Writer John Ortved offers his guide to the hottest debuts, the most polite clapback of all time, and what the future of the festival could look like.

Writer John Ortved offers his guide to the hottest debuts, the most polite clapback of all time, and what the future of the festival could

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Uttera-Singh-tribeca-film-festival

Tribeca is not Toronto, nor Venice, nor Berlin. Those splashy late summer and fall festivals tend to be when Hollywood trots out its show ponies, and the race for awards kicks off. In contrast, the 118 films—a hodgepodge of indies, docs, shorts, foreign films, experiments, cartoons, and corporate pitches—competing at the Tribeca Film Festival can afford to be a little less determined, and a little more downtown, in their celebration of filmmaking.

Started in 2002 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal, and Craig Hatkoff as a means to help revive lower Manhattan after  9/11, the festival continues to revel in that spirit, even as it looks past cinema. Presented by Web3, and now featuring categories like Games, Audio Storytelling, and Tribeca X, and with its initial goal long in the rearview mirror, one cannot help but feel the 10-day extravaganza move towards something like the “Tribeca Festival”—drop the “Film.” To wit: as music, and films about music, took an outsize role (there were 20 music events this year, with appearances by Miley Cyrus, Metallica, and Anderson .Paak), and festival goers sprinted between films, talks, podcast presentations, and concerts, there was ever more to discuss.

Below, we fill you in on the best, worst, buzziest, and more superlatives from a busy week in lower Manhattan.

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Film Still from Miley Cyrus’s Something Beautiful, 2025. Image courtesy of Columbia Records.

The worst heckle goes to… whomever yelled “We paid $800. Sing!” at Miley Cyrus during her talk at the premiere of Something Beautiful, the intimate visual component of her album of the same name. This was not a concert—and was not billed as such. As the Internet was quick to point out, it’s a good idea to read the description of something before you attend (never mind drop $800). And here’s why Cyrus is the star that she is: She not only took this rudeness with aplomb, she sang! She graciously belted out an acapella version of “The Climb.” What. A. Star. The week also saw music films about Metallica, Billy Joel, and Elton John.

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Film still from Pinch by Uttera Singh, 2025. Image courtesy of the Tribeca Film Festival.

The breakout star goes to … the luminescent Uttera Singh, who wrote, directed, and starred in the most succinct and smart dramedy of Tribeca: Pinch. The Indian film tells the story of Maitri, an aspiring travel blogger whose reaction to being groped at a festival has cascading repercussions for her and her family. Delving into contemporary feminist, sexual, and community morays, this deft morality play is funny, touching, and tone-perfect.

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Film still from Animals in War by Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi, 2025. Image courtesy of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Blackest sheep goes to… Animals in War, a collaborative film from Ukraine that takes us into the nation’s strife with an anthology of tales—inspired by true stories—about animals affected by the war. While compilations tend to only be as strong as their weakest chapter, this film soberly lays out the many costs of a well-documented war with even-handed originality, and stark, evocative imagery.

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Julia Fox at the Tribeca Film Festival. Image courtesy of Getty Images.

Best transformation goes to… Julia Fox. Fresh from a hilarious appearance, as herself, in Hulu’s Adults, and deejaying the CULT100 party at the Guggenheim, buns out, Fox appeared in several films at the festival, dashing any suggestions of a flash-in-the-pan after her Uncut Gems debut. Fox demonstrates real chops in both Charlotte Ercoli’s Fior Di Latte alongside Tim Heidecker (not to undersell Marta Pozzan, who cannot help but steal every scene she’s in), and Tony Kaye’s weirdo romp, The Trainer, starring Vito Schnabel (attempting a transformation of his own) as a fitness bro trying to promote a gadget.

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Film still from Why We Dream by Meredith Danluck, 2025. Image courtesy of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Most dedicated corporation goes to… it’s a toss up between two American giants: Ford and Delta. Both companies submitted feel-good documentary films that were surprisingly engaging. Delta tapped Meredith Danluck to compile both live and archival footage to tell the story of U.S. WWII veterans making what is perhaps their final return to the beaches of Normandy in Why We Dream. Meanwhile, Ford’s philanthropic division sponsored Call to Serve, a short that highlights the work of veterans working with Team Rubicon, an organization that volunteers in zones affected by natural disasters. What’s interesting here isn’t that corporations are looking to film to drum up goodwill, but the subjects they’re choosing, and what it says about our current cultural moment.

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Film still from The End of Quiet by Kasper Bisgaard and Mikael Lypinski, 2025. Image courtesy of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Most likely to be shushed during screenings goes to… the terrific and novel documentary The End of Quiet. Danish directors Kasper Bisgaard and Mikael Lypinski take us to a town in West Virginia that’s home to the world’s largest radio telescope, which can only exist in the Quiet Zone—the last remaining bastion in the U.S. where Wi-Fi and cell phone signals are not permitted. What emerges is a meditation on technology and humanity that will, ironically, have people talking.

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Film still from The Best You Can by Michael J. Weithorn, 2025. Image courtesy of the Tribeca Film Festival.

Sweetest romance goes to… a film where the after party was sponsored by the AARP. The Best You Can unites real-life husband-and-wife duo Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon in a romantic story about getting older, losing the ones we love, and finding new romance. Adorably, at a post-premiere dinner, where Sedgwick received the Spotlight Initiative Award from the Creative Coalition, she tried to remember how many films she and Bacon—married for 36 years—had made together. “Three,” she said. “No, four.”