Menu
© 2026 The Couch Critic
Browse 56 movies from Tribeca Film Institute
This is a special summer for ten-year-old Valeria, who lives in Mexico City with his family. Valeria is emotionally aware and is rocked by her first romance, the last stretch of childhood, and a forbidden love between her brother and her best friend. A beautiful and sunny coming-of-age film for older primary school children.
Aug 2023
Set in early-2000s SoCal, Smoking Tigers follows a Korean American girl as she navigates derision and growing tensions while balancing the duality of her low-income family and wealthy, elite high school environment.
Aug 2024
After the impressive Gulistan, Land of Roses (VdR 2016), the Kurdish filmmaker Zaynê Akyol returns with these conversations with imprisoned members of the Islamic State, alternating their words with aerial views of the countryside. An unexpected look at a far-reaching current political issue and a film whose subject matter and rhythm create an impressive cinematic object.
Apr 2022
An intriguing look at an authoritarian state on the verge of democratization: how Zimbabwe got a new constitution. Two political enemies are forced on a joint mission to write Zimbabwe's new constitution. The ultimate test that will either take the country a decisive step closer to democracy and away from President Mugabe's dictatorship, or toward renewed repression. In a country with little respect for human rights, impeded by economic sanctions and hyperinflation running rampant, failure is not an option.
Nov 2014
From massive waves to melting ice, filmmaker Victor Kossakovsky travels around the world to capture stunning images of the beauty and raw power of water.
Sep 2018
When they discover that something isn’t right in her head, Liliana and her family seek to understand her emotional instability and frequent hospitalizations after suicide attempts. Facing a possible relapse and unable to institutionalize her, since Liliana’s psychiatric hospital has closed, they resort to treatment at home.
Oct 2019
Ben is a young bisexual man. He comes out to the world and develops an intense relationship with Sam, a man of color struggling with deep wounds of his own. As the summer progresses and their intimacy grows, Ben's past crawls to the surface.
Oct 2021
In the US Midwest, plagued with opioid abuse and rising incarceration rates for women, three unforgettable mothers return home from prison to rebuild their lives after years of separation from their children.
Apr 2021
The story of a Muslim casket maker and ritual body washer in Newark, NJ who takes two young men under his wing to teach them how to live better lives.
Aug 2020
Depressed and suicidal, thirtysomething bachelor Duncan – determined to find the secret to a healthy, strong relationship, – flashes back to his last five relationships (in the last four years) and considers what caused each one to fail. Based on the novel 'Essays in Love' by Alain de Botton.
Mar 2010
Everyone hates Ward’s wife and wants her dead, Ward most of all. But when his friends’ murderous fantasies turn into an (accidental) reality, they have to deal with a whole new set of problems — like how to dispose of the body and still make their 3 p.m. tee time.
Dec 2014
Filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown following the death of his infant niece and the subsequent arrest of his brother-in-law as the culprit. Using the audio-visual approaches of essay film, first-person cinema vérité, staged actions, and decades of home movies, Madsen navigates a town steeped in opioid addiction, economic depression, and religious fervor, while using the act of filmmaking to rebuild familial bonds and reimagine justice. Posing empathy as a tool for creating a more just world, North By Current does not seek to investigate a crime, but creates a relentless portrait of an enduring pastoral family, poised to reframe and reimagine narratives about incarceration, addiction, trans embodiment, and ruralness.
Mar 2021
In remote Idaho, Colie and Hollyn embark on a long summer season working as range riders herding cattle. We follow them closely through the immensity of the landscapes and intimate moments of friendship. Emelie Mahdavian masterfully revisits the genre of the western and invites us to rethink the challenge of nomadism from the perspective of two young women.
Jun 2022
Like many young people around the world, best friends Fawzi and Mahmoud are obsessed with soccer. But for the past several years, the teenagers have been stuck in Zaatari, the world’s largest camp for Syrian refugees, located in Jordan. With uncertain legal status and an interrupted education, their prospects are limited. On the local soccer pitch, however, they can imagine a brighter future as professional athletes, a path to escaping the camp and providing for their families. When scouts from a world-renowned Qatari sports academy visit Zaatari, Fawzi and Mahmoud believe they might be able to realize their dreams—if given the opportunity.
Jan 2021
A teenage delinquent befriends a surly magician who helps her navigate her inner demons and dysfunctional family with sleight of hand magic.
In a Texas military town, three teenage girls confront the dark corners of adolescence at the end of a fever dream summer.
Nov 2021
When a courageous young woman and a radical lawyer discover a pattern of illegal involuntary sterilizations in California’s women’s prison system, they take to the courtroom to wage a near-impossible battle against the Department of Corrections. With a growing team of investigators inside prison working with colleagues on the outside, they uncover a series of statewide crimes - from dangerously inadequate health care to sexual assault to coercive sterilizations - primarily targeting women of color. But no one believes them. This shocking legal drama captured over seven years features extraordinary access and intimate accounts from currently and formerly incarcerated women, demanding our attention to a shameful and ongoing legacy of eugenics and reproductive injustice in the United States.
Jun 2020
The Genius of Marian follows Pam White in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Her son, the film maker, works with her as she attempts to write a book that tributes her mother, the artist Marian Steele.
Apr 2013
In a cluttered news landscape dominated by men, emerges India’s only newspaper run by Dalit women. Armed with smartphones, Chief Reporter Meera and her journalists break traditions on the frontlines of India’s biggest issues and within the confines of their own homes, redefining what it means to be powerful.
Petra heads to New York in search of her older sister after a long time of being separated. They are both movie actresses and heirs of the wounds of the Brazilian dictatorship. But Petra has only a few clues: home movies, newspaper clippings, a diary...