Our Most Anticipated Horror Movies at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival
Your guide to the biggest horror and genre films at the festival, which celebrates its 25th anniversary
by Alex Kaan 3 June 2026
SC Films
Running from June 3rd to 14th in New York City, the Tribeca Film Festival returns with a spooky list of sci-fi horror comedies (Turn It Up!), timely psychological thrillers (Iconoclast), and horror-themed documentaries (The Haunting of Pennhurst). We’re counting down the nine films genre heads should watch out for.
Iconoclast
Hammerstone Studios
In this timely psychological thriller billed as Taxi Driver for the internet age, an increasingly unstable incel (Gabriel Basso) becomes obsessed with a live-stream influencer (Yellowjackets’ Courtney Eaton) and changes himself to become the man he thinks she’d want. Basso writes, directs, and stars, while Rain Spencer, Kiernan Shipka, and Noah Centineo also feature.
Turn It Up!
Blue Finch Films
A struggling indie rock band thinks they’ve finally found their big break with an irresistibly catchy guitar riff. Unfortunately, it just so happens to be a cursed melody that opens a portal to a nightmarish dimension in this sapphic sci-fi horror comedy.
Hallowarrior
Shudder
Pumpkin (Hereditary star Milly Shapiro), a lonely post-apocalypse survivor obsessed with Halloween ephemera, thinks she may have finally found a new family when she encounters a group of scavengers. But when their true intentions are revealed, she’s thrust into a home invasion nightmare and forced to rely on her deadliest survival instincts.
Mutter: The Diary of a Mother
SeventyFourFilms
In this Turkish creature feature set on the foggy Black Sea coast, a young woman (Hazar Ergüçlü) gives birth to a hideous monster. While her partner leaves, the new mother is determined to protect her child — no matter the cost.
Dante
Gilda Productions
Unfolding over the course of one night, this gleefully gory Spanish thriller follows a young paramedic (Chino Darín) unwittingly caught in a war between two crime lords. Director Hugo Ruiz returns to Tribeca after winning the 2023 Best New Narrative Director Award for his single-take thriller One Night with Adela.
Time Warp
Time Warp Films LLC
This documentary follows a fledgling drag theatre company’s shadow cast staging of The Rocky Horror Picture Show in the mining town of Rock Springs, Wyoming. As tensions rise, the troupe aim to fight for queer visibility and find acceptance in their community.
Breeder
SC Films
In this dark horror comedy, a young college student (Daniel Doheny) desperate for research funding believes he’s found his lifeline in an eccentric poodle breeder (Dot-Marie Jones). When he travels to her remote ranch for a meeting, she says she’ll give him the money on one condition: he must impregnate her daughter.
The Haunting of Pennhurst
Naked Edge Films
Interrogating America’s historically problematic treatment of the disabled community, this socially-conscious documentary explores the supposedly haunted Pennhurst hospital, a notorious institution that closed in 1987 after years of abuse and has since been reopened as a haunted house attraction with disabled performers.
Recluse
Blue Finch Films
When a film audio engineer (Sasha Frolova) returns home to care for her bedridden father, she must confront the demons of her family’s past — including her mother’s long-unsolved disappearance — and face the malevolent forces plaguing their New England mansion.