Since its announcement late Wednesday, the official schedule for the 45th New York Film Festival has already garnered fervent discussion among those in the New York film community. What the schedule lacks in surprises it more than makes up for in prominence and prestige. Or to put it another way: While the final lineup won’t have any serious film buffs dropping their jaws in disbelief, it will surely have more than a few licking their lips in anticipation.

Serving yet again as a comprehensive who’s-who of the year in cinema, this year’s NYFF looks both forward and backward, scooping up a gaggle of the most talked about titles from Cannes while also looking ahead to a handful of titles that promise to use the Toronto Film Festival as a launching pad for their Oscar campaigns. From a wide-open sea of contenders, the festival will offer its own take on what films comprise the cream of the crop; if the Tribeca Film Festival, which wrapped in May, is a chorus of hopefuls, then the New York Film Festival, set to open September 28, is a more intimate recital for the very best soloists.

Divided into three distinct camps — the certified successes, the comebacks, and the contenders — the only thing this year’s 28 official selections have in common is name-brand quality and a fixed place in the establishment. One can already overhear the debates erupting among film buffs at the city’s art houses over whether the new Noah Baumbach, the new Coen brothers, or that big Mungiu film from Cannes is the real must-see.

When all is said and done, the festival’s biggest draws will no doubt be the proven winners. Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s “Persepolis,” an animated coming-of-age story set against the Islamic Revolution that was an award-winner at Cannes, was announced as the festival’s closing-night film. “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” which won Julian Schnabel a best director award at Cannes, tells the story of magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, after suffering a stroke, dictated his own memoir by blinking his eyes. Cristian Mungiu’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” a tale about the last days of the Soviet Bloc and the horrors of an illegal abortion, was this year’s Palme d’Or winner at Cannes.

Competing against those proven hits will be an array of highly anticipated films, all from established American filmmakers who have receded from the spotlight as of late. That list starts, obviously, with the Coen Brothers, who, after a few critical and box-office flops, return with this year’s centerpiece selection, “No Country for Old Men.” The very Coenesque story, already hailed as a “bloody classic,” concerns a botched drug deal, lost money, and one man’s attempt to run off with the loot. Not far behind is Wes Anderson’s latest, “The Darjeeling Limited,” which had already been announced as the festival’s opening-night selection.

Behind those marquee titles is a lengthy list of prominent and familiar names, all sporting new films: Mr. Baumbach (“The Squid and the Whale”) returns with the family drama “Margot at the Wedding”; Gus Van Sant will screen “Paranoid Park,” about a skateboarder’s world crashing in around him, and Todd Haynes has been added to the slate with “I’m Not There,” a film about Bob Dylan, starring an impressive array of today’s top actors.

Brian De Palma, meanwhile, will make his first appearance at the festival with the Iraq-oriented “Redacted.” And Sidney Lumet will return to the festival after a four-decade absence with the crime story “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” starring another marquee name, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

If those are the Goliaths of this year’s festival, the Davids are the foreign entries, many from brilliant and established filmmakers, each looking to be the next “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” or “The Lives of Others.” Juan Antonio Bayona’s “The Orphanage” works on a more supernatural plane, about a woman reopening the orphanage in which she was raised. Catherine Breillat’s “The Last Mistress” is more concerned with love and a forbidden affair that violates the division of class and social rank. Carlos Reygadas’s “Silent Light” is about a test of faith. Abel Ferrara’s “Go Go Tales,” one of the festival’s lighter selections, delves deep into the world of, what else, a madcap Manhattan go-go dancing club.

In an effort to cut through the festival mania and single out the cream of the crop for their New York debuts, the New York Film Festival’s star-studded lineup will be balanced out by a fair number of surprises in the form of special series and events. Most notable is a screening of what’s being billed as the “definitive cut” of Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner,” as well as the rediscovery of John Ford’s first major, relatively unseenwork, “The Iron Horse,” and a rare 1920 German version of “Hamlet.”

None of which even touches on this year’s special tributes to the Brazilian filmmaker Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, or to China’s Cathay Studios — the carefully curated mini-festivals that populate the sidelines of the two-week marathon. While the New York Film Festival is certainly playing with a full deck this year, thankfully, it has also remembered to toss in a few wild cards.

ssnyder@nysun.com