I’m pleased to be covering the Tribeca Festival for the fourth time this year. It’s a festival I’ve always enjoyed being a part of because of its diverse range of films and documentaries spanning a wide variety of genres and subjects. For its 25th edition, running between 3rd-14th June 2026, the milestone event features a massive lineup of more than 100 world-premiere films, TV series, podcasts, immersive storytelling experiences, and the largest Games programme in the festival’s history.

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The 2026 festival showcases 118 feature films, including 103 world premieres, alongside 86 short films. Proceedings begin with Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial VS That’s the Weight of the World), a documentary about the legendary band Earth, Wind & Fire. From there, highly anticipated premieres such as Next Life (starring Emilia Clarke), Death Boom (produced by Eli Roth), and General Admission (featuring Nina Dobrev) will take centre stage. The podcast programme also offers live recordings featuring prominent figures including Kara Swisher with Marc Maron, Laurie Anderson, and Peter Dinklage.

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As part of the expanded Games and TV sections, attendees will be able to explore a spotlight on indie and cross-media video game projects such as The Keeper of the Camphor Tree, alongside episodic television content including Alice and Steve from the producers of Baby Reindeer.

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Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to see a number of excellent films at the festival, including Smoking Tigers, Deep Sea, No Man of God, Glob Lessons, Cherry, The Courtroom, Nude Tuesday, and You Can Live Forever, among many others. The 2026 slate looks particularly strong, and I expect several of this year’s selections to become future favourites and regular rewatches.

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Looking ahead to this year’s programme, there are quite a few titles that have caught my attention. I’m particularly interested in Imaginal Disk, the narrative companion piece to Magdalena Bay’s 2024 album of the same name - an album that may well be one of the best I’ve heard in many years.

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Here are the selections I’m most excited to see (in no particular order):

 

Hallowarrior

Escape From Tribeca

Feature Narrative | United States | 80 MINUTES | English

Directed by Ben Sottak

Cast: Milly Shapiro, Ajani Russell, AJ Bowen, Shannyn Sossamon

 

Every day is Halloween for Pumpkin (Milly Shapiro), a young survivor living alone in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Her home is decorated with jack-o’-lanterns and other Halloween ephemera, a festive method of coping with extreme loneliness and an unavoidable sadness. But when a group of scavengers shows up at her doorstep one night, led by the seemingly friendly Thalia (Shannyn Sossamon), her hopes of someday finding a new family are reignited — momentarily. Before long, Thalia’s crew reveal their true intentions and turn what initially had promise into a home invasion nightmare. To survive the night, Pumpkin will have to make a choice much different than her beloved trick or treat: fight back or die.

 

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Imaginal Disk

Spotlight+

Feature Narrative | United States | 53 MINUTES | English

Directed by Amanda Kramer

Cast: Mica Tenenbaum, Matthew Lewin

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A cinematic companion to Magdalena Bay’s eponymous album, Imaginal Disk expands its kaleidoscopic world into a bold, visually driven narrative.

 

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Breeder

Escape From Tribeca

Feature Narrative | Canada, United States | 97 MINUTES | English

Directed by Alex Goyette

Cast: Daniel Doheny, Dot Marie Jones, Maddie Phillips, Tanaya Beatty

 

College student Russell (Daniel Doheny) is focused on developing a new game-changing solution to save the endangered bee population from extinction. But there’s a problem: He can’t secure enough funding. That’s before a potential lifeline shows up in the form of a random but tempting financial offer from a poodle breeder named Patti (Dot-Marie Jones), who lives off the grid on an isolated ranch. Russell visits Patti to see if her offer is legit or too good to be true. Unfortunately, after several awkward interactions and a growing sense of unease, he learns that it’s the latter. She’ll give him the cash, but with an added cost: He must breed with her daughter. 

 

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Mutter: The Diary of a Mother

Escape From Tribeca

Feature Narrative | Türkiye | 99 MINUTES | Turkish | English subtitles

Directed by Alphan Eseli

Cast: Hazar Ergüçlü, Güven Kıraç

 

On an empty country road on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, the very pregnant Gül (Hazar Ergüçlü) gives birth inside of a speeding truck. Much to her male partner’s horror and Gül’s inquisitive shock, the baby isn’t quite human — it’s more alien than human, in fact, a hideous-looking, pint-sized monster. While her partner leaves, Gül decides to care for her newborn offspring. But in a community where misogyny runs rampant and no one has any interest in providing support to a single mother living on society’s outskirts, motherhood is extremely difficult.

 

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Recluse

Escape From Tribeca

Feature Narrative | United States | 98 MINUTES | English

Directed by Henry Chaisson

Cast: Sasha Frolova, Xander Berkeley, Toby Poser, Mia Vallet, Kimball Farley, Frankie Seratch

 

Working as an audio engineer for movies, Joan (Sasha Frolova) is constantly haunted by and obsessed with sounds. This auditory fascination ends up being particularly vital when she ends up back in her family’s New England mansion to tend to her father, a once-prolific artist who was severely burned in an accident and is now bedridden. While reconnecting with her dad’s hired help, Joan can’t shake the ghosts of her past, largely tied to her mother’s long-unsolved disappearance. But something else isn’t right. Initially just figurative, those ghosts may in fact be literal and are possibly connected to her father’s dabbling in the occult. As Joan is about to find out, the truth is much scarier than she could’ve imagined.

 

The Keeper of the Camphor Tree

Viewpoints

Feature Narrative | Japan | 114 MINUTES | Japanese | English subtitles

Directed by Tomohiko Ito

Cast: Fumiya Takahashi, Yuki Amami

 

Young Reito is left on his own in Tokyo after the loss of his mother. To make matters worse, he’s jobless without much headwind on a new path. A series of bad decisions and misfortune lands him in prison. Left with nothing to hold onto, he’s lost all hope for a fruitful future. Everything changes when a lawyer representing an influential family empire offers him a chance on one condition: He must become the steward of an ancient tree engulfed by a famous shrine.

 

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Caity

U.S. Narrative Competition

Feature Narrative | United States | 95 MINUTES | English

Directed by Lindsay Calleran

Cast: Chiara Aurelia, Morgan Spector, Zach Cherry, Michelle Mao, Jordan Hull, Olivia Rouyre, Emily Shaffer, Christian Lees, Jonah Lees

 

Every October, Caity (Chiara Aurelia) and her father Paul (Morgan Spector) transform their upstate New York property into a locally beloved haunted house. It's a family business built on fragile footing: Paul is newly sober, and Caity holds everything together with the kind of competence that teenagers shouldn't have to carry. When Paul relapses, she covers for him the only way she knows how, by absorbing more than her share of the weight, finding solace in drinking and falling for a beguiling new employee named Hannah.

 

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Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass

Spotlight Narrative

Feature Narrative | United States | 93 MINUTES | English

Directed by David Wain

Cast: Zoey Deutch, Jon Hamm, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Ben Wang, Michael Cassidy, Sabrina Impacciatore, Fred Melamed

When Gail Daughtry (Zoey Deutch) is asked who her celebrity free pass is, she says her fiancé Tom (Michael Cassidy) because he was the quarterback at their local high school. After being prodded by her best friend and coworker Otto (Miles Gutierrez-Riley), she reluctantly chooses Jon Hamm. But when Tom gets caught in the act with his celebrity crush, Gail and Otto jet off to Los Angeles in desperate search of the “Mad Men” star. Along the way, they become fast friends with a ragtag group of Hollywood misfits while suddenly being pursued by a mysterious organized crime leader (Sabrina Impacciatore) in search of a missing briefcase.

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In Memoriam

Spotlight Narrative

Feature Narrative | United States | 118 MINUTES | English

Directed by Rob Burnett

Cast: Marc Maron, Talia Ryder, Lily Gladstone, Michael McKean, Judy Greer, Sharon Stone

 

Langston (Marc Maron), a once respected television actor now relegated to one scene gigs, is stuck in the past. With a teenage daughter he barely knows and a much younger girlfriend of which he has little in common, he’s plagued by a relentless, ongoing awareness of what could have been. But his constant state of egotistical bitterness and regret is rocked when a shocking terminal diagnosis motivates him into action. What is the one thing that a man like Langston feels will prove his life was worth something? A place in the Academy Awards® “In Memoriam” segment, of course. Enlisting the help of his devoted agent (Michael McKean) and attempting to find allies in the industry who can speak to his “cause,” Langston goes on a misguided apology tour through his unscrupulous past.

 

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Human Theories

Viewpoints

Feature Narrative | United States | 71 MINUTES | English

Directed by Jess Zeidman

Cast: Elise Kibler, Joey Dardano, Joanna Arnow, Sophie Zucker, Josephine Chiang, Asha Ward

 

New York City is a city of dreams, and one thing that everyone seems to be dreaming of in this hilarious debut comedic kaleidoscope is a connection. Intertwining forty different vignettes featuring the mélange of residents that call New York City home, this film shows the many trials and tribulations that people encounter while searching for ways to connect. Reminiscent of the indie films of the 90s, the city becomes a main character in and of itself as the film jumps from bedroom to coffee shop to brownstone steps, peeking into the humorous lives of everyday people (and some not-so-everyday individuals) as they take on the awkward struggle of modern city living. Human Theories is a love letter to the folks who are just trying to exist and the beautiful city they exist in.

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Lucy Schulman

U.S. Narrative Competition

Feature Narrative | United States | 90 MINUTES | English

Directed by Ellie Sachs

Cast: Ellie Sachs, David Cross

 

Lucy is stumbling — through boyfriends who consume her attention, friendships she can't quite hold onto, and an almost-too-close relationship with her loving dad. She's in her late twenties, not yet sure who she is, making wrong choices for the right reasons and agreeing to things when she should push back. Lucy Schulman is messy and recognizable in the way that the best coming-of-age stories are, even when you're technically past the age. 

 

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Never Change!

Spotlight Narrative

Feature Narrative | United States | 98 MINUTES | English

Directed by Marty Schousboe

Cast: John Reynolds, Sofia Black-D'Elia, Carmen Christopher, Jo Firestone, Gary Richardson

 

Due to a bureaucratic loophole discovered decades later, the graduating class of North Meadows High School never officially received their diplomas. Now in their mid-30s, they are legally required to return to finish high school. Old flames, buried secrets and the specific humiliation of being a full-grown adult in a teenage institution collide in this gleefully unhinged ensemble comedy that commits fully to its own absurdity and earns every outrageous laugh along the way. 

 

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Take Me Home

Spotlight Narrative

Feature Narrative | United States | 90 MINUTES | English

Directed by Liz Sargent

Cast: Anna Sargent, Victor Slezak, Ali Ahn, Marceline Hugot, Shane Harper

 

An intimate and thought-provoking drama, Take Me Home explores a family unit in a newly precarious position. Grounded in a magnetic performance by newcomer Anna Sargent, sister of writer-director Liz Sargent, Anna must navigate shifting family dynamics amid a system that deprioritizes her needs. Anna’s journey toward independence, community and contentment is both gripping and gentle, allowing audiences to experience her challenges alongside the bold promise of optimism. With a nuanced ensemble, including Victor Slezak as Anna’s devoted father, Bob, whose dementia is slowly emerging, and Ali Ahn as the loving but overloaded sibling Emily, the film still centers Anna with confidence.

 

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That Friend

Spotlight Narrative

Feature Narrative | United States | 87 MINUTES | English

Directed by Alex Wall and Will Sterling

Cast: Harvey Guillen, Billie Lourd, Josh Brener, Neil Brown Jr., Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Lauren Lapkus

 

All Henry (Josh Brener) wanted was a romantic weekend with his new girlfriend Penny (Billie Lourd) as the palm trees and mountains of Palm Springs set the stage to take their relationship to the next level. But Henry’s dream getaway turns into an absurd romp when his party animal best friend Paul (Harvey Guillén) invites himself on the trip, strapped with a pack of drug-laced cigarettes and a penchant for cockblocking.

 

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Act One

Spotlight Narrative

Feature Narrative | United States | 104 MINUTES | English

Directed by Sophia Takal

Cast: Ella Beatty, Ari Graynor, Nate Mann, Elizabeth Reaser, Sinclair Daniel, Robert Sean Leonard, Tavi Gevinson

 

What would you be willing to do to achieve your dreams? After lonely aspiring teen actress Hannah (Ella Beatty) is passed over for a role in her senior year high school play, she decides to take a class at “Act One Studios,” an acclaimed dramatic acting company known for bringing success to its young performers. There, she meets Melanie (Ari Graynor), a magnetic acting instructor, who, unlike Hannah’s dysfunctional family, believes in her future success as an artist completely. What starts as a rhythmic and hallucinatory story of finding where you belong quickly takes a thrilling turn. 

 

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The Accompanist

Spotlight Narrative

Feature Narrative | United States | 110 MINUTES | English

Directed by Zach Woods

Cast: Susan Sarandon, Everly Carganilla, Aubrey Plaza

 

Emily (Everly Carganilla), a young child who lives with her loving grandfather in New Jersey, is starting to be affected by the advancement of her caretaker’s dementia. When a novice Child Welfare agent (Aubrey Plaza) comes to assess the situation, she extracts Emily from her home in a panic and places her in the care of Sylvia (Susan Sarandon), a kind but mischievous old woman. As the two spend more time together, their bond grows deeper, but the mysteries of Sylvia’s past threaten to unravel their future. 

 

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Against the Flow

International Narrative Competition

Feature Narrative | France, Luxembourg, Portugal, Sweden | 80 MINUTES | Mandarin Chinese | English subtitles

Directed by Tao Zhang

Cast: Weihao Xu, Xingchen Lü, Shilan Chen Catherine Fang, Will Zhang 

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Dayao and Tiantian are a young couple navigating the tension between their two worlds. He works construction in a large eastern Chinese city; she cooks in a school cafeteria. Each night they return from the city to the countryside farm where they live with Dayao's elderly mother, Gueihua. When Tiantian befriends Xiaoying, a local girl who shows her the possibilities of urban life, she becomes single-minded: She and Dayao must save every yuan to buy a flat in the city. This decision leaves a lot of weight on Dayao's shoulders — a man who is happiest out in nature, doing nothing. When a workplace accident leaves Dayao's body miraculously unscathed but his mind reduced to the state of a young child, the life Tiantian had been so determined to build must be reimagined entirely.

 

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Cotton Fever

U.S. Narrative Competition

Feature Narrative | United States | 89 MINUTES | English

Directed by Daniel Blake Schwartz

Cast: Kyle Gallner, Sosie Bacon

 

The perilous odyssey of a small-time drug dealer is explored with acute emotional clarity in Daniel Blake Schwartz’s debut feature Cotton Fever, a portrait of several characters living on the edge in their desperate, daily quest to survive the throes of addiction. After a failed attempt at treatment, James (Kyle Gallner, in a deeply felt performance) slips back into using and dealing despite his girlfriend Dina’s (Sosie Bacon) pregnancy and the looming responsibilities of fatherhood. Meanwhile, Dina’s hopes of stability are upended by her own relapse, pulling her further from her desired life. Around them, others come and go in fleeting moments, revealing the complexities of survival and care in their small corner of the world. Unflinching yet contemplative, this tapestry lays bare the realities of substance abuse and the nonlinear cadence of recovery, finding moments of connection between those facing instability.

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Ephemera

U.S. Narrative Competition

Feature Narrative | United States, Singapore | 82 MINUTES | English, Mandarin Chinese | English subtitles

Directed by Shan Jiang and Shan Jiang

Cast: Yvonne Shuyu Zhang, Shu-Yi

 

In post-pandemic Shanghai, 23-year-old Asher (Yvonne Shuyu Zhang) is preparing to leave the city and return to Los Angeles. On one of her last nights, she asks her hip-hop dance teacher, Tori (Shu-Yi), out for coffee. What begins as a casual outing transforms into something neither of them expected. They wander the streets of the former French Concession, share stories and laughter, sneak into a closed mall and slowly discover how much they have to offer each other, just as the clock runs out. By dawn, they must reckon with the bittersweet reality of a connection that arrived exactly one night too late.

 

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The Leader

Spotlight Narrative

Feature Narrative | United States, Canada | 110 MINUTES | English

Directed by Michael Gallagher

Cast: Vera Farmiga, Tim Blake Nelson, Jim Parsons, Grace Caroline Currey, Simon Rex

 

In the 1970s, Marshall Herff Applewhite (Tim Blake Nelson) and Bonnie Lu Nettles (Vera Farmiga) began telling people they were extraterrestrial beings sent to Earth to guide humanity to the next level of existence. Dozens believed them, abandoned their families, dropped out of society and waited to be evacuated from the planet. This is the true and almost unbelievable story of Heaven's Gate, one of the most notorious cults in American history, brought to vivid, harrowing life by two actors at the top of their game. 

 

Sad Girlz

International Narrative Competition

Feature Narrative | Mexico, France, Spain | 90 MINUTES | Spanish | English subtitles

Directed by Fernanda Tovar

Cast: Rocio Guzman, Darana Alvarez, Tatsumi Milori, Tomás García-Agraz, Mónica del Carmen

 

In Fernanda Tovar’s feature debut, she takes a serious and sympathetic look at the challenges faced by modern youth. Teenage girls La Maestra (Rocío Guzmán) and Paula (Darana Álvarez) are the best of friends and rank at the top of the school swim-team. Everything seems on track for the two to take the team trip to Brazil, until one night when they go to a party and something happens to Paula. La Maestra is torn between seeking vengeance for her friend as she believes is right, or supporting Paula’s wishes to keep the situation quiet and pretending it never happened. 

 

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Seven O'Clock Breakfast Club for the Brokenhearted

Spotlight Narrative

Feature Narrative | Republic of Korea (South Korea) | 108 MINUTES | Korean | English subtitles

Directed by Sun-ae Lim

Cast: Suzy, Lee Jin-wook, Yoo Ji-tae, Keum Sae-rok

 

How do you get over a broken heart? This is the question that leads two lovelorn souls to attend a “breakfast for the brokenhearted” that results in them becoming inexplicably entangled with one another in this dreamy and visually stunning Seoul-set romance that navigates love, loss and the yearning for closure.

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Of course, there are many more features, shorts, and documentaries screening across the entirety of the festival and the full line up can be found at https://tribecafilm.com/festival.

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The 2026 Tribeca Festival runs from June 3rd to 14th 2026. For more information on the festival, head to https://tribecafilm.com/

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Since its founding in 2002, the Tribeca Festival has sought to bring artists and audiences together through the power of storytelling. Originally created to help revitalize Lower Manhattan following the events of September 11, the festival has evolved into one of the world's leading celebrations of film, television, games, podcasts, music, and immersive media.

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