- Filmspotting Fest Returns to Chicago This Weekend (June 24, 2026)
We wanted to make sure you knew about this incredible event unfolding across Chicago this weekend from our friends over at Filmspotting. Get tickets here. Official press release below.
Filmspotting Fest returns June 27–28, bringing together film critics, artists, and audiences for a weekend of repertory cinema, live discussions, and communal moviegoing experiences across two of Chicago’s most beloved venues: the Athenaeum Center for Thought & Culture and the Music Box Theatre.
Presented by Filmspotting, the long-running Chicago-based podcast and WBEZ radio program hosted by Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen, the festival celebrates films that reward revisiting, discovery, and discussion.
“Filmspotting Fest is about bringing the conversations we’ve been having for years on the podcast into a live setting,” said Filmspotting co-founder Adam Kempenaar. “These are films that stay with us, change with us, and become richer through shared viewing.
Following the success of the inaugural Filmspotting Fest in March 2025, this year’s edition explores the theme of time — not simply as subject, but as something woven into storytelling through anticipation, memory, nostalgia, and the persistence of the past.
Saturday, June 27 – Athenaeum Center for Thought & Culture11:00 AM — Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962)Intro and post-screening conversation with critic and author Carrie Rickey (A Complicated Passion: The Life and Work of Agnès Varda).
3:00 PM — Krisha (2015) — 10th Anniv. ScreeningIntro and post-screening conversation with writer/director Trey Edward Shults.
7:00 PM — Wet Hot American Summer (2001) — 25th Anniv. ScreeningIntro and post-screening conversation with actress Marguerite Moreau and critic Scott Tobias (The Reveal).
Sunday, June 28 – Music Box Theatre
11:00 AM — The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) — 25th Anniv. Screening (35mm)Intro and post-screening conversation with critic Michael Phillips.
- Tribeca 2026: The Narratives (June 24, 2026)
As has been the case in the past, I found the documentary lineup at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival to be a reasonably solid slate of films covering a wide variety of subjects and perspectives in a thoughtful and entertaining manner. As has also been the case, the narrative programming has been somewhat less sure, collecting a group of titles that too often feel like they were there mostly because they failed to make the cut for the likes of Sundance, SXSW or Toronto.
This isn’t to say that the films in this section were terrible overall—although a few of them definitely were, such as the dreadful comedies “Never Change!” (a bunch of thirty-something weirdos are forced to repeat the last two weeks of high school that they were denied 18 years earlier in a project that yearns to be the next “Wet Hot American Summer” but barely qualifies as the next “National Lampoon’s Class Reunion”), “That Friend” (in which an amiable dope finds his weekend getaway with his girlfriend ruined by the presence of his self-consciously outrageous best pal in what feels like a script that Jack Black wisely rejected two decades ago) and “Deepfake” (a clumsy social satire about a millennial who tries to get over a breakup by hiring a gradually expanding crew of people to create a fabulous social media presence that will make her ex yearn to get her back).
Then there films that were clearly there because of the names involved rather than the qualities of the movies themselves. Inspired by real events, Elf Rivera’s “Killing Castro” has an intriguing premise (during Fidel Castro’s 1960 visit to New York to address the UN, representatives of the CIA, FBI and the Mafia turn up at the Harlem hotel where he is staying to make sure that speech doesn’t happen) and an interesting cast (including the likes of Logan Marshall-Green, Diego Boneta, Alexander Ludwig, Kiki Layne and Al Pacino, the latter hamming it up as a CIA operative who seems like a serious version of the guy Peter Falk played in “The In-Laws”) but never quite pulls together into a satisfying whole. That said, it was more preferable than “Finnegan’s Foursome,” the latest exercise in tedium from Edward Burns is like pretty much every one of his other efforts chronicling the dynamics of members of an overly colorful family and then throws golf into the mix for good measure.
And yet, if you rooted around enough, you could still find a few titles here and there worth seeing. As was the case on the documentary side of things, there were a number of films centered around music that were of note. Brett Sullivan’s “Hadestown: The Musical” is a screen presentation of Anais Mitchell’s award-winning stage musical that recast the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in an industrial hellscape and with songs inspired by New Orleans-style jazz and blues. Although it is ultimately just a recording of the show, a la the recent film of “Hamilton,” it has been presented with a lot of energy from a cast including the five lead members of the original Broadway cast and it should more than suffice for fans of the show until a full film adaptation eventually comes along.
I also liked “Imaginal Disk,” Amanda Kramer’s trippy visual accompaniment to the album of the same name from alternative pop duo Magdalena Bay that should delight fans of their offbeat music and send newcomers out afterwards to check out the rest of their discography.
There were a number of striking performances on display as well, even if the films where they were found did not always live up to them. I could not get into Rob Rice’s “Ponderosa,” a self-consciously bizarre film about the increasingly strange relationship between an aimless young man and the older guy who frequents the buffet where the former’s mother work and who insists on taking him under his wing—it tries to be simultaneously quirky and creepy but never quite figures out the right combination. Still, as the older half of the exceedingly odd couple, familiar supporting performer Bill Camp gets a chance to shine in a rare lead role, delivering a turn that almost single-handedly keeps the whole enterprise moving along.
Similarly, Ruthy Pribar’s “What Is to Come” starts off with an intriguing premise—after bailing at the last second in taking part in a double suicide with her husband, only to discover that she is now responsible for his debts, a 60-year-old woman abandons her former life to relocate and begin again—but winds up following too many familiar narrative beats that are helped somewhat by the impressive central performance from Ronit Yudkevitch that manages to cut through enough of the cliches to make you wonder what she might have achieved with a screenplay willing to take more chances.
Lindsay Calleran’s “Caity” tells the story of a 16-year-old girl (Chiara Aurelia) who helps run a haunted house attraction with her father (Morgan Spector), an enterprise that has become a fixture of their upper New York community but which, along with Dad’s addiction issues, has caused no small amount of strife in her family over the years—while she clearly adores working with him to create weird and grisly new attractions with the help of their ragtag crew, her mother (Emily Shaffer) tries to pretend that everything is fine and her older sister (Olivia Rouyre) wants nothing to do with the attraction or her dad. Therefore, when he winds up having a relapse, Caity is forced to take on the lion’s share of the burden of keeping things going and matters are further complicated by her own substance abuse issues and the feelings that she is beginning to develop for one of the new employees (Jordan Hull).
This description may make the film sound unremittingly grim—indeed, it does go to some dark places—but it ultimately proves to be a surprisingly tender and effective coming-of-age story anchored by a strong and convincing central performance from Aurelia and nice turns from the supporting cast, particularly Spector and Hull.
In Rob Burnett’s “In Memoriam,” Marc Maron stars as a once-respected actor who had a big hit as the lead on a dumb sitcom but has spent the years since its cancellation doing good work in projects that have not garnered nearly as much attention. When he is hit with a diagnosis of terminal cancer and a projection of only six months left to live, he becomes convinced that the only hope he has of securing his legacy is to appear in the “In Memoriam” segment of the next Oscar telecast.
While his loyal manager (Michael McKean) works behind the scenes with the powers-that-be in hopes of ensuring his placement, he does some lobbying of his home to recruit people to his cause, including a couple of exes (Judy Greer and Sharon Stone), his estranged daughter (Talia Ryder) and an influencer-turned-obnoxious actor (Justin Long), while trying to come to terms with his life and imminent passing with the aid of a therapist (Lily Gladstone).
The concept of an actor going on a journey to take stock of his life and what it all means may sound uncomfortably close to last year’s “Jay Kelly,” but I promise that this one is much better. It eschews the expected insider baseball bits about the showbiz industry to explore more universal truths about life, work and mortality. And it centers a strong performance from Maron, who more than handles himself against such veteran scene-stealers as Greer, Gladstone and Stone, and proves, if there was still any debate, that he does possess some considerable acting chops of his own.
While “In Memoriam” leavened its grim central premise with moments of humor, there is nary a laugh to be found in Michael J. Gallagher’s “The Leader,” which chronicles the true story of Heaven’s Gate, a UFO cult that became notorious in 1997 when its members, under the belief brought on by the teachings of leader Marshall Applewhite (Tim Blake Nelson) that they would be transported by UFO to another, better world, took part in the deadliest mass suicide in U.S. history. Over the course of the film, we see Applewhite and his partner/soulmate, Bonnie Nettles (Vera Farmiga), form the group and recruit members who would abandon their own families to join up and undergo grisly punishments for any infractions of the group rules, particularly those involving the strict celibacy policy.
This is undeniably dark material—I suspect that it will be included in many a Bleak Week lineup in the future—and there are moments so painful, both physically and psychologically, that some viewers may feel the urge to bolt long before its inevitable conclusion. That said, it does as good of a job of understanding the mindset of what would drive people to not only voluntarily become part of such a situation but stick with it to the ghastly end as anything I can immediately recall seeing in a film without ever coming across as exploitative. It also contains performances from Nelson, Farmiga and Jim Parsons (as an early and particularly devoted follower) that are as good as anything that they have ever done before and help the film make its points in a quiet but powerful manner.
Only slightly—slightly—less grim but ultimately just as effective was “The Last Day,” the debut feature from writer-director Rachel Rose uses the Virginia Woolf classic Mrs. Dalloway as a leaping-off point for a stark exploration of the often-confusing nature of motherhood.
Set over the course of a long Fourth of July, the film stars Alicia Vikander as Julia, a mother suffering from writer’s block and lingering issues over the recent death of her beloved father who, as the story begins, sets out to gather items for a lavish fireworks-watching party she and her husband are hosting that night. Along the way, she has a number of encounters with various people from her life, particularly an old flame (Wagner Moura), that force her to reflect on the cracks just beneath the surface of her seemingly picture-perfect existence.
At a couple of points, she crosses paths with Taylor (Victoria Pedretti), herself the young mother of three kids, and the story occasionally follows her as she goes about her day while still struggling with postpartum issues that threaten to completely overwhelm her. As the woman whose existence is not nearly as ideal as it seems, Vikander is excellent but as she is one of the stronger actresses working today, that should not come as much of a surprise. However, it is Pedretti who really steals the show with a depiction of a woman slowly succumbing to pressures that she can barely comprehend that you cannot take your eyes off of, no matter how wounding and heartbreaking things get.
The festival prize for Best Performance in a U.S. Narrative Feature was collectively shared by Marcel Ruiz, Paolo Schoene and Kiki Montilla for their work in “Summer of Three,” the first theatrical feature for Puerto Rican director Carlitos Ruiz-Ruiz (the father of Marcel, with whom he co-wrote the screenplay with Mariana S. Belaval) since 2007’s “Lovesickness.”
As the story opens, 17-year-old Javi (Ruiz) returns to his homeland of Puerto Rico, having left for America with his mother at a young age following the death of his father, to attend the funeral of his grandfather and to spend a couple of weeks with members of his family. While getting reacquainted with relatives that he only vaguely knows, he meets and forms an instant friendship with rebellious free spirit Luife (Schoene) and begins spending much of his time with him and his sexy girlfriend Kiki (Montilla). Javi is, inevitably instantly besotted with Kiki and as she is beginning to tire of Luife’s wayward ways, she does little to dissuade his obvious attraction. The three have a series of high-spirited misadventures throughout the island but as a romantic triangle begins to form, it becomes evident that the good times are not going to last forever.
Although perhaps not the most original of stories, Ruiz-Ruiz makes it into an engaging, exciting and undeniably sexy spectacle that overcomes its familiarity through the energetic way he approaches the material at every turn, the always-gorgeous cinematography (courtesy of Pablo Ascanio) and the incredibly charismatic performances from the three leads.
“Energetic” and “undeniably sexy” are phrases that can also another bold and bracing example of Latin American cinema on display, Aly Muritiba’s musical melodrama “Funk.” Duda Santos stars as Sabrina, a young woman who dreams of making it out of the favelas of Rio de Janerio by becoming a star in the funk music scene, where she dazzles local audiences with her obvious sex appeal and her even more apparent skills on the mic busting out hilariously profane and unapologetically feminist lyrics at the drop of a hat. Through a couple of unexpected twists, she is able to break through to genuine stardom but as the stakes get higher, she is pulled into the inevitable conflict between staying true to her vision and doing what it takes to become a full mainstream success.
Further complicating things is the presence of her mother (played by real-life musician MC Nem), who had to give up her own dreams of musical stardom when she became pregnant with Sabrina as a teenager and who looks at her daughter and her accomplishments with no small amount of jealousy that threatens to pull them apart. Again, it’s not the most unique storyline but it is always thrilling to look at and listen to and the performances from Santos (who demonstrates the same kind of wild and dangerous spirit that Elvis Presley did in his earliest roles) and Nem, who shared a Special Jury Mention in the festival’s International Feature competition, are so convincing throughout that it is easy to forget that they are playing characters.
The big winner of the International Feature competition was “Labrador—Autopsy of Silence,” a mysterious and haunting work from Acadian filmmaker Rodrigue Jean, which took home the prize for Best Feature with additional prizes going to Mathieu Laverdiere for Cinematography and to Christopher Angatookalook for his lead performance. He plays Alupa, the unassuming Inuk mechanic on a freighter traveling through the North Atlantic on the last run of the season who is, unbeknownst to everyone, carrying on a secret love affair with cook Alex (Alexandre Landry). What Alupa doesn’t know is that the ship’s First Officer (Gabrielle Poulin B) has been using her position of authority to force Alex into a sexual relationship.
This cannot go well, and, indeed, Alex soon turns up dead and Alupa is immediately suspected of having killed him. Already an outcast from Canadian society, Alupa is hassled by the police once the ship returns to shore and eventually put on trial for the crime but, perhaps knowing it will do little good, he refuses to hint at what he might know about what really happened.
Told in a non-linear manner, the film deftly mixes together classic murder mystery tropes with astute commentary on power dynamics of varying kinds and uses the serene placidity of both the setting and the character of Alupa to generate a quiet but uncommonly effective form of tension that will stick with viewers long after it has come to an end. Even if the festival’s narrative section as a whole had been stronger, “Labrador—Autopsy of Science” would have still stood out from the rest, taking viewers into a world that few have probably ever contemplated at length and transforming into something truly mesmerizing.
- Karlovy Vary Announces 2026 Award Winners (June 23, 2026)
The 60th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is on the horizon. In only ten days, cinephiles, critics, and talent will arrive in the resplendent spa town, the home to KVIFF located 90 minutes outside of Prague, to partake in Central Europe’s leading film festival from July 3-11. To go along with the stacked lineup—which involves the Crystal Globe competition, Proxima, Special Screenings, and more—KVIFF will also honor cinema’s legends and bright stars.
Two weeks ago, the festival announced that Jesse Eisenberg would receive the President’s Award. To commemorate the recognition, “The Double,” Richard Ayoade’s comedically bleak Dostoyevsky adaptation from 2013 that stars Eisenberg and Mia Wasikowska, will screen. Joining Eisenberg is Maggie Gyllenhaal; she’ll also be bestowed with the President’s Award. Her latest picture, “The Bride!,” will most likely have its final festival bow at KVIFF as part of the accolade.
KVIFF is now ready to round out its honorees. Two-time Academy Award winning actor Dustin Hoffman, Academy Award winning actress Juliette Binoche, and three-time Academy Award winning cinematographer Robert Richardson, are set to accept the Crystal Globe for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema (prior recipients include Stellan Skarsgård, Russell Crowe, Julianne Moore, and more). “The Graduate,” “Certified Copy,” “Three Colors: Blue,” and “In-I in Motion” will be presented, as will Jana Hojdová’s new documentary “Robert Richard: The White Devil.”
Academy Award nominated actor Jeffrey Wright, whose incredible performance in “Basquiat” will screen during KVIFF, is receiving the President’s Award. Legendary Czech actress Magda Vášáryová is set to receive the President’s Award too. Harvey Keitel, who previously took home the Crystal Globe in 2004, returns to the festival to present “Mean Streets.” Kyra Sedgwick, Kevin Bacon, Travis and Sosie Bacon will appear to show their film “Family Movie.”
Per the festival’s tradition, a new festival trailer will screen. Prototypically, the trailer features a prior Crystal Globe winner, ranging from Věra Chytilová to Jude Law, winkingly poking fun of the festival trophy and the very concept of enticing celebrities with lifetime achievement awards. This year, Skarsgård, who was honored last year, stars in the trailer.
With the World Cup in full swing, it only makes sense that KVIFF would program Juan Cabral and Santiago Franco’s “The Match.” The documentary, which premiered at Cannes this past May, looks back on the 1986 World Cup game between Argentina and England, which produced Maradona’s infamous “Hand of God” goal, to think about the historical and political context behind the monumental meeting. Bookending “The Match” is writer/director Noah Segan’s “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York,” a film starring John Turturro that debuted at Sundance 2026.
The festival is bursting with other titles, including banner Berlinale works, like Alain Gomis’ “Dao,” Grant Gee’s “Everybody Digs Bill Evans,” Markus Schleinzer’s “Rose,” and İlker Çatak’s Golden Bear winner “Yellow Letters.” Also, Cannes highlights, such as Jane Schoenbrun’s thrilling slasher sex comedy “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma,” Sandra Wollner’s Un Certain Regard winner “Everytime,” Marine Atlan’s Critics’ Week Grand Prize selection “La Gravida,” Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner “Fjord,” and more.
Retrospective titles include John Cassavetes’ “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie,” Ken Loach’s “Kes,” Věra Chytilová’s “Tainted Horseplay,” Mrinal Sen’s ‘The Outsiders,” and Jonathan Glazer’s “Sexy Beast.”
Those films are set to accompany the Crystal Globe, Proxima, and Special Screenings to round out a festival that looks as strong as its surroundings are beautiful.
- Tribeca 2026: The Documentaries (June 23, 2026)
To mark its 25th anniversary, the 2026 iteration of New York’s Tribeca Film Festival presented no fewer than 118 feature films—103 of them world premieres—over the course of 12 days, coming from all parts of the world and covering an astonishing array of genres.
Tribeca has, of course, always been a festival that relies on a heavy star contingent to draw a large turnout. That has been particularly true for the documentary section, which has always been celebrity-driven. As has been the case for the last few years, it has placed particular emphasis on music-related projects that will hopefully inspire fans to come out in droves (and perhaps get the subjects to do a song or two for the crowd).
Indeed, the festival’s three Gala presentations all fell along these lines, starting with the Opening Night presentation of “Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial VS That’s the Weight of the World”), a fun but standard documentary from Questlove charting the rise, fall and return of the seminal R&B/funk group and its leader, the late, great Maurice White, through tons of archival footage and interviews with everyone from surviving members of the group to such notable fans as Lionel Richie and Barack and Michelle Obama.
Likewise, the Closing Night presentation, One 9’s “Alicia Keys: Girl from Hell’s Kitchen,” finds the singer recounting the undeniably impressive, though by now familiar, story of her rise from the rough streets of Hell’s Kitchen to musical superstardom. But it gets more interesting in the sections that focus on the lengthy development process of her semi-autobiographical stage musical “Hell’s Kitchen.”
Somewhat more interesting is Josh Alexander’s “Sara Bareilles: Good Grief,” which follows the singer over the course of six days as she records her first album in seven years, a gap in time that saw her dealing with both COVID-19 and the loss of a couple of close friends. Although the film will appeal mostly to Bareilles’ fan base, the way in which it charts the development of the album (which is due to be released in late August) offers an intriguing look into the creative process that feels a little rawer and less sanitized than the kind of purely promotional item that this could have been.
In a similar vein, Sam Jones’s “Mumford & Sons: The House Band” captures the British folk-rock group as they set off on a tour that found them traveling by train from city to city with an eclectic array of guest artists—including Lainey Wilson, Darius Rucker, Noah Kahan and Maggie Rogers—joining them along the way, requiring all involved to learn dozens of new songs in a very short amount of time. While I cannot say that I am much of a fan of the group in general, I did enjoy watching the sense of communal spirit develop between the artists as they set about this mad task and found it especially interesting when capturing the moments when some were finding it harder to get that spirit to properly gel than others.
While there were other music-related docs on display, including Rob Arthur’s “Frampton” and the concert film “Katy Perry: The Lifetimes Tour—Live from Paris,” it was the one with the least star power that proved the most riveting. That would be “Jail Time Records,” an absolutely fascinating film from Dione Roach and Steve Happi that takes a look at Cameroon’s New Bell Prison, which is one of the most overcrowded in the continent—almost 6000 men in a facility built for only 800–but which also contain a music studio that allows the prisoners to record songs that serve as a creative outlet for their tensions and frustrations.
This is an eye-opening and toe-tapping look at the therapeutic value of art that is both thought-provoking and life-affirming. Indeed, it would go on to win the Best Feature and Cinematography prizes in the festival’s documentary competition as well as the Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director for Roach and Happi.
There were plenty of documentaries featuring less musically inclined famous faces as well, and perhaps the oddest of the bunch was Michael LaHaie’s “Bob and David Climb Manchu Pichu,” in which comedian David Cross pitches to his longtime friend and collaborator Bob Odenkirk the idea of the two of them heading to the Andes and hiking up Machu Pichu not long after the latter suffered a near-fatal heart attack.
This may sound like a particularly strange “Mr. Show” bit—sort of a hybrid of “My Dinner with Andre” and “K2”—but the two decide that it is a good idea. The film follows them on their journey, observing them as they riff along the way while contemplating their partnership and the odd ways their careers have developed, before ruminating on their lives and what it all means. Not surprisingly, the film is often quite funny, but as the trip progresses and they near the end, watching the take-no-prisoners humorists examine both their friendship and their lives leads to some unexpectedly moving moments as well.
Comedians are also at the center of Josh Greenbaum’s “Playing POTUS,” which focuses on the various ways humorists have portrayed presidents over the years and how those performances have, for better and worse, helped shape the public perception of their subjects. The idea sounds fascinating, I suppose, but after a beginning section looking at Vaughn Meader, whose impersonation of John F. Kennedy was the first widely successful spoof of a president, it becomes yet another unquestioning celebration of the legacy of “Saturday Night Live” in which they fawn over virtually every POTUS take over the years in obsequious detail. (The only break comes when the film shifts focus to Key & Peele for the Obama years, presumably as a tacit admission of how “SNL” never quite figured out how to approach him during his years in office.)
If the film had broadened its net a little more, it might have yielded some interesting results. But as is, it just feels like yet another ultimately unnecessary veneration of “SNL,” seemingly meant only to provide more programming fodder for Peacock.
The lineup even included a couple of films focused on well-known members of the New York media world. Alison Chernick’s “House of Criticism” takes a look at Jerry Saltz and Roberta Smith, the chief art critics at New York Magazine and The New York Times, who happen to be competitors in their professional lives while happily married to each other. It sounds like the pitch for an exceedingly mid-90s-era romcom, but they manage to make it all work to an enviable degree. The two are charming enough to watch as they go about their lives, but the film is a little on the slight side. It does, at times, serve as a gentle but potent reminder of the importance of serious arts criticism in general, at a time when such things have all but disappeared from the pages of most newspapers and magazines.
On the other hand, Meanwhile, Adam Paul Verity’s “Whipple’s World” introduces the world outside of New York to George Whipple III, a man who has spent the last three decades working days as a respected attorney and his nights as an entertainment reporter for NY1, hobnobbing with celebrities at one red carpet event after another like a particularly bizarre Eugene Levy character come to life, right down to the prominent eyebrows. While Whipple (whose name does share a connection with a certain television toilet paper pitchman) is undeniably a character, to put it mildly, he isn’t quite enough of one to sustain an entire film, particularly one that eventually takes on the form of an elaborate home movie and which pads itself out with tons of old footage, much of it shot in and around past editions of the Tribeca festival. (Robert DeNiro may turn up more in archival material here than he does in some of his actual acting gigs.)
As is the case with pretty much any contemporary film festival, there was also a handful of documentaries about the movie industry. Directed by Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater and Mike Attie, “Hollywood Does Abortion” uses a controversial 1972 episode of “Maude” as a leaping-off point to examine how the American entertainment industry has approached the topic of reproductive rights and how it changed and evolved over time from the relatively progressive takes on the subject presented in such films as “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “Dirty Dancing” to more contemporary presentations that, out of fear of offending advertisers and anti-abortion groups, have been all but neutered in the name of “balance.” (After this film, you may never watch “Law & Order: SVU” in quite the same way.)
The film could use a little tightening here and there; it offers viewers a number of eye-opening reflections from an array of filmmakers and actors who discuss how these films helped shape their views on the topic and what they mean when viewed now through the lens of the post-Roe era.
Once so controversial that it was the focus of protests while it was still filming on the streets of New York, William Friedkin’s “Cruising,” his 1980 thriller with Al Pacino as a cop going undercover to investigate a series of brutal murders in the gay community, has seen its reputation shift in recent years from homophobic embarrassment to a classic of gay cinema. The story of the film and its still-discomfiting legacy is covered in Jeffrey Schwarz’s “Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders,” which tackles not only the various controversies surrounding it and its current-day reconsiderations but also the 1977 murder of journalist Addison Verrill, which helped inspire Friedkin to make it in the first place.
It may not be enough to persuade those who still find “Cruising” to be nothing more than exploitative trash, but the results are undeniably fascinating. Much like the upcoming “Exorcist II” reappraisal, “Boorman and the Devil,” it may well inspire those who know it only by its admittedly questionable reputation to give it a chance.
Another controversial production gets a reexamination in “Humpty Dumpty X,” in which British filmmaker Tony Kaye looks back on the post-production battle that erupted between him and New Line Pictures over the editing of his 1998 debut feature, “American History X,” which at one point saw him attempt to take his name off of the film and have it credited to “Humpty Dumpty”—even offering to change his name to that in order to make it happen.
As it turns out, while Kaye was engaging in his ultimately quixotic battle, he was evidently filming everything and this film consists of footage of him arguing with studio executives and even with friends who think that he is taking things too far (with even Marlon Brando appearing at one point to suggest that Kaye exercise restraint) along with new material in which Kaye reflects—occasionally through song, I fear—on what he was thinking.
The film is too unfocused at times, and even those predisposed to side with Kaye may find him somewhat grating. Still, the best moments do provide an up-close and undeniably compelling examination of the age-old Hollywood conflict between art and commerce.
One of the most affecting docs in the entire lineup was Allison Berg’s “Time Warp,” a film which, as the title suggests, revolves around the legendary cult classic “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Admittedly, there have been so many films tackling that particular subject over the years that even the most devoted members of its still-devoted fan base might question the need for yet another.
Happily, this one has actually found a new angle by focusing on a drag theatre company as it plans to stage a shadow-cast presentation of the film in Rock Springs, Wyoming, a once-prosperous mining town that would not seem to be a particularly receptive locale for the show. The film follows the performers as they hold auditions, rehearse tirelessly, and stand firm in the face of opposition from some locals, all leading up to opening night. It’s entertaining enough from a let’s-put-on-a-show perspective, but what really comes through here is the fact that even after a half-century, “Rocky Horror” is still as vital and important as ever, helping to give those who feel marginalized a voice and a real sense of community.
There were also a number of films dealing with technology and the perils hidden beneath their glittery surfaces. Nick Holt’s “AI: Probably Nothing to Worry About” takes a broad and somewhat overlong look at the origins of artificial intelligence, the powers behind the scenes who helped bring it to the forefront, and the warnings that were sounded along the way and often ignored in the race to be the first to make it happen. Hao Wu’s “TikTok Never Dies” recounts the bizarre tale of the phone app that started out as a way of sharing dance videos and eventually became a political football whose very existence eventually became a case heard before the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, Gar O’Rourke’s drolly funny and quietly incisive “The Siege of Paradise” turned its cameras to Cinque Terre, a picturesque coastal town on the Italian Riviera that is seeing its tranquil nature and singular identity threatened each tourist season by an onslaught of visitors (up to 3.5 million in a town with only 4000 regular residents), including a number of content creators who end up adding to the problem by filming and posting every moment of their visits and encouraging others to come.
I also enjoyed “Stealing Magic,” in which filmmaker Matthew Testa follows a group of magicians as they attempt to track down and apprehend internet pirates who have been stealing the secrets behind their illusions and selling them on black-market websites.
Some of the most affecting documentaries in this year’s festival were a group of films that found their subjects looking back at places and moments of infamy and grappling with the ensuing legacies. Based on the book by Witold Szablowski, Andrew Neel’s disturbing and timely “How to Feed a Dictator” brings together the former private chefs for Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Augusto Pinochet and Kim Jong-il to recount what it was like to work for such people, whether they did so willingly or not, and help illustrate the sharp contrast between the brutal living conditions just outside of their kitchens and the opulent meals that they would prepare on a daily basis. (Yes, the question of whether Idi Amin ever actually ate human flesh, as was the rumor at the time, and no, I will not tell you how it is answered.)
In “The Lorraine,” Sam Pollard uses a wide range of archival materials as well as engrossing contemporary interviews to explore the full history and ongoing legacy of The Lorraine Motel, an establishment that was begun by owners Walter and Loree Bailey to provide safe and comfortable lodging to Black travelers and became a genuine cultural institution that attracted rising political figures and musical talents alike, only to fall into infamy as the place where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968.
In a similar vein, “The Haunting of Pennhurst” takes an alternately disturbing and oddly inspiring look at Pennhurst, a notorious state-run institution for people with disabilities in Pennsylvania that subjected its inmates to decades of neglect and abuse before finally being shut down in 1987 that has been revived as a haunted house that not only firmly leans into its infamous past but utilizes people with the very same disabilities that might have once consigned them to a life in such a place as the performers.
Maybe the most unnerving of all the documentaries I saw at Tribeca this year was “American Zoo,” a film by Tim Travers Hawkins that tells a story so disturbing and bizarre that it makes most straightforward horror films seem tame by comparison. The subject is The Catskill Game Farm, which was established in 1933 by German immigrant Roland Lindermann as America’s first and largest privately owned zoo, and it operated for 73 years before finally closing in 2006. As it happens, in 1959, he brought in Dr. Heinz Heck, a biologist and former head of Munich’s Hellabrun Zoo, to serve as his zoo’s director. As we learn through materials uncovered after the zoo’s closing and interviews with the daughters of Lindermann and Heck as well as former zoo employees, Heck was a leading voice in the Nazi eugenics movement who was obsessed with conducting cruel experiments on animals in the hopes of artificially reviving extinct species—experiments that he continued to conduct after relocating in the U.S. under the auspices of a zoo in an area with a heavily Jewish population.
A bleak observation of both the darkness that often resides beneath the seemingly sunniest of surfaces and the myriad ways in which the most idealistic of ventures can curdle into something unfathomably awful when placed in the wrong hands, “American Zoo” makes for uncommonly compelling viewing.
- Satirizing and Saluting: Mel Brooks’ “Silent Movie” At 50 (June 23, 2026)
Mel Brooks’ “Silent Movie,” released 50 years ago this week, is a beautiful beast of a film. It’s about a director named Mel Funn (Brooks in his first leading role) who, alongside his two faithful friends Marty Eggs (Marty Feldman) and Dom Bell (Dom DeLuise) embark on an ambitious project: to make a film that will, by making so much money at the box office, save their home studio Big Pictures from being gobbled up by a commercial company called Engulf and Devour.
The rub is that Funn, a recovering alcoholic, wants to make a true, “old-fashioned silent movie” in the ‘70s. When pragmatic studio head Studio Chief (Sid Caesar) nearly shuts the idea down—who would ever watch a silent movie in the ‘70s!—Mel Funn says that if they hire big stars to play themselves in the film, each star’s devoted audience will watch the film, ultimately yielding a big payout for Chief. Chief agrees, and Mel, Marty, and Dom go on their merry way to sign the likes of Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Anne Bancroft, Liza Minnelli, Marcel Marceau, and Paul Newman. It’s not a smooth ride, though, for Engulf and Devour tries, up until premiere night, to foil Mel Funn’s plans, all in an effort to engulf and devour Big Pictures.
Brooks wrote the film alongside Ron Clark, Rudy De Luca, and Barry Levinson. Clark approached Brooks with the idea, and together, like Mel Funn, the two went to Alan Ladd Jr., the then-head of Twentieth Century Fox. According to Brooks in the autobiography All About Me!, Ladd responded like the studio chief in “Silent Movie.” At the time, Brooks had just completed “Young Frankenstein” for Fox—a film he was allowed to shoot in rich black-and-white, itself a radical act in 1974. “So with ‘Young Frankenstein’ you take away color, and now you’re coming to me, and you say you want to make a movie that takes away sound?” Ladd told Brooks. “What else are you gonna take away? If I let you go unrestrained, you’re liable to turn Twentieth Century Fox into a vaudeville house!”
But Brooks was determined. He wanted to craft a “tribute to Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Mabel Normand, Fatty Arbuckle, Mack Sennett, and the Keystone Kops,” all performers he adored during the course of his Brooklyn childhood. “Here was another genre that I dearly loved, and I knew I could have so much fun both satirizing and saluting it at the same time.” Brooks finally persuaded Ladd by promising him that if he was allowed to make a silent movie, “it will be the end. After that, I promise I will make regular movies like everybody else.” Ladd agreed and Brooks, of course, went on to break his promise many times over.
Ladd and Studio Chief had a reason to be apprehensive about greenlighting a silent picture. By the ‘70s, young audiences wouldn’t have been very conversant in the forms and rigors of the silent film. The last time a silent film was in theatres was before WWII, in the ‘30s, meaning that by 1976, most of the people who would’ve seen a silent movie in theatres would have been in their 40s or 50s. These films would still run on TV because stations could air them cheaply, but, by and large, they wouldn’t have been as intuitively familiar as mainstream contemporary films.
Brooks maintained the silent film’s vocabulary—intertitles instead of dialogue, a swelling and sensitive score by frequent Brooks collaborator John Morris, elastic slapstick, and endless car chases — but also added his own acumen. He kept what continues to make people laugh, and added what couldn’t be said in the past.
Ever since the enormous success of “Blazing Saddles” and “Young Frankenstein”—in the same year, 1974—one of Brooks’ major goals has been to serve two kinds of audiences simultaneously: the one that gets every film reference and all of the subtext, and the one that hasn’t seen or heard of any of the material being spoofed.
So Brooks built the story around the battle between art and money, an eternal conflict familiar to everyone. In the ‘70s, corporations with no moviemaking experience and who saw cinema mainly as a gateway to hang out with film stars, attend awards ceremonies, and claim credit for awards won by actual filmmakers were buying movie studios. Gulf + Western, for example, had recently gotten hold of Paramount, which is why the studio in “Silent Movie” is a subsidiary of Engulf & Devour. “The bottom line was that they had no regard for what kind of movies they were making as long as they brought in money,” Brooks later wrote.
Of course, even in Buster Keaton’s day, studios had the last word on what got made and what didn’t, but it wasn’t the kind of single-minded, vigor-sapping oversight represented by companies like Coca-Cola, whose aim in buying Columbia Pictures six years after “Silent Movie” was pure unadulterated profit. Engulf and Devour is ridiculed for its lavishness (their bathrooms are nicer than most people’s homes!) as well as the incompetence of its executives (one of whom can’t even put a coat on without help).
The studios themselves aren’t immune to criticism, either. In Mel Funn’s world, studio chiefs facilitate art by giving artists money, but they are not artists. The studio chief doesn’t know what kind of art speaks to people. Moments after Brooks has earned belly laughs from us by having a car buck under the weight of a very pregnant woman, the studio chief insists that slapstick is dead and greenlights a clearly unfunny and nonsensical project. The studio chief doesn’t know how to separate good work from bad, working as he does for a studio whose motto is “Ars Est Pecunia”: art is money. Like most Brooks films, this one ridicules power, portraying it as hypocritical, out of touch, and absurd.
And so, in the same breath that Brooks pays homage to the classics through cameos by performers like Fritz Feld, Henny Youngman, and Harry Ritz, he also delivers us a story with heart. Even if audiences aren’t familiar with Youngman or any of the Ritz Brothers, the jokes land because they are silly, conveyed visually, and play on irony and our expectations.
Later in his autobiography, when talking about “History of the World, Part I,” Brooks says that “we all know a lot more about human nature than history books tell us,” which is why some of Brooks’ liberties with historical figures and events are still able to get his moral point across. I would argue that the same holds true for comedy—we still laugh at the same jokes because if they are good, they will transcend culture, language, and time. Mel Funn looking into a liquor shop window at a display featuring a cartoonishly large bottle of whiskey surrounded by normal-sized bottles, then walking out with the cartoonishly large bottle, will not be funny.
His tumbling around while struggling to get a Murphy bed to work will never not bring tears of joy to my eyes. Marcel Marceau, the mime, uttering the film’s only line of dialogue, will always be uproarious.
And because many of society’s problems seem to be repeating themselves and even getting worse, “Silent Movie”’s heart continues to thrum under our floorboards. What Brooks communicates about the soullessness of commercial entities and about how money and power are antithetical to good art holds true. Much of the world is controlled by a handful of people who have too much money to remain truly human, too much to keep them connected with the life coursing through our veins. These powerful people control where the money goes, the kind of art that is allowed to become visible, and what we can see and think. Shades of Engulf and Devour endanger our humanity to this day.
That’s why “Silent Movie” far surpassed the expectations of studio bosses, both real and fictional, earning $36.1 million in its initial release, nine times its budget. And it’s why, even though Brooks’ greatest films are decades old, they are as alive to me as silent movies were alive for Brooks in 1976.
