By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
From the opening night Earth, Wind & Fire documentary from Questlove to its annual TV and podcasts section and even a live IndieWire “Screen Talk” with Ronan Farrow hosted by Anne Thompson and yours truly, the 2026 Tribeca Festival has something for even the pickiest of tastes.
This year’s edition — the festival’s 25th, and ahead of New York’s 25th anniversary of September 11 — features more than 100 feature films and dozens of shorts playing throughout New York City June 3-14.
On the feature side, the festival includes three competitions for narrative, documentary, and international films, with other sections devoted to cutting-edge cinema in Viewpoints and a substantial short film program. Plus, the Galas and Narrative Spotlight sections showcase either high-profile world premieres or films fresh off the festival circuit, like Sundance’s starry comedy “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” from David Wain.
The festival opens on Wednesday, June 3 with Questlove’s documentary “Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial VS That’s the Weight of the World)” followed by an Earth, Wind & Fire performance, kicking off a festival that’s heavy on music docs and live performances. Sara Bareilles, Peter Frampton, Mumford & Sons, The LOX, Magdalena Bay, and Noga Erez & Ori Rousso will perform throughout the festival. Closing night showcases the world premiere of “Alicia Keys: Girl from Hell’s Kitchen,” directed by Tribeca alum One9.
Tribeca Festival’s hub is Manhattan, but screenings and events take place throughout the city’s boroughs. More details are available via the festival’s website.
Below, IndieWire rounds up 13 films we’ve either already checked out early or are intrigued to see at this year’s festival. All these movies, by the way, are seeking U.S. distribution.
“The Office” and “Silicon Valley” star Zach Woods directs a top-shelf cast for his feature directing debut, unexpectedly a child caregiving drama starring Susan Sarandon, Aubrey Plaza, and “Spy Kids: Armageddon” young star Everly Carganilla. “The Accompanist” centers on a nine-year-old girl who is removed from her aging grandfather’s care by a child-welfare agent, only to be placed in the care of the “witchy, funny, and unpredictable” (per the synopsis) Sylvia (Sarandon, of course).
Writer/director Sophia Takal detoured from the indie film roots she established in the evocative “Green” and “Always Shine” for a brush with Blumhouse/Universal studio filmmaking on “Black Christmas,” plus episodes of “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and the new “Gossip Girl.” But she’s back to dramatic feature directing with the backstage drama “Act One,” starring Ella Beatty as a drama student caught under the magnetic spell of an acting teacher, played by Ari Graynor. What results is a hallucinatory exploration of power, control, desire, and — that hottest of fascinated feelings right now — obsession.
New York indie director Joshua Z. Weinstein made a splash in 2017 with the A24 release of his Hasidic drama “Menashe.” His first narrative feature in nearly a decade, “Here I’m Alive,” follows an ensemble of migrants, sex workers, and city dreamers hustling in New York’s digital demimonde. Cheyenne Gallagher, Krystaly Figueroa, Eddie Torrenegra, and Emira D’Spain star in what’s billed as an “unmistakably New York” movie.
“The Night Agent” star Gabriel Basso writes, directs, and acts in this psychological thriller about a reclusive loner’s obsession — there’s that word again! — with a live-streaming influencer who ends up reshaping his existence via weightlifting, firearms, and seemingly looksmaxxing in ways that ultimately become unsettling. Courtney Eaton, Rain Spencer, Noah Centineo, and Kiernan Shipka co-star. Per the festival, it’s “a debut that announces a filmmaker with something real to say.” We’re listening!
Alicia Vikander, Victoria Pedretti, and Wagner Moura star in artist-turned-filmmaker Rachel Rose’s New York-set drama “The Last Day,” about two diverging mothers whose paths cross dramatically in what’s billed as a modern-day retelling of Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway.” It’s a Killer Films production under Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler’s well-respected indie banner, while the cast alone, including recent Oscar nominee Moura as an old flame flung out of the past, will make this one of this festival’s buzziest Spotlight screenings.
Writer/director Michael Gallagher turns his eye toward a subject normally reserved for HBO or Netflix true crime documentaries — the Heaven’s Gate cult, which in 1997 perpetuated the largest mass suicide event on U.S. soil in history — with “The Leader.” Tim Blake Nelson, Vera Farmiga, Simon Rex, and Jim Parsons star in a retelling of the true story of the UFO cult that convinced its followers they could become extraterrestrials to transcend the Earth.
Jeffrey Schwarz’s riveting documentary, a must-see for William Friedkin heads and LGBTQ cinephiles, pulls back the veil on the 1977 murder of Variety critic Addison Verrill, which inspired the controversial 1980 leather-bar thriller “Cruising” starring Al Pacino. After a late-night casual encounter, Verrill was murdered by troubled former hospital worker Paul Bateson, who featured as an extra in Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” a few years prior. Schwarz’s film also contextualizes the gay community’s incensed reaction to Friedkin’s film attempting to shoot a story that villainized gay men on location in New York.
Writer/director Tori Lancaster’s fascinating psychological puzzle “Mother Future Self” centers on participants of an experimental dance camp in rural Maine, where a friendship reunion turns into a potentially more hostile encounter. Lancaster’s feature is slinky and strange, with many scenes shot within a real-life dance camp itself, the woods themselves forming an eerie backdrop for a fraught tale of girlfriends on edge.
“Like Crazy” and “Newness” director Drake Doremus returns to the festival with his first feature since before the pandemic, “Next Life.” The spotlight screening stars Emilia Clarke as a jazz musician subsumed by alternate realities while on a fateful train ride — including one where she reconnects with an ex, in true Doremus messy-relationship fashion. Edgar Ramírez and Jack Farthing also star.
“Mike Wallace Is Here” documentary director Avi Belkin assembles an archival found-footage immersion into the Apollo 13 mission, with a focus on astronaut and pilot Jim Lovell to contextualize the struggle and sacrifice that went into the voyage. Belkin works from more than 2,500 hours of archival footage to rewind to the aborted 1970 mission that would have been the third Moon landing, but became a rescue mission to return to Earth safely.
“Will & Harper” director Josh Greenbaum takes a funny nonfiction look at the folks, from the small to big screens, who have played and parodied U.S. presidents over the years. With comedy legends and late-night insiders chiming in as talking heads, the documentary shows how impressions of presidents have become one of America’s most powerful tools in terms of political storytelling.
Gar O’Rourke’s documentary competition title “The Siege of Paradise” places audience in the annual tourist season in Cinque Terre, Italy — but through the eyes of the TikTokers and influencers who are capturing Italian Riviera coastline region. The exposure has overwhelmed the area with tourists, with roughly 3.5 million visitors a year compared to the 4,000 current residents residing in the region. The documentary chronicles the escalating tensions between lifestyle content creators and locals, including the mayor, and a restaurant owner trying to preserve his business.
Executive-produced by Josh Gad, Billy Porter, and John Cameron Mitchell, “The Dog” director Allison Berg’s latest documentary “Time Warp” follows a drag theater company in the small mining town of Rock Springs, Wyoming, as they try to mount a stage production of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Led by 25-year-old performer Kenny Starling, the troupe helps to spotlight the ongoing struggle for queer visibility and acceptance within this once-booming town. It’s also in the documentary competition section.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Leave a Reply