Tribeca 2026: The Year of Going to the Cinema

The 25th edition of the Tribeca Film Festival may have ended on Sunday, but the festival continues to live on in our minds. 2026 feels like the year of going to the cinema, and that was apparent in the final weekend of the festival, with packed screenings at all times of the day across all venues.

A film festival’s second weekend is always a great time to catch up with films you heard about throughout the festival but didn’t have time to catch. That was certainly the case this year, with some standout documentaries and films that ranked among my favorites of the festival.

One of the most striking and unforgettable films I caught at the festival, Miiku Sakanishi’s Memorizu is a beautifully shot, heartfelt debut about the power of memory, and how film and our cellphones have changed the way we preserve and interact with our memories. The film follows a man who goes to rural Japan to take care of his father-in-law, who runs a film store. Sakanishi’s film plays with time and rhythm, often revisiting similar scenes or the same settings in a way that feels confident and assured. It’s hard to believe Memorizu is the filmmaker’s debut; this level of narrative and stylistic control usually comes from someone much further along in their career.

An unexpectedly entertaining gem, Philip Byron’s Spin Wars explores the rise and fall of a 2010s New York phenomenon: Soulcycle. The documentary specifically offers commentary on the spin class company’s grip over the city, as well as the shady actions of its co-founders at the company’s start (former co-CEOs Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler kicked out their third co-founder, Ruth Zuckerman, much to Zuckerman’s surprise). At the same time, it balances the ups and downs of Soulcycle’s tenure as contrasted with two of its main competitors: Flywheel and Peloton. While the style is somewhat simple and the interview format gets old, this 90-minute documentary is entertaining, especially for those unfamiliar with why spin classes were (and perhaps continue to be) so popular.

Sometimes, a movie screams that it should be directly exported to video-on-demand or a streaming service, as if it’s not good or compelling enough to be seen in a theater. Killing Castro is one of those films. The story tracks the U.S. government’s attempt to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro during 1960’s UN week. Unfortunately, a rough, cringe-worthy script and non-compelling performances across the board (even from the iconic Al Pacino) make this a boring, sluggish watch that offers nothing new and nothing you can’t glean from a quick Wikipedia session.

On the comedic side, That Friend is a quick-paced, somewhat effective dramedy that focuses on two adult friends who realize that they’re at completely different stages in their lives. Though some of the comedic gags fall flat and are often dragged out for too long, the film’s running thematic throughline is compelling, and the more emotional moments are smartly woven in between comedic ones, creating a entertaining yet thorny tension. It helps that the lead performances from Harvey Guillén, Josh Brener, and Billie Lourd are all great.

I had high expectations for Seven O’Clock Breakfast Club from the Brokenhearted, which is a love story that follows two people who briefly interact at an early-morning lonely hearts club. Despite the film’s emphasis on how everything is a matter of time and place, the film’s script felt too overwritten and dramatized. It’s hard to buy the main characters’ chemistry, rendering their interactions awkward and non-believable. Even at 108 minutes, the film felt too long and overdrawn, with the story reaching a natural conclusion way before the film’s credits roll.

The Last Day is a straightforward look at the effects of postpartum depression, relayed through the lens of two mothers in very different socioeconomic situations who cross paths one day. The film’s success is largely attributable to two excellent performances from leads Alicia Vikander and Victoria Pedretti. The film’s perspective could use more balance, though, exploring the characters’ stories more equally rather than largely anchoring to Vikander’s character’s perspective. The film’s messages are important and necessary, but because of the unbalanced story, its ending feels rushed and somewhat unearned.