The Outside Days 2026 Film Lineup Is Making Some Noise

Outside Days will rock Denver in more ways than one from May 29 to 31. The festival, now in its third year, brings an unprecedented mashup of live music, film, speakers, and outdoor culture to Auraria Campus. One of the highlights is the Film series presented by Amazon Pharmacy, which this year features storytelling at the heart of adventure and human drama—and a big dose of music.

Three of the films explore how sound and song shape our identities, memories, and experiences in wild landscapes, and cement Outside Days’ DNA as a festival built around incredible live music. This year, artists like Death Cab for Cutie, Japanese Breakfast, My Morning Jacket, Cage the Elephant, the Flaming Lips, and many more will soundtrack the long-weekend celebration.

The full lineup includes 11 films across May 30 and 31, including two shorts and a feature brought to Outside Days through a partnership with Mountainfilm, which takes place the weekend before in Telluride, Colorado, plus a feature presented by the Sundance Film Festival, which will be relocating to Boulder, Colorado, in 2027.

You’ll want to see them all (details below), but if you want to prioritize the music-centric films, here are three to put on your calendar.

SURFILMUSIC charts the evolution of Jack Johnson: how he went from a promising young competitive surfer to filmmaker to unlikely rockstar. The film mixes footage from his early surfing and surf-filming career with current ruminations on the wild paths his career has taken. Legendary friends and colleagues from all sides of Johnson’s life (Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, G. Love) offer color commentary, and it’s all soundtracked by Johnson himself and Los Hermanos Guitiérrez. Director Emmett Malloy, a creative collaborator of Johnson’s for decades, will participate in a Q&A following the screening.

Meanwhile, Chris Benchetler’s wildly imaginative Mountains of the Moon features climbing, skiing, and surfing set almost entirely at night to a score created from the Grateful Dead’s music. Festooned with appropriately trippy visuals throughout (and more than a few glowing skeletons and dancing bears), this eye-popping tribute to the Dead evokes a longstanding connection to wild adventures, and features an appearance from Mickey Hart, one of only two surviving members. Best of all, the screening will be live scored by a Grateful Dead cover band put together by Ross James, who has played with Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, and John Mayer.

The final musical tribute features found footage—buried treasure discovered during the evacuation from the devastating 2025 Palisades Fire in California. Celebrated 1990s music video director Tamra Davis unearthed a forgotten box of videotapes featuring never-before-seen footage of artists like the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Pavement, Rancid, Beck, and Bikini Kill taken during Australia’s 1995 Summersault Festival. The Best Summer weaves energetic performances, off-the-cuff interviews, and candid backstage life, capturing the youth, friendship, and sheer talent that powered some of the most influential music of the time. Davis (who also directed feature-film classics like Bill Madison and Half Baked) will be on hand for a Q&A after the screening.

Beyond the musical headliners, this year’s jam-packed roster features adaptive climbers charting new climbing routes, Indigenous investigators working to reclaim the remains of stolen ancestors, a group of Black men forging bonds deep in the redwoods, and so much more.

All films will be shown at the Auraria Campus King Center in Denver. Here’s the full lineup and when to watch.

SURFILMUSIC

Long before Jack Johnson became synonymous with laid-back, fireside acoustic sets on the beach, he was a surfer with a camera, documenting his competitive career and connection to the ocean. Surfilmusic, directed by Emmett Malloy, traces that evolution—how early surf films, friendships, and time spent chasing waves all over the world inspired a global music career. Culled from a mix of archival footage, Johnson’s own surf films, and present-day reflections from fixtures of the Johnson universe (like Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, John John Florence, Gerry Lopez, and his wife, Kim Johnson), the film shows how friendship and exploration can fuel a creative life in and out of the water.

Runtime: 76 minutes
Director: Emmett Malloy
Showing: Saturday, May 30, 1:45 P.M.

Right to Risk

In Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, the Adaptive Climbers Festival celebrates the idea that anyone can be a climber. Right to Risk follows three climbers exploring what’s possible, what’s allowed, and who can push limits, fail, and try again on the rock. In the process, they climb hard, build community, and raise a few eyebrows in pursuit of a more inclusive climbing world.

Runtime: 11 minutes
Director: Daniel Fickle
Showing: Saturday, May 30, 1:30 P.M. (Part of a screening block of multiple shorts.)

Best Day Ever

Adaptive mountain bikers need trails to ride, but suitable singletrack can be hard to find. Not in Vermont’s Green Mountains, home to the world’s first fully adaptive trail network. Best Day Ever joins Greg Durso and Allie Bianchi as they transcend the daily challenges of their respective disabilities to find joy, connection, and belonging on the trails of this groundbreaking new advance in accessibility. With striking visuals, the film captures a gritty, heartwarming community committed to proving everyone belongs outside.

Runtime: 48 minutes
Directors: Ben Knight and Berne Broudy
Showing: Saturday, May 30, 1:30 P.M. (Part of a screening block of multiple shorts.)

Aanikoobijigan

Part investigative documentary, part spiritual reckoning, Aanikoobijigan follows Indigenous tribal repatriation specialists fighting to reclaim ancestral human remains from museum archives and rebury them in their rightful resting places. History and justice collide to examine how past injustices continue to fuel our troubled present, and what it means to restore balance and peace in the face of long odds and harmful worldviews that still persist.

Runtime: 80 minutes
Directors: Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil
Showing: Saturday, May 30, 3:05 P.M.

NO HANDS: The Wild Ride of the Schwinn Bicycle Company

Do you remember your first bike? Of course you do. NO HANDS starts with the rise and fall of the Schwinn Bicycle Company, which began in 1895 as an immigrant-founded family business before swelling into a brand synonymous with freedom on two wheels. But this is much more than a brand story. NO HANDS quickly expands into something broader: a cultural history of cycling in America and how it transcends sport.

Runtime: 75 minutes
Director: Daniel Clarke
Showing: Saturday, May 30, 4:50 P.M. 

Mountains of the Moon

In Mountains of the Moon, visionary filmmaker and pro skier Chris Benchetler explores the mystical connections between outdoor adventure sports, the natural world, and, well, our souls. Shot largely at night using cutting-edge cinematography and set to the music of the Grateful Dead, the film is equal parts outdoor-sports movie and sensory experiment. Climbers, surfers, and skiers cavort through glowing, otherworldly landscapes where snow, water, and light merge into something that would impress the Dead themselves (founding member Mickey Hart even makes an appearance). The surreal journey captures the flow shared by the world’s greatest athletes and musicians, and this special showing is heightened by a Dead cover band playing live.

Runtime: 47 minutes
Director: Chris Benchetler
Showing: Saturday, May 30, 5:35 P.M.

Boyz N the Wood: Resilience in the Redwoods

Among the towering redwood trees of Northern California, a group of Black men gathers to disappear into the forest in search of a deeper connection. Surrounded by centuries-old giants, the men discover the simple adventure of walking, breathing, and listening to each other in a whole new way. Through this transformation, the film explores healing, identity, and the power of nature as a space to rediscover the best version of yourself.

Runtime: 11 minutes
Director: Faith Briggs Rose
Showing: Sunday, May 31, 2026, 1:45 P.M. (Part of a screening block of multiple shorts.)

Boys of Summer

At a remote summer camp in the Vermont woods, teenage boys step away from screens and modern expectations and pressures to redefine what strength means, and explore what it means to be a boy on the path to becoming the best version of himself. As they plumb their private vulnerabilities, friendships, and rebellions, the boys embark on a summer-long journey of connection and emotional growth.

Runtime: 25 minutes
Director: Mito Habe-Evans and Annabel Edwards
Showing: Sunday, May 31, 1:45 P.M. (Part of a screening block of multiple shorts.)

Connection Moves Us All

Everyone who runs knows that speed and distance don’t begin to measure the impact of the sport. This short film shows how much more there is, following nine running crews across five different countries to capture how the bonds we make when we run together become more important than miles logged or races finished. Across different cities, different cultures, and different routes and environments, the film from Brooks Running explores how community inspires runners of all abilities to keep moving forward, often laughing as they go.

Runtime: 13 minutes
Director: N/A
Showing: Sunday, May 31, 1:45 P.M. (Part of a screening block of multiple shorts.)

The Best Summer

What’s it like to be on tour with Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Beck, Pavement, Rancid, the Amps, and Bikini Kill? Better yet, what’s it like to be them? Director Tamra Davis has the answer in this astonishing found-footage doc shot during an Australian concert tour in 1995. It’s loaded with live performances, candid interviews, and backstage antics. Even more astonishing is the story behind the raw footage: Davis discovered the box of videotapes that inspired this doc after rescuing it from the Palisades Fire that devastated Los Angeles in 2025.

Runtime: 84 minutes
Director: Tamra Davis
Showing: Sunday, May 31, 2 P.M.

Threshold

On the surface, Jessie Diggins seems unstoppable. It’s easy to see the Olympic gold medalist and see only the bright smile we associate with her famously relentless pursuit of perfection to become the most-decorated cross-country skiing athlete in U.S. history. But there’s so much more to Diggins’ story, and that’s what Threshold sets out to explore. The film looks beneath the surface of the records and medals, tracing her battle with an eating disorder that threatened to topple her at the height of her career.

Runtime: 85 minutes
Director: Lars Brinkema, Torsten Brinkema
Showing: Sunday, May 31, 4:20 P.M.