film, starring a turtle-necked Michael Fassbender as Jobs, looks at a seminal point in the tech genius’ career, focusing on three iconic product launches and ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac.

Adapted from Walter Isaacson’s Jobs biography, and guided by Jobs’ daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs, the film’s writer Sorkin has previous in the genre, having written the tech-savy The Social Network, about the founding of Facebook, if this latest biopic is told in similar vein it’s going to be a tense ride. (Here’s a little fact for you, Sorkin originally wanted Tom Cruise to be cast as Jobs, labelling the decision to cast Fassbender as ‘insane’, before warming to the British actor).

The film comes only two years after the release of Jobs, the critically bashed biopic starring Ashton Kutcher as the main man. They do say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, and this one’s worth a gander.

Yorgos Lanthimos, author of the darkly stylised Dogtooth, is bringing his latest work of deadpan surrealism to the New York Film Festival, his first English-language feature.

Starring Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz and Ben Whishaw, The Lobster addresses our universal obsession with finding ‘the one’. Set in a warped alternative present where adults who are single must check into a hotel with other singles and find a genuinely compatible partner within 45 days, or they are transformed into an animal of their choice and released into the forest. Extra time can be sourced for via hunting trips into the forest to ‘bring down’ rebellious singles who have escaped into the wild there, living as singleton outlaws.

It’s Luis Buñuel’s The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie for the social media generation, a twisted satire with Fellini-esque lucidity. Prepare to witness our cultural subconscious being smeared across the big screen.

Another big name director to premiere their latest work at NYFF is Steven Spielberg, his cold war spy thriller Bridge of Spies.

Boasting a screenplay co-written by Joel and Ethan Coen Bride of Spies stars Tom Hanks as a cold war American lawyer recruited by the CIA to defend the soviet spy Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance) and arrange for his swap with a captured American U-2 pilot in East Berlin.

Abel was jailed in the US for his involvement in the Hollow Nickel Case (he hid microfilm in a hollow coin). He served just over four years of his sentence before the exchange was made.

Talking about the Coen Brothers, their 2000 hit O Brother, Where Art Thou? will be shown to mark its 15th anniversary.

Set in the rural south during the 1930s and based on Homer’s The Odyssey, the film follows three escapee convicts (George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson) set out to retrieve the $1.2 million that Everett (Clooney) buried.

Still chained together by shackles they make a hasty run for their lives. En route, there come across latter-day lotus eaters, sirens, a Robert Johnson-like bluesman, corrupt politicians and the Klan.

The cast and directors will all be in attendance, and on hand for a musical performance. Get your banjos tuned.

The 53rd New York Film Festival starts tomorrow, 25th September and runs to 11th October at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, tickets here.