Welcome to the new era of the Traverse City Film Festival, founded and curated by Oscar-winner Michael Moore. 52 great movies in 52 weeks! A year-round festival of powerful, subversive, indie masterpieces made with the belief that cinema can save the world — and that one great movie can change your life.
TCFF 2026
WINTER SCHEDULE
All films show at 1pm & 7pm unless otherwise noted
FILM GUIDE
OPENING NIGHT FILM!
JAN 13
1pm, 7pm
THE LIFE OF CHUCK
We are thrilled to open our Winter 2026 season with the powerhouse drama, THE LIFE OF CHUCK, about which TCFF Founder & President Michael Moore says: “No American film for me has topped it this year.”
After its premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival, THE LIFE OF CHUCK won the People’s Choice Award, then went on to become one of the most overlooked & emotional cinematic experiences of the year. It is adapted from Stephen King’s 2020 novella of the same name – and while it features supernatural elements, it’s not your typical cinematic treatment of “a Stephen King horror story.” Think more “Shawshank Redemption” Stephen King. Through vignettes told in clever (but not cloying) reverse chronology, we’re introduced to the titular Charles “Chuck” Krantz, a 39-year-old accountant battling cancer (played as an adult by Tom Hiddleston), and the intersecting lives of other ordinary people around him. Through their mundane but magical moments (including spontaneous lunchbreak dancing from Hiddleston!), we’re invited to reexamine what it means to live an extraordinary life – and how the invitation is always there, waiting for us if we dare to acknowledge it.
Director: Mike Flanagan
Starring: Tom Hiddleston, Mark Hamill, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Drama, Sci-Fi
USA
1h 51m
JAN 20
1pm, 7pm
RENTAL FAMILY
In this uplifting comedic drama, Oscar winner Brendan Fraser stars as a listless American actor living in Japan who starts working for a company that “sells emotion” – by hiring actors to play critical roles in real people’s lives. Fraser’s character accepts a series of roles with perfunctory charm before getting emotionally hooked when he’s cast as a little girl’s surrogate dad. The result is a painfully sweet & continually surprising inquiry into the morality of fantasy & how so much can be forgiven in service of true connection. In some ways, RENTAL FAMILY is like a more chaste & immersive LOST IN TRANSLATION – which also benefits from a more authentic lens on the wonderfully kaleidoscopic Tokyo setting, thanks to the direction of Japanese filmmaker Hikari, who also co-wrote. The National Board of Review just named RENTAL FAMILY one of the Top 10 Films of 2025, and the Critics Choice Awards just nominated co-star Shannon Mahina Gorman for Best Young Actress.
Director: Hikari
Starring: Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira, Mari Yamato
Comedy, Drama
Japan, USA
1h 50m
JAN 27
1pm, 7pm
A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE
After an eight-year wait, Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is back to vivisect America’s wartime psyche with one of the most anticipated American films of 2025. A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE is an adrenaline-fueled race to & from the manmade brink of disaster. Set mainly in the White House Situation Room, the film poses a clear and terrifying question: what if the U.S. knew a nuclear missile was on its way but had no idea where it came from or how, for sure, to stop it. It unfolds RASHOMON-style from the perspective of a very caffeinated inner-circle helmed by Idris Elba, Tracy Letts, Rebecca Ferguson (SILO, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE), Jason Clarke (ZERO DARK THIRTY) & Greta Lee (PAST LIVES). It debuted at the Venice Film Festival this past fall, where it was nominated for the Golden Lion Award for Best Film, and was just Oscar-shortlisted for Best Original Score.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Greta Lee, Tracy Letts, Jason Clarke
Drama, Thriller
USA
1h 52m
FEB 3
1pm, 7pm
WEAPONS
On the surface, WEAPONS is a horror film about how a town unravels when a classroom full of third-graders goes missing. But since its box office breakthrough last summer, critics and viewers alike have intuited it as a school shooting allegory that doesn’t bother with (or stoop to) literalism. In a grimly familiar tableau, a townhall meeting is called; packed with grieving parents, answers and explanations are demanded & survivors are both lionized and blamed. In this particular classroom, the lone survivor of the mass disappearance is an already-withdrawn boy named Alex (the incredible Cary Christopher, just nominated for a Critics Choice Award). When the investigation leads nowhere and Alex’s teacher (Ozark’s excellent Julia Garner) gets labeled as a witch, she risks everything to reach out to Alex in hopes of finding answers. What she and a small group of townspeople discover point them in the unlikely direction of the real source of evil, giving us just enough time to meditate on the deeper poetics of this excellent contribution to the genre. WEAPONS was just named to the Oscars shortlist for Best Casting, and it’s no surprise that esteemed character actress Amy Madigan was just nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress.
Directors: Zach Cregger
Starring: Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich
Mystery, Horror, Dark Comedy
USA
2h 8m
FEB 10
1pm, 7pm
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
Of the vast landscape of Jane Austen adaptations, it doesn’t get much better than Ang Lee’s SENSE AND SENSIBILITY. Fresh from EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN & THE WEDDING BANQUET, Lee’s 1995 classic dramatic rendition of Austen’s 1811 novel stars Kate Winslet and Emma Thompson as odd-couple sisters forced to fast-track their marriage plans in the wake of financial loss after their father’s death. Hugh Grant and Greg Wise co-star as the girls’ would-be suitors, and as the sisters glissando toward the altar, with minor Georgian Era altercations, the film conspires to, as the NYT wrote in its review: “Here’s a film in which sense and intelligence not only prevail but also create the most gratifying of happy endings.” SENSE AND SENSIBILITY was nominated for seven Oscars, and won for Emma’s Thompon’s Best Adapted Screenplay.
Director: Ang Lee
Starring: Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet,
James Fleet
Period Drama, Romantic Comedy
UK, USA
1h 58m
FEB 17
1pm, 7pm
BUGONIA
This latest masterpiece from Yorgos Lanthimos (POOR THINGS, THE LOBSTER) stars two-time Academy Award winner Emma Stone as a brilliant and out-of-touch pharmaceutical CEO kidnapped by two relatively off-the-grid beekeeper cousins (the Academy Award-nominated Jesse Plemmons and newcomer Aiden Delbis). The cousins are convinced Stone’s character is an alien steering Earth toward disaster, but their plot to deal with her is complicated by their captive’s (otherworldly?) resilience to their machinations. No one is safe – and nothing is boring – in a Lanthimos film, and BUGONIA does not stray from this orthodoxy. But in the cast’s hands, each frame feels as electric and tentative as sticking one’s hand in a beehive – and the ending proves it. BUGONIA was just nominated for three Golden Globes and three Critics Choice Awards, including two Best Picture nominations; it’s also on the Oscar-shortlist for Best Original Score & Best Cinematography.
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Emma Stone,
Jesse Plemmons
Dark comedy,
Sci-Fi
Ireland, UK, Canada, South Korea, USA
1h 58m
FEB 24
NO OTHER CHOICE
In Park Chan-wook’s NO OTHER CHOICE, a laid-off man concocts a dark plan to eliminate his competition in this genius Korean thriller & elegiac – and darkly funny – indictment of late-stage capitalism. The film, an adaptation of a 1997 crime novel by Donald E. Westlake, stars Lee Byung-hun as a middle manager at a South Korean paper company that’s just been bought out by Americans. Humiliated and desperate, he feels he has “no other choice” but to resort to murder to literally take out his fellow job-seekers. By melding parody and tragedy, Chan-wook evokes a startling comic pathos that The New York Times says “can make you gasp in empathy amid the horror.” And whether we’re frogs slowly boiling in AI’s indifferent brew or longsuffering peons about to experience freedoms thanks to it, this is the perfect film for our times. NO OTHER CHOICE was just nominated for three Golden Globes, including Best Picture, and two Critics Choice Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay. It’s also on the Oscars shortlist for Best International Feature.
Director: Park Chan-wook
Starring: Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin,
Park Hee-soon
Dark Comedy, Drama, Thriller
South Korea
2h 19m
MAR 3
1pm, 7pm
SENTIMENTAL VALUE
This poignant new Norwegian drama is about what happens to an estranged family when they attempt to reconcile in the wake of their matriarch’s death. Thirtysomething Oslo Sisters Nora (Renate Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) are devastated after losing their mother, who divorced their famous film director dad (Stellan Skarsgård) when they were little. Or, emotionally speaking, did their dad divorce them? Either way, their father uses his ex-wife’s death as a chance to start over as a father. But his desire to suddenly fix everything may be a little too tidy – or plainly insincere – as he tries to get his oldest daughter, a talented working actress, to star in his latest, most personal, script. She denies the role, which he immediately offers to her more famous American counterpart (Elle Fanning), and proceeds to start production in the family’s childhood home. The film’s journey – and imperilment – mirrors the family’s attempts to shake free or simply accept their past, and one another. One of this year’s Palme d’Or nominees at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was also awarded the Grand Prize of the Festival, it was just nominated for seven Critics Choice awards, including Best Picture. It also appears on the Oscars shortlist for Best Casting, Best Cinematography & Best International Feature.
Director: Joachim Trier
Starring: Stellan Skarsgård, Renata Reinsve, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas
Drama
Norway, Germany, Denmark, France, Sweden, UK, Turkey
2h 13m
MAR 10
1pm, 7pm
THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR
One of the most damning films on this year’s Oscar shortlist for Best Documentary, THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR is comprised almost entirely of police body-cam footage surrounding the 2023 murder of Ajike Owens, a Black mother of four killed by her white neighbor. In THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR, director Geeta Gandbhir has crafted, in her first film, documentary that illustrates how procedural, workaday, and very much publicly available “b-roll” can elicit more suspense, and depict more horror, than any Hollywood set. It’s a chilling indictment of Stand Your Ground laws and the deadly morass of fear, isolation, surveillance and gun culture. As IndieWire put it in their review from the film’s Sundance debut, where it won the Directing Award for U.S. Documentary: “To encourage citizens to be the gun-toting arbiters of their own reality is to weaponize — all too literally — the most dangerous biases they foster on an everyday basis. It’s bad enough that we allow the police to do that, but it might be even worse to grant that power to someone who likes to think of themselves as the perfect neighbor.”
Director: Geeta Gandbhir
Documentary
USA
1h 36m
MAR 17
1pm, 7pm
THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB
This damning film tells the story of a single terrible day in Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians. Set in 2024 in a West Bank emergency call center run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB features real-life calls between rescue workers & Hind Rajab, a 5-year-old little girl who was trapped in a car in Gaza City – and in Israel’s crosshairs. Everyone in the car has been shot dead. She is terrified, and alone – until her uncle helps dispatchers make contact with her. The film is an excruciating descent into the madness and futility of trying to follow international law while Israel flouts it. For instance, the rescue workers must get clearance from the Israeli military before sending an ambulance to Hind’s location; however, who will make them keep their promises? Certainly the film’s devastating real-life source material is shattering to witness, but it must not be ignored, explained away, or become commonplace. When THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB debuted at this year’s Venice Film Festival, it received a record-breaking 23-minute standing ovation and picked up ten awards, including the Golden Lion for Best Film. Since then, it’s been nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Non-English Language Picture, and was just named to the Oscars shortlist for Best International Feature.
Director: Kaouther Ben Hania
Starring: Saja Kilani, Motaz Malhees, Clara Khoury
Drama
Tunisia, France, USA, UK, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Cyprus
1h 29m
MAR 24
1pm, 7pm
ORWELL: 2 + 2 = 5
This visionary new documentary from Oscar-nominated writer-director Raoul Peck examines the lasting relevance – and disturbing prescience – of George Orwell’s life and work. It’s not interested in hagiography, but it’s also not afraid of some solid exposition, grounding viewers in Orwell’s early life before catapulting into the work for which he’s known. As The New York Times puts it in naming the film a Critic’s Pick, “Peck is undeniably intrigued by Orwell the man, but always in relation to the world that he harrowingly diagnosed.” Told through a rigorous display of archival sources including family photos, filmic adaptations of 1984 and contemporary news footage showing the horrors wrought by authoritarianism – from the U.S. Capitol to Gaza. Perhaps this is why Rolling Stone proclaims it “The Scariest Movie of 2025.” Nominated for the Golden Eye award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the National Board of Review just named ORWELL: 2+2=5 one of the Top 5 Documentaries of 2025. It also received seven Critics Choice Documentary Awards nominations, and won for Best Score and Best Narration (voiced by Golden Globe & Emmy Award winner Damian Lewis).
Director: Raoul Peck
Documentary
France, USA
1h 59m
MAR 31
1pm, 7pm
COVER-UP
A documentary that’s also an epic political thriller, COVER-UP is about the inspiring and legendary career of fearless and Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh. He made history when he broke the story of atrocities of the My Lai massacre, then again with his reporting on Watergate and decades later when he exposed the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib. Masterfully woven, COVER-UP showcases an impressive array of archival footage, original b-roll and highlights of interviews with Hersh’s colleagues and with Hersh himself, now 88, that are both intimate and unflinching. Directed by Oscar-winner Laura Poitras (CITIZENFOUR), who spent nearly two decades courting Hersh, and Mark Obenhaus, COVER-UP was nominated for two Critics Choice Documentary Awards, and was also just named Best Documentary of 2025 by the National Board of Review.
Directors: Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus
Documentary
USA
1h 57m
2025 Archive
2024 Archive
2023 Archive
TICKETS
| Single: | $10 |
| Student: | $6 |
| Season Pass (13 films) |
$69 |
| Student Season Pass (13films) |
$48 |
VENUE
State theatre
Traverse City, MI
(231) 600-7272
SPONSORS
