With Cannes now in our rear-view, we’re putting down the baguettes and picking up some Big Apples. It’s time to get back in the New York groove, with a first taste of what to expect from this year’s Tribeca Festival feature film lineup. Now settled in its improved early summer spot, the chills of mid-spring giving way to sultry outdoor screenings and tasty late-night genre selections, Tribeca, like NYC itself, is an all-hours feast, with some favorite actors saddling up in the director’s chair in 2023.

With Tribeca’s big city location and a notable co-founder in Robert De Niro, it is also heavily anticipated for its annual selection of Tribeca Talks and Reunions. This year: panels with folks like Hailee Steinfeld and Billy Porter, a surely can’t-miss conversation between David Fincher and Steven Soderbergh, reunions for How Stella Got Her Groove Back (with Angela Bassett and director Kevin Sullivan), New Jack City (with director Mario Van Peebles and stars Michael Michele and Fab 5 Freddy) and plenty more. 

We’ll be there in-person and virtually—as US film lovers can be, too, with the Tribeca At Home offering from mid-month. If you do make it there, keep an eye out for the Letterboxd mic. Meantime, get these films on your watchlists. Words by Mia Vicino, Adesola Thomas, Brett Petersel and Leo Koziol.

First Time Female Director

Written and directed by Chelsea Peretti
Section: Spotlight Narrative

Nothing gets me in a movie theater faster than a stacked cast and a woman director. With Chelsea Peretti’s First Time Female Director we get to feed two birds with one scone. The film’s matters-of-fact title is likely part-cheek, part-wink—this is the stand-up (Chelsea Peretti: One of the Greats), actor (Game Night), screenwriter and comedian’s first directed feature, after all.

A beat further, Peretti stars as Sam, a playwright who suddenly becomes a first-time theater director after her predecessor is fired for inappropriate behavior. Megan Mullaly, Meg Staltler, Kate Berlant, Benito Skinner and the late Jak Knight play a gaggle of uncooperative theater actors whom Peretti struggles to stage her Southern rural drama with.   

Here’s hoping hijinks and meta-commentary abound and that Peretti’s directing career is just getting started. AT

Writer and director Stewart Thorndike’s previous film was Lyle, essentially (and reductively) a lesbian version of Rosemary’s Baby starring Gaby Hoffman, so we trust her with weirdo women. This time, her cabal consists of Barbie star Hari Nef, Annabelle Dexter-Jones, Molly Ringwald (!!!) and more. MV

Cold Copy

Written and directed by Roxine Helberg
Section: Spotlight Narrative

In Roxine Helberg’s debut feature, Cold Copy, Tracee Ellis Ross is Diane, a hard-edged news reporter with bangs as blunt as her personality. Bel Powley is Mia, an ambitious broadcast-journalism student desperate for her mentor Diane’s approval. If that’s not enough to whet your appetite, we’ve also got Jacob Tremblay as whiz kid Igor, the subject of Mia’s latest assignment. Crushed by the immense pressure of impressing her boss, the student decides to manipulate Igor’s narrative, sacrificing her journalistic integrity for the sake of a damn good story.

As a journalist called Mia, I can admit I’m biased in regards to my Cold Copy anticipation because I get to use my “Mia representation” Letterboxd tag. But name twinning side, who doesn’t love a modern-day morality play interrogating the murky gray areas inhabited by truth and objectivity? MV

Suitable Flesh

Directed by Joe Lynch, written by ​​Dennis Paoli
Section: Escape from Tribeca

With a film description that states Suitable Flesh is a “cinematic love letter” to Stuart Gordon, featuring both Heather Graham and horror legend Barbara Crampton, we know we’re in for a real treat. The Gordon-bonafides are clear, as this new feature is written by Dennis Paoli, the man who penned scripts for such Gordon classics as Re-Animator, From Beyond and Castle Freak.

Suitable Flesh is also directed by Letterboxd member Joe Lynch (Mayhem, Wrong Turn 2: Dead End), so expect this to be a completely bonkers, off-the-wall experience. Graham plays a psychiatrist whose patient is murdered, and while trying to clear her name finds everything beginning to unravel as she confides in her doctor about how these circumstances came to be. Horror fans better keep an eye on this one as an early favorite for 2023. BP

Looking to excise some of the demons of his youthful fame, a now-grown Lightning has turned from acting to filmmaking, and his first target is himself. He tries to work out where it all went wrong for him while his fellow nineties cast members became Native heroes. Lightning decides there’s only one thing to do: make Smoke Signals 2—if only he can track down a wig for his old co-star Adam Beach.  

Hey Viktor! is a wild docu-parody with star cameos from the cast of Smoke Signals (Beach, Gary Farmer) and top-notch talent from the comedy world (Hannah Cheeseman, Colin Mochrie). But at the heart of this very silly, very smart comedy is a very loveable Lightning himself. LK

The Perfect Find

Directed by Numa Perrier, written by Leigh Davenport
Section: Spotlight Narrative

Writer and director Numa Perrier captivated 2019’s SXSW audiences with her directorial debut Jezebel, an indie feature about a young woman who becomes a cam girl to make ends meet. Perrier produced, wrote and co-starred in the film, crafting an affecting story about American work culture, sex and womanhood—all in a tight 88 minutes!

Her sophomore project, The Perfect Find, lands at Netflix on June 23 after its Tribeca debut. This adaptation of Tia Williams’ eponymous novel centers on a workplace romance and its tantalizing complications. When Jenna (Gabrielle Union), a former fashion “it girl”, loses her job she begrudgingly begins working for a zine run by her archnemesis, Darcy (Gina Torres). Amidst Jenna’s unfurling comeback, she falls in love with Eric (Keith Powers), a young videographer who happens to be her boss’ son. Fans of auteurs and rom-coms are in for a palate-pleaser. AT

Smoking Tigers

Written and directed by So Young Shelly Yo
Section: US Narrative Competition

At last year’s Tribeca, the Untold Stories program awarded filmmaker So Young Shelly Yo one million dollars to make her feature-length directorial debut. This year, we get to see the fruits of her labor: Smoking Tigers, a tender coming-of-age drama centering on lonely sixteen-year-old Hayoung, a first-generation Korean-American living in early 2000s Southern California, torn between two worlds and identities.

In an attempt to assimilate with the wealthy classmates at her elite boarding school, Hayoung conceals the realities of her lower-class upbringing, suppressing the truth that she’s the sole supporter of her parents and younger sibling. Just the title of Yo’s 2021 short Soft Sounds of Peeling Fruit conjures up sense memories of my Korean grandma lovingly paring apples for me, so I’m ready to get wrecked. MV