Film festivals by the sea: where the screens meet the shore
Film is the biggest genre in our directory by a wide margin: 440 of 1,076 festivals by the sea are about cinema. That is more than music and arts combined. It is partly a quirk of how festivals are catalogued, and partly a real pattern: cities on the coast are where film culture gathers.
Where the screens meet the shore
Film festivals by country (top 6)
United States leads with 209, followed by Italy (29) and Spain (21). The busiest towns are New York City (43), San Francisco (18) and Seattle (13).
Why coastal cities host so many
Port cities have always been crossroads, and a film festival is a crossroads of its own: filmmakers, distributors and an audience that wants to be somewhere pleasant for a week. We measure each venue’s distance to the shoreline, so you can see which film festivals are really on the waterfront and which are simply in a coastal city.
How to pick one
Use the genre filter on the film festivals page, then narrow by country. Each listing links to the festival’s own website for programme and tickets. If you run a film festival that is missing or wrong, you can correct or remove a listing.
Frequently asked questions
How many film festivals do you list?
440, all held in coastal towns or cities.
Do you sell tickets?
No. Beachfests is an independent directory: each listing links to the festival’s official website.
How do you decide a festival is by the sea?
We compute the distance between the venue or town centre and the nearest coastline (Natural Earth 1:10m) and keep those within 2–3 km.
Looking for a film festival on a particular coast?
Four quick questions, one shortlist from our 1,076 festivals. Free, no account, and your address is never passed to a festival.
Sources
- Wikidata — festival list, locations and genres (CC0)
- Natural Earth — coastline and country outlines (public domain)
- Festival websites — month, checked October 2026
Maxence turns the directory’s data into guides for travellers and organisers. He reads the festivals’ own websites before he writes about them.