The 2025 Nantucket Film Festival has set the feature film lineup, honorees and signature programs for its 30th anniversary edition.
The festival will open with two Sundance Audience Award winners, the Dylan O’Brien-Lauren Graham film Twinless and the documentary Prime Minister about former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, directed by Michelle Walshe and Lindsay Utz. The closing night film is teen orators documentary Speak, directed by Jennifer Tiexiera and Guy Mossman. The centerpiece film is National Geographic’s Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story documentary, providing an authorized look inside the making of Jaws.
“This year’s slate of films continues to celebrate bold and independent voices close to home and across the world,” NFF senior programmer Basil Tsiokos and lead programmer Anita Raswant said in a statement. “We invite our audiences to explore a wide range of work that honors the power of storytelling — and, in turn, our shared humanity over the course of our six-day, highly curated festival.”
The 2025 NFF has also revealed this year’s Screenwriters Tribute honorees: Tony Gilroy, Alex Gibney and Joanna Calo.
Andor showrunner Gilroy, also known for writing and directing Michael Clayton and the original Bourne film, will receive the Visionary Storyteller Award, recognizing his more-than-30-year career.
Oscar- and Emmy-winning documentarian Gibney, whose films include such titles as Going Clear and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, will receive the Special Achievement in Documentary Storytelling honor.
And Calo, the writer, director and producer known for co-creating and serving as showrunner on FX’s The Bear will receive the Special Achievement in Television Writing Award, recognizing her dynamic storytelling and innovative contributions to TV.
Gilroy, Gibney and Calo will be honored at the festival’s Screenwriters Tribute event, hosted by Michael Ian Black. Other programs include Late Night Storytelling, Morning Coffee With… and the Ben Stiller-presented All-Star Comedy Roundtable, featuring Iliza Shlesinger, Amber Ruffin, Mae Martin and Stiller’s Severance colleague Zach Cherry.
The festival will also feature an exclusive first look at Ken Burns‘ upcoming six-part, 12-hour docuseries The American Revolution, premiering Nov. 16 on PBS. And the festival will host a garden brunch event celebrating Elin Hilderbrand’s Nantucket Stories, exploring her ties to the island and expanding world of screen adaptations of her bestselling novels. The Flipping the Script: Bestsellers to Screen event will highlight The Perfect Couple and in-development adaptations The Five-Star Weekend and Winter Street. Hilderbrand will be joined for the conversation by screenwriter Bekah Brunstetter (This Is Us, Maid), UCP executive vp Jen Gwartz (Ted, Suits: LA), NBCUniversal president of scripted content Lisa Katz (Poker Face) and former HBO president and founder of Dinner Party Productions, Sue Naegle. The discussion will also include The Perfect Couple season one showruunner Jenna Lamia and Calo, who will serve as showrunner for The Perfect Couple‘s upcoming second season.
“For our 30th anniversary, we wanted to create a program that not only celebrates the craft of screenwriting and storytelling but also reflects the moment we’re living in—bold, urgent, and deeply human,” Nantucket Film Festival executive director Mystelle Brabbée said in a statement. “From Tony Gilroy to Joanna Calo, Jaws to Prime Minister, the fearless comedy of Amber Ruffin and Iliza Shlesinger to the timeless storytelling of Elin Hilderbrand, this year’s lineup is a dynamic tribute to storytelling’s power to entertain, challenge, and connect us all. We can’t wait to share this year’s program with our audiences.”
More information about this year’s festival is available here.
The 2025 Nantucket Film Festival is set to run from June 25-30.