The 2026 Tribeca Festival continues the Lower Manhattan festival’s tradition of celebrating storytelling in all its forms. The 25th edition of the festival, which takes place across New York City from June 3rd-14th, once again features episodic content, video games, and podcasts, in addition to the wide variety of independent films for which the festival has been known. This year’s slate of films is centered around three music documentaries celebrating musical storytellers Earth, Wind & Fire (Questlove’s “Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial VS That’s the Weight of the World”), Sara Bareilles (Josh Alexander’s “Sara Bareilles: Good Grief”), and Alicia Keys (One9’s “Alicia Keys: Girl From Hell’s Kitchen”). Each film’s premiere will be followed by a live performance by its subjects, as will many others, making the festival the place to be for art lovers in New York for all of its ten days.
The festival doesn’t stop there in its investigation of the storytelling power of song through the medium of cinema. The Spotlight+ section features documentaries about Peter Frampton (“Frampton,” directed by the artist’s own longtime bandleader, Rob Arthur), Mumford & Sons (“Mumford & Sons: The House Band”), alterna-pop star Noga Erez (”Noga), and hip-hop legends The LOX (“Trinity: The Story of The LOX”), as well as the “cinematic companion” to Magdalena Bay’s latest album (“Imaginal Disk”) and Katy Perry’s latest concert film (“Katy Perry: The Lifetimes Tour – Live From Paris”). The section also features the documentaries “Doc Meets World,” about the cast of “Boy Meets World” doing a rewatch podcast and speaking tour; the recent pro shot of “Hadestown” featuring the original Broadway cast; “The Symphony of Dance,” about dancers Derek and Haley Hough battling health issues during a tour; and “Playing POTUS,” about comedians who have impersonated prominent politicans. With their all-star subjects appearing in person to discuss their work, Tribeca offers fantastic opportunities for fans to get to know more about their favorite artists in intimate NYC cinemas.
For those who missed them at previous festival appearances, Tribeca has also programmed some buzzy titles from the festival circuit. Julian Schnabel’s infamous “In The Hand of Dante” will play the festival. However, it’s shockingly not the film’s U.S. premiere (that honor went to the venerable Sarasota Film Festival in April). Reviews from last year’s Venice Film Festival weren’t kind, but in a way that breeds further curiosity and the necessity to see it for yourself in order to have an opinion. In addition to Schnabel’s long-anticipated film, Tribeca is bringing over David Wain’s ensemble comedy “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” and the cable car rescue documentary “Hanging by a Wire” from this year’s Sundance, and Haifaa Al Mansour’s feminist thriller “Unidentified” from last fall’s TIFF.
This year’s slate also features some films that feel quite trendy: Audiences at Cannes were treated to “Clarissa,” a Lagos-set spin on Virginia Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway” with Sophie Okonedo, and Tribeca has its own film inspired by Woolf’s novel, starring someone who just so happened to be at Cannes: Alicia Vikander, who plays a mother struggling with writer’s block and grief over her father’s death in “The Last Day.” Henry Chaisson’s debut horror feature “Recluse” stars Sasha Frolova as an audio engineer “constantly haunted by and obsessed with sounds,” caring for her dying father in her possibly haunted childhood home, much like Sundance breakout hit “Undertone.“
Fascinatingly, three documentaries about famous pairs are playing in the festival’s Spotlight Documentary section. “Chris & Martina: The Final Set” follows the tennis phenoms through their younger career rivalry and their later-life friendship as fellow cancer patients. “House of Criticism” looks at married art critics Jerry Saltz and Roberta Smith alongside the changing New York City art scene. And then there’s “Bob and David Climb Machu Picchu,” about comedians and best friends Bob Odenkirk and David Cross discussing their lives and careers while they, well… the title for this one is perhaps the most self-explanatory of any film at the festival.
By multiple accounts, queer cinema saved this year’s Cannes film festival, and Tribeca has programmed its fair share of LGBTQ+ cinema. “Time Warp” follows a drag theater company in Rock Springs, Wyoming, putting together a shadow cast of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” in the once-booming mining town. With Roundabout’s production of “Rocky Horror” currently running at Broadway’s Studio 54, it couldn’t have picked a better festival for its premiere. On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, there’s “Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders,” a deep dive into the furor surrounding William Friedkin’s controversial film “Cruising” and the horrific violence that led to its making.
The festival’s U.S. Narrative Competition features two LGBTQ+ films. Shan Jiang’s “Ephemera” sounds like the lesbian “Weekend”: A young woman about to leave Shanghai asks her dance teacher out for coffee, and they spend the rest of the day falling for each other while walking through the city. Lindsay Calleran’s coming-of-age drama “Caity” stars Chiara Aurelia as a 16-year-old trying to cover for her alcoholic father (Morgan Spector) while setting up their family’s annual haunted house and dealing with budding feelings for new employee Hannah. In the Viewpoints section, Andy Fidoten’s “Something You Should Know About Me” follows Al, an insecure trans cartoonist, as he has one last chance to confess his love for his best friend before losing him to a handsome rival. With all these, along with multiple queer shorts, Tribeca is getting Pride Month off to a fabulous start.
While Tribeca has always championed independent films, there are plenty of big names appearing in this year’s slate of films. Zach Woods has gotten Aubrey Plaza and Susan Sarandon for his directorial debut, “The Accompanist,” about a young girl (Everly Carganilla) removed from her dementia-addled grandfather’s home and placed with Sarandon’s mischievous older woman with a past. Fellow first-time feature filmmaker Alex Vlack’s “The Revisionist” features Allison Brie as a writer who manipulates her best friend (André Holland), husband (Tom Sturridge), and father-in-law (Dustin Hoffman) for material. Meanwhile, Gabriel Basso (“The Night Agent”) writes, directs, and stars in “Iconoclast” as a reclusive loner whose infatuation with a live-streaming influencer turns into obsession, causing him to reshape his life in an attempt to build a version of himself she’ll want.
Katie Holmes’s first two films premiered at Tribeca, and she’s back this year with her fourth, the romance “Happy Hours,” which reunites her with her “Dawson’s Creek” love interest, Joshua Jackson, as high school sweethearts who reconnect years later. Vera Farmiga and Tim Blake Nelson star as the founders of the infamous Heaven’s Gate cult in “The Leader,” which seems on paper like the most awards-buzz-worthy performances of the bunch. Speaking of awards buzz, for the Oscar-obsessed among us (guilty as charged!), Marc Maron stars alongside Michael McKean, Lily Gladstone, Talia Ryder, Justin Long, Judy Greer, and Sharon Stone in Rob Burnett’s “In Memoriam,” as a formerly in-demand actor on a quest to earn a spot in the annual Oscars In Memoriam segment after receiving a terminal diagnosis.
Fans of historical dramas surely have their eyes on “Young Washington,” the latest film from the director of “I Can Only Imagine” and upstart distributor Angel Studios. With newcomer William Franklyn-Miller taking on the titular role and a supporting cast of veterans including Mary-Louise Parker, Kelsey Grammer, Andy Serkis, and Ben Kingsley, it will be very interesting to see how the filmmakers connect our nation’s founding to the present day. On the other side of the historical-political spectrum is Elf Rivera’s “Killing Castro,” starring Diego Boneta as the Cuban leader visiting Harlem in 1960 at the request of Malcolm X, while Al Pacino’s CIA operative orchestrates a covert plan to kill him. The meeting of the Black liberation movement and Cold War-era politics and spycraft is rich with storytelling possibilities, especially in the current moment.
What do you think of this year’s Tribeca Festival lineup? Is there any film we didn’t mention that you are excited about? Stay tuned for coverage from the Next Best Picture team over the coming days. Please let us know in the comments section below or on Next Best Picture’s X account.
