The Best Movies We Saw At The 2024 Tribeca Film Festival

New York City's annual Tribeca Festival always brings something for everyone: from its series of short films made by all the most promising up-and-coming talent to several documentaries about a wide range of topics to the buzzy narrative features both international and close to home, all vying for Tribeca's various top prizes. Co-founded by none other than acting legend Robert De Niro in the aftermath of 2001's 9/11 attacks in an effort to revitalize the Tribeca neighborhood located in Lower Manhattan, the film festival has carefully curated its own identity over the years. While its famous big brothers like Cannes, Sundance, and the Toronto International Film Festival will always receive the bulk of attention, Tribeca tends to feel like the scrappy, blue-collar breeding ground for all the most under-the-radar offerings that the indie system has to offer.

This year's event was no exception, providing all sorts of opportunities for the curious and open-minded moviegoer. For the purposes of this Tribeca roundup, we're including all the films that we didn't have a chance to go long on with full-fledged reviews. There were plenty of those, however, between propulsive horror films like "The Damned," light and airy road-trip comedies such as "Sacramento," understated coming-of-age movies like the Lily Gladstone-starring "Jazzy," and intense psychological dramas in the vein of Naomie Harris' and Natalie Dormer's "The Wasp." That only scratches the surface of Tribeca as a whole, however. In that spirit, we've collected all our favorite first-time watches from the festival and included them for your convenience below. 

Slow and contemplative, this film's unlikely to ever be a major box office sensation, but that doesn't mean it's not worth watching. It starts off as a simple story about a boy who steals a man's dog in the hope of giving it back for the reward money, but it gradually reveals itself to be something much darker and sadder. It's about a troubled boy's loneliness and his complicated desire for a father figure. The evolving dynamic between the young, poor Martin (Franklin Aro) and rich, enigmatic Mr. Novoa (Alfredo Castro) is both increasingly stressful and surprisingly sweet.

"The Dog Thief" also offers an authentic look into the life of a shoe-shiner in modern-day Bolivia, complete with the casting of an actual shoe-shiner in the lead role. The result is a poignant, morally fraught story, one where you never quite know what will happen next. It helps that there's a cute dog involved, whose acting skills give Messi from "Anatomy of a Fall" a run for his money. (Michael Boyle)

Alright, I'll admit it: This one's on me. At Tribeca specifically, the documentary selections tend to be among the highlights of the festival ... yet when "Group Therapy" was brought onto my radar, I dismissed it out of hand. The premise was described as a group of comedians coming together for an impromptu discussion about a whole range of topics, though loosely related to the subject of mental health. Touted as unscripted and uncensored, it was easy to imagine this as some sort of tired screed about "cancel culture" and stand-up comics not being "allowed" to tell the kinds of jokes they used to get away with (although paying a visit to any bar or comedy club in literally any town would put an end to that narrative). Instead, my last-minute perusal of a "Group Therapy" digital screener made me realize just what I'd almost missed out on — and you won't want to make the same mistake I did.

Documentary filmmaker Neil Berkeley's latest feature gathers together a fascinating mix of comedians — Mike Birbiglia, Nicole Byer, Gary Gulman, London Hughes, Tig Notaro, and Atsuko Okatsuka — in an extended panel moderated by Neil Patrick Harris. Early tone-setting clips establish that there was no greater agenda at work here other than an honest, raw, and oftentimes moving conversations about how each performer navigated their professional lives while dealing with various mental health issues they've personally experienced. Intercut between paired-off conversations off-set and footage of actual stand-up routines from years past, viewers are treated to humorous banter between some of our finest improv minds around, bittersweet recollections of past obstacles and tragedies (Tig Notaro's segments are a standout highlight), and even the odd pearl of genuine wisdom here and there. Keep an eye out for this one. (Jeremy Mathai)

In 2018, Hawaii experienced perhaps the most terrifying close call since the Cold War, when an alert was mistakenly sent out informing citizens of an impending nuclear strike; what director/co-writer Deena Kashper took away from this absurd series of too-real events apparently was, "What if we made an entire comedy about this emergency?" The end result is "Nuked," an irreverent and weed-infused romp that feels like the twisted lovechild of 2022's "The Menu" and 2013's "This Is the End," yet remains unmistakably its own thing altogether.

"Nuked" takes the most basic of premises — married couple Jack and Gill (Justin Bartha and Anna Camp, respectively) are celebrating their joint 40th birthday with an "Unplugged party" (meaning they must hand over their phones for the night) at a lavish countryside estate with some of their closest friends from college — and spins out an increasingly unhinged story about what happens when we're forced to be completely honest with those we claim to love most. The party involves a collection of familiar archetypes with a refreshingly original twist, from Gill's internet-addicted influencer/podcaster and Jack as a man desperate to become a father to the gay couple on cruise control (Maulik Pancholy and Stephen Guarino) to the workaholic husband (George Young) and stay-at-home mom (Lucy Punch) running on fumes to the bad-boy rocker (Ignacio Serricchio) who still harbors feelings for his free-spirited ex (a scene-stealing Tawny Newsome).

Throw this boiling cauldron of emotions and fascinating character pairings together, add the impending threat of nuclear annihilation once one guest can't stop themselves from checking their phone at the most inopportune moment, and all the ingredients are there for the year's funniest and most heartfelt comedy that perfectly sums up our collective pandemic experience. (Jeremy Mathai)

Although this Nigerian thriller suffers from some clunky dialogue and takes a little too long to get to the point, the rising tension is strong enough to mostly hold it all together. Most of all, "The Weekend" is surprisingly fun, even if everything about its subject matter implies a miserable time. The Tribeca website compared it to "Ready or Not" and "Get Out," two movies that seemed to be competing to see who could come up with the worst possible family an unsuspecting person could marry into; although this film's screenplay isn't quite as tightly written as "Get Out," it definitely holds its own in the "terrible in-law" department.

The real excitement here is not in figuring out the big twist, which should be pretty easy for most well-versed viewers, but in seeing how this insane premise will shake out. And what makes this family even more unsettling is how their banter and bickering is still sweet and relatable, even after we learn the truth about them. These people may have a creepy, unsettling tradition they cling to, but besides that they seem like a fun hang. That central, compelling contradiction helps the whole thing shine. (Michael Boyle)