Tribeca 2026: The Narratives

In his RogerEbert.com report on the narrative section of the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival, Peter Sobczynski takes a fairly uneven view of this part of the program. In his opinion, the festival's documentary lineup this year was stronger and more varied, while the narrative section sometimes felt like a collection of films that had failed to find a place at festivals such as Sundance, SXSW, or Toronto. The writer considers several of the festival's comedies unsuccessful, among them Never Change!, That Friend, and Deepfake. He also regards Killing Castro by Elf Rivera, despite an intriguing premise and a cast including Logan Marshall-Green, Diego Boneta, Kiki Layne, and Al Pacino, as a film that never comes together into a satisfying whole. By contrast, a few music-centered films were more worth seeing for him. He calls Hadestown: The Musical an energetic recording of Anaïs Mitchell's stage musical, and describes Imaginal Disk by Amanda Kramer as a fitting visual accompaniment to the album by the group Magdalena Bay. Part of the report is devoted to standout performances. Bill Camp gives an effective turn in Ponderosa despite the film's overall weakness. Ronit Yudkevitch rises above the screenplay's clichés in What Is to Come. In Caity, Chiara Aurelia plays a sixteen-year-old girl who helps run a local haunted house attraction with her father and faces family troubles and addiction. The writer sees this film, despite its dark atmosphere, as a tender and effective coming-of-age story. Among the more important films in the report is In Memoriam, starring Marc Maron. It is the story of an ailing actor who wants to be seen in the In Memoriam segment of the Oscars before he dies. The writer regards the film as going beyond inside-the-industry jokes and praises Maron's performance alongside Judy Greer, Lily Gladstone, and Sharon Stone. The Leader by Michael J. Gallagher tells the true story of the Heaven's Gate group, a dark and painful film that, in the writer's view, follows the mindset of the group's members to its bitter end without exploiting the tragedy. The report continues with The Last Day by Rachel Rose, based on the novel Mrs. Dalloway and set over the course of a single Fourth of July. Alicia Vikander plays a mother who, beneath the surface of her orderly life, struggles with grief, writer's block, and the memory of her late father. But the writer highlights Victoria Pedretti's performance even more, presenting her as the painful emotional center of the film. The prize for Best Performance in the U.S. narrative section was shared by Marcel Ruiz, Paolo Schoene, and Kiki Montilla for Summer of Three, a film by Carlitos Ruiz-Ruiz about a seventeen-year-old who returns to Puerto Rico and becomes caught up in a tense love triangle. The writer does not find the story especially original but credits the energy of the direction, Pablo Ascanio's cinematography, and the appeal of the three lead actors for its success. In the international section, Funk by Aly Muritiba is introduced, centered on a young woman in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro who wants to become famous through funk music. The writer finds the film familiar in its story but powerful in its execution, music, and the performances of Duda Santos and MC Nem. The top winner of the international section was Labrador, Autopsy of Silence by Rodrigue Jean. The film won Best Feature and also received recognition for its cinematography and for Christopher Angatookalook's performance. The story follows an Inuk mechanic named Alupa on a freighter in the North Atlantic who becomes a murder suspect after the death of his secret lover. The writer sees this as a mysterious and lasting work that blends a crime mystery with a look at power dynamics and social exclusion.

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