That’s a wrap!
The 2026 Newport Beach Film Festival ended its eight-day run on October 22, having featured movie premieres, A-list talent, independent filmmakers, and memorable after-parties as part of the Festival’s 26th anniversary.
“The Newport Beach Film Festival has become the largest celebration of cinema in coastal Southern California,” stated Newport Beach Film Festival President and CEO Greg Schwenk. “This year, we received and reviewed over 4,000 submissions to find the 300 to 350 films that are in the festival. We hosted 18 special events, things like the opening night gala in Fashion Island with 2,500 people. That’s a pretty amazing way to start off any festival. We are exceptionally proud of what we have built, but we built it upon the shoulders of giants, and those giants are the programming department and our volunteers—the men and women who give up their time and talent to make the festival happen. So, thank you to all of our volunteers, our programming team, and the entire staff at the Newport Beach Film Festival.”
From October 15 through 22, the Festival screened an international selection of more than 100 feature films and 250 short subjects, from narrative dramas and fascinating documentaries to exciting action sports features and culinary exposés.
The 27th annual Newport Beach Film Festival opened October 15 with a screening of the documentary “Frampton,” featuring renowned rock star Peter Frampton, who attended the opening-night screening and participated in a Q&A before the film began.
After the screening of “Frampton,” the Film Festival hosted a gala event at Fashion Island that featured more than 20 restaurants plus bars serving Tito’s Vodka cocktails.
The Festival concluded on Thursday, Oct. 22 with two closing night films: Oscar-nominated director/writer Tony Gilroy’s “Behemoth!” starring Pedro Pascal (at the Big Newport Theater) and “Unleashed Spirits: The Rise of the Hollywood Vampires” at The Lido Theater.
In between opening and closing night, the Festival hosted its annual Honors program plus Variety’s 10 Actors to Watch.
This year’s honorees included Miles Teller (Artist of Distinction Award), Jessica Lange (Icon Award), Taraji P. Henson (Artist of Distinction Award), Justin Hartley (Artist of Distinction Award), Sarah Finn (Casting Visionary Award), Mckenna Grace (Spotlight Award), KJ Apa (Spotlight Award), Jack O’Connell (Outstanding Achievement in Acting Award), Gemma Chan (Outstanding Achievement in Acting Award), Emmy Rossum (Outstanding Performance in Television Award), and Sosie Bacon (Breakout Award).
In her acceptance speech, Mckenna Grace told the audience of industry VIPs that “It is such an honor to be here with so many people whose work I’ve admired for so long, and it’s still crazy to me that I get to call you my peers, let alone accept this honor. I’m always doubting myself and wondering if I belong. And I still feel like a little girl who can’t quite believe that she’s in the room. And I think that’s okay. I think maybe we don’t have to wait until we’re completely confident to recognize that we’re capable of doing something meaningful. We can be learning how to believe in ourselves while allowing ourselves to be proud of what we’ve already done.”
Next up for the Newport Beach Film Festival: the Third Annual Newport Beach TV Fest, taking place June 3-6, 2027. And of course, the 28th annual edition of the Newport Beach Film Festival, which returns in October 2027.
And now that the cinematic dust has settled, the Newport Beach Film Festival has announced the film awards for the 2026 Festival. Films that screened during the Festival competed for Audience, Jury, and Festival awards; winners are listed below.
AUDIENCE AWARDS
- Best Narrative Feature: Wild Horse Nine
- Best International Feature: La Bola Negra
- Best Documentary Feature: 4000 Days
- Best Animated Feature: In Waves
- Best Music Documentary Feature: Frampton
- Best Thriller Feature: Better
- Best Action Sports Feature: Stern Fever
- Best Art, Architecture + Design Feature: Heroic: Sabin Howard Sculpts the National WWI Memorial and Leica – A Century of Vision (tie)
- Best Environmental Feature: The Sludge War
- Best Culinary Feature: How To Feed a Dictator
- Best Family Feature: Whale Shark Jack
- Best Irish Feature: You’ll Never Believe Who’s Dead
- Best Narrative Short: The 65th
- Best Documentary Short: Guardians of Anatolia
- Best International Short: To Save a Life
- Best Animated Short: The Whistle
- Best Action Sports Short: Hunter’s Moon
- Best Art, Architecture + Design Short: Women Laughing
- Best Irish Short: Listen and FAT (tie)
JURY AWARDS
- Best Feature Narrative: A Talent For Murder, Anton Corbijn
- Best Feature Narrative Screenplay: A Talent For Murder, Joanna Murray-Smith
- Best Feature Narrative Director: Paweł Pawlikowski, Fatherland
- Best Feature Narrative Cinematography: Fatherland, Łukasz Żal
- Best Feature Narrative Actor: Alden Ehrenreich, A Talent For Murder
- Best Feature Narrative Actress: Sandra Hüller, Fatherland
- Best Feature Narrative Ensemble: …And Out Comes the Wolf
- Best Documentary: All American Girls, Andrea Berman and Christy Wegener
- Best Documentary Short: The Baddest Speechwriter of All
- Best Narrative Short: Every Time I See a Yellow Car
- Best Animated Short: That Night
- Best Irish Short: A Vinyl Goodbye
FESTIVAL HONORS
- Outstanding Achievement in Directing: Paper Tiger
- Outstanding Achievement in Narrative Filmmaking: Jimmy and Ink
- Outstanding Achievement in International Filmmaking: The Body is Water, Sisa and What A Way To Go
- Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Filmmaking: Carl Sagan: We Are Made of Star Stuff, As Far Back As I Can Remember…The Story of Goodfellas and Avedon
- Outstanding Achievement in Animation: Julián
- Outstanding Achievement in Filmmaking – Action Sports: Beyond Borders Patagonia
- Outstanding Achievement in Filmmaking – Art, Architecture + Design: The Last Inventor: Chuck Hull & The Hope of 3D Printing
- Outstanding Achievement in Filmmaking – Culinary: Noor: Eating History
- Outstanding Achievement in Editing: Mikkel E.G. Nielsen, Wild Horse Nine
- Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Gris Jordana, La Bola Negra
- Outstanding Achievement in Narrative Short Filmmaking: Fire Lily
- Outstanding Achievement in Documentary Short Filmmaking: Bright Harvest: Powering Earth From Space
- Outstanding Achievement in International Short Filmmaking: Submitting Tigers
- Outstanding Achievement in Short Filmmaking – Animation: Wait!
- Outstanding Achievement in Short Filmmaking – Action Sports: On Flying
- Outstanding Achievement in Short Filmmaking – Art, Architecture + Design: Curating Modernism
For more information, visit www.Ne wportBeachFilmFest.com.
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