The Best Movies and Shows We Saw at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival

The 2024 Tribeca Film Festival concluded earlier this month, and there was no lack of movies and shows that informed and inspired. Many of our favorite watches were based on true stories or about real-life figures. Some of the subjects require no introduction, like fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg and tennis icon Serena Williams. Others have received little media attention, from a Native American woman who has gone missing since 2020 to the filmmakers in the last century who played an indispensable role in shaping Black cinema.

A few of these projects are coming to streaming this summer, while others have no information about further release just yet. Here are the best movies and shows we watched at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival, and everything we know about how you can watch them.

Movies

Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge

To many, the name Diane von Furstenberg is synonymous with the wrap dress. It's expected since the Belgian entrepreneur built her fashion empire around that clothing item. But in Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Trish Dalton's documentary Diane von Furstenberg: Woman in Charge, Furstenburg is introduced as far more than a designer. The film is an intimate portrayal of her life from being the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, to the wife of Prince Egon von Furstenberg, to a global voice empowering women. Woman in Charge paints an undeniable portrait of a trailblazer who never shied away from pushing boundaries. And while interviews with figures like Oprah Winfrey and Marc Jacobs certainly establish Furstenberg as an industry icon, it's the interviews with her family that are the film's most poignant. [Trailer]

Premieres June 25 on Hulu.

Under the Grey Sky 

Under the Grey Sky opens with an arrest: Journalist Lena (Aliaksandra Vaitsekhovich) was livestreaming the Belarusian police's crackdown on a civilian protest before officers barged in and took her. Since the government views her work to be treasonous, she now faces the possibility of spending years in prison. Though the film initially centers Lena, it shifts to following her husband Ilya (Valentin Novopolskij) as he wrestles between staying in Belarus or, at Lena's request, leaving the country for his own safety. Based on the true story of journalist Katsyaryna Andreeva and her husband Igor Ilyash, Mara Tamkovich's Under the Grey Sky is a biting examination of an authoritarian government bent on suppressing civil liberties. Through outstanding performances from Vaitsekhovich and Novopolskij, the film also investigates the physical and emotional costs of activism. 

Currently not available to stream.

Missing From Fire Trail Road

The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) crisis has not received nearly enough attention in the media. Missing From Fire Trail Road, a documentary by Sabrina Van Tassel, is one step toward changing that. This film is a harrowing investigation into the disappearance of Mary Ellen Johnson Davis, who was last seen in the Tulalip Reservation in 2020. In Missing From Fire Trail Road, Van Tassel speaks with not only Mary Ellen's family and friends but the different authorities in charge of the case. At the heart of the documentary is the question: Why isn't more being done to locate Mary Ellen and the countless Native American women who go missing in the U.S.? Unflinching in its probing for the truth, Missing From Fire Trail Road is essential viewing.

Currently not available to stream.

TV Series

In the Arena: Serena Williams

Serena Williams has long been in the public eye. But the docuseries In the Arena: Serena Williams may be one of the first times the tennis legend has pulled back the curtains on her biggest matches and recounted the emotions behind each in great detail. Narrated by a humorous Williams, this immersive docuseries invites all to sit in the front row as the icon reflects on her 27-year-long career. Most piercing are Williams' interviews about playing against her older sister Venus. In them, she opens up about the complicated feelings of allowing herself to not just be good, but to be better than the person dearest to her whom she viewed as the best. [Trailer]

Premiering July 10 on ESPN+.

Hollywood Black

At the start of Hollywood Black, director Justin Simien (Dear White People) asks one question: What is a Black movie? There's no simple response, and Simien's four-part docuseries takes on the challenge of answering it. Inspired by Donald Bogle's book of the same name, Hollywood Black is a sprawling chronicle of the Black experience in Hollywood and of the pioneering directors, producers, and actors who opened the doors for generations to come. Through conversations with both veteran and rising creatives, Simien weaves a tapestry of groundbreaking Black films and singular performances that made a lasting impact beyond Hollywood.

Premiering August 11 on MGM+.

The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth

For more than 50 years, Dr. Philip Zimbardo, the man who engineered the Stanford Prison Experiment, has shared widely about what he believes were the study's findings — and established himself as the voice of the 1971 simulation. Juliette Eisner's The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth wants to give a platform to the other voices. That is, those of the actual participants who were assigned to play the roles of guards and prisoners in the controversial experiment. The Stanford Prison Experiment: Unlocking the Truth puts their experiences front and center and is an illuminating docuseries that promises to change the perception you had of this famed experiment.

Ordered by Nat Geo, no release date announced yet