New Tribeca streaming service curates films for you

The new Tribeca Shortlist streaming video service is stressing quality over quantity.

Unlike larger services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video stocking thousands of titles, Tribeca Shortlist, which opens today, stocks about 150 films including releases as diverse as Annie Hall, Escape from New York, Eat Drink Man Woman and Reservoir Dogs.

Tribeca Enterprises, which is the parent company of the Tribeca Film Festival and is associated with the non-profit Tribeca Film Institute, is launching the Tribeca Shortlist service ($4.99 monthly) as a joint venture with studio Lionsgate. Initially, the streaming service is available on computers and on iPads with additional devices to be added by early November.

Tribeca Shortlist is "very complementary" to other video offerings such as Netflix or to traditional pay-TV programming, said Tribeca Shortlist president Jeff Bronikowski. "We’re trying to really have this be a service as opposed to a huge, huge catalog of movies that leaves the user to meander through a giant library," he said. "We are a service for people who appreciate quality movies and are true movie lovers."

Films are organized in genres (action & adventure, award winners, comedy, crime and thrillers, mystery, war) and in themes (Drugs in Film) with additional categories including recent additions and movies due to depart soon. Each month, about one-third of the films will be swapped out for different ones.

Tribeca Shortlist also has filmmakers, actors and other notable persons offer up their own list of recommended films. In one of them, The Biggest Loser personal trainer Bob Harper suggests five "Zero to Hero" movies including Annie Hall, Fargo, Good Will Hunting, Swimming with Sharks, and The Terminator. "I love an underdog," he says in his video on the site. Other shortlisters include actors John Leguizamo (Chef), Matthew Modine (The Dark Knight Rises) and director Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me).

Tribeca Shortlist's "idea of curation is the next evolution (of online movie services)," said Spurlock in an interview. The service points "you towards good things you may have missed or heard of and just needed somebody else to give you that additional shove. I think it is brilliant."

In addition to films from Lionsgate, Tribeca Shortlist acquires movies from other independent and major film studios. The service also aims to acquire some first-run releases at festivals or elsewhere, Bronikowski says. "We are handpicking every movie," he said. "This notion of the movies turning over every month really makes it feel like a service as opposed to a catalog."

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