Tribeca 2026: 103 World Premieres and Stars from Tarantino to Rudd

Tribeca turns 25, and for its 2026 edition it immediately puts a number on the table: 118 feature films in the lineup, including 103 world premieres, plus 86 shorts. The festival will take place in New York from June 3 to 14, 2026, with its usual structure expanded for the anniversary: big names, plenty of music documentaries, several high-profile American titles and a selection focused on technology, politics, social media and pop culture.

Tribeca 2026 bets on event cinema between music and red carpet

The June 3 opening night will feature Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial VS That’s the Weight of the World) by Questlove, already announced in recent days, with a live performance by Earth, Wind & Fire and The Roots after the screening. The closing night on June 13 will instead be Alicia Keys: Girl From Hell’s Kitchen, a tribute by One9 to the artist’s New York, accompanied by a special appearance from Keys herself.

Several screenings will also be followed by sets or performances from Sara Bareilles, Peter Frampton, Mumford & Sons, The LOX, Magdalena Bay, Noga Erez and Ori Rousso.

Aubrey Plaza, Paul Rudd and Quentin Tarantino lead the most visible titles

On the narrative side, there are plenty of easy headline titles. Aubrey Plaza produces and stars in The Accompanist by Zach Woods, alongside Susan Sarandon. Katie Holmes writes, directs and stars in Happy Hours, where she reunites with Joshua Jackson.

Paul Rudd appears in the drama Rain Reign, the story of a neurodivergent twelve-year-old girl searching for her dog after a superstorm. Then there is one of the most anticipated titles: Only What We Carry by Jamie Adams, shot in six days on the coast of Normandy, with Quentin Tarantino in front of the camera alongside Sofia Boutella, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Lizzy McAlpine and Simon Pegg.

In the same high-profile section of the lineup there are also The Last Day with Alicia Vikander and Wagner Moura, The Revisionist with Alison Brie, André Holland, Tom Sturridge and Dustin Hoffman, Clean Hands with Zach Braff, and In the Hand of Dante by Julian Schnabel, already marked as a Netflix release.

The films to watch on AI, deepfakes and social media

Among the documentaries, Probably Nothing to Worry About stands out. Tribeca presents it as a film about the origins of artificial intelligence, told by the people who built it, with the rivalry between the sector’s key figures at its center and a final question about salvation or destruction.

On the platform front comes TikTok Never Dies, which follows three influencers as the battle over the TikTok ban advances all the way to the Supreme Court, with the film directly connecting livelihoods, freedom of speech and platform control.

Then there is Deepfake, a narrative satire set between the United States and Italy in which a thirty-year-old woman relies on Gen Z consultants to remake her identity, and Miss Representation: Rise Up, which connects the backlash against women’s progress to a technological ecosystem also designed to silence them.

Documentaries, politics and nostalgia: the other half of the lineup

The other major pillar of the program is documentary, with Tribeca drawing from sports, American memory, pop culture and media.

Playing POTUS moves from the presidential impressions of Chevy Chase to those of Maya Rudolph, showing how presidential caricatures ended up shaping the public narrative around politics. Doc Meets World reunites Danielle Fishel, Will Friedle and Rider Strong for the 30th anniversary of Boy Meets World. Chris & Martina: The Final Set brings Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova to the screen through rivalry, friendship and cancer treatment. Bob and David Climb Machu Picchu pairs Bob Odenkirk with David Cross.

Odyssey uses more than 2,500 hours of archive footage to retrace the journey from NASA’s rise to Apollo 13. And IX XI, with twelve personal stories about September 11, returns to the founding nerve of Tribeca, created after the 2001 attacks to help restore Lower Manhattan.

The real numbers behind Tribeca’s 25th anniversary

The 2026 selection represents 143 filmmakers from 44 countries, including 55 first-time directors.

Tribeca also notes that, among the films in competition, 48% are directed by women and 50% by BIPOC filmmakers. The shorts lineup includes 86 films, with 45 world premieres, while individual tickets will go on sale on April 28.

These numbers also reveal the economy of the festival: a machine of 118 feature films, 103 world premieres and dozens of new auteurs that must simultaneously attract audiences, partners, media coverage and potential buyers.

Presented by OKX, Tribeca 2026 therefore uses the weight of its names and themes to keep attention high, offering titles on AI, TikTok, deepfakes, representation and media politics that try to map where the cultural conflict is really moving.