A new documentary about Jean-Michel Basquiat is here “Basquiat,” acquired by Netflix, is premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival

In 1996, Basquiat was released in theaters, an independent film written and directed by Julian Schnabel and starring a very young Jeffrey Wright. From his childhood to his rise (and fall) in the art world, Jean-Michel Basquiat, the film retraces the life and career of the visionary American artist, exploring his beginnings in the late 1970s and the influences on his work stemming from the vibrant cultural environment of New York.

A story about inspiration and encounters, including the most significant one with Andy Warhol (played by David Bowie), but also about the addiction that plagued the artist and ultimately led to his death at the age of just twenty-seven.

Despite his young age, the impact Jean-Michel Basquiat had on art and culture was so profound that it transcended both time and space. The artist is considered one of the leading figures of Neo-Expressionism, as well as of American graffiti writing, a movement that allowed his work to move beyond traditional art galleries and live independently on the streets and throughout urban neighborhoods.

The film, which became a cult classic after its premiere in competition at the Venice Film Festival, featured an impressive cast that included Benicio Del Toro and Gary Oldman, alongside Willem Dafoe, Christopher Walken, Parker Posey, Courtney Love, and Sam Rockwell. It was one of several films dedicated to the artist over the years, now joined by a new documentary that shares his name and revolves around personal archival material uncovered by his family.

Jean-Michel Basquiat, following the earlier documentaries Downtown 81 (2000) and Boom for Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Michel Basquiat (2018), is directed by Quinn Whitney Wilson and Viridiana Lieberman and premiered at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival—while already having been acquired by Netflix. Unlike previous projects, the documentary aims to portray the artist honestly, without overlooking his contradictions.

Despite the involvement of his relatives, Jean-Michel Basquiat seeks to explore both the human and artistic nature of its subject, from his earliest works signed as SAMO (short for Same Old Shit) to his continuous professional evolution, from a bohemian drifter to an artist fascinated by and working across multiple media.

The film is enriched with home movies, photographs, sketches, and notebooks, offering a portrait of Basquiat’s life never before explored in quite the same way. At its center is his relationship with his family, led by his father Gerard, a Haitian immigrant who became a businessman in New York, and his fourth-generation Puerto Rican mother, Matilde.

From his bond with his younger sisters and attendance at a private school to the rebellious spirit of punk culture and the 1970s, the events recounted reveal the experiences that shaped the artist, including his parents’ divorce and the accident at age seven when he was struck by a car. These events had a decisive influence on both his life and his art, often described as immediate, raw, and almost primitive. In the documentary, his works come alive between the public and private narratives of the man behind them.

Despite some omissions, such as his relationship with Suzanne Mallouk and the much-discussed involvement of his family in the project, Jean-Michel Basquiat emerges as a sincere human and artistic retrospective built around the American icon. It is a prism through which both his problematic behavior and his artistic sensitivity can be examined—perhaps more clearly than ever before.