In the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak in February 2020, American film festivals were left with a difficult question: Should they cancel their events and wait for lockdowns and other restrictive measures to be lifted, or should they rethink the traditional film festival model and go virtual? After a series of cancellations during the first half of the year, most film festivals chose to move online in the end. As I began my research, almost a year had passed since the first festival ventured into the virtual world. Taking a look back at what American film festivals have been through during pandemic times, this thesis aims to identify lessons that can be applied to help the industry endure and grow in the post-pandemic era. My study begins by revisiting the industry’s experience in 2020. The pandemic brought to light a previously understudied film festival model: online. With a year of experimentation, industry professionals have replaced their earlier skepticism about this model with appreciation and excitement, now seeing it as a viable alternative in the future. Why, then, did the online model not gain wide acceptance before? Perhaps because it poses limitations while opening up new possibilities. For a full appreciation of this question, it is critical to examine why the traditional film festival model persists. Hence, Part I discusses how real-life film festivals live up to the concept of “festival” and spatial and temporal factors that set them apart from their online counterparts. The analysis suggests that film festivals are collective experiences and offer attendees an atmosphere characterized by spectacle, buzz, exclusivity, and contingency. At the start of online migration, festival organizers had a hard time making this happen online. Fortunately, advances have been made over time. In Part II, I present case studies of and interviews with eight film festivals to show how far the industry has come since the pandemic. Apart from adapted programming approaches, three growing trends in the field deserve mention — a thriving spirit of collaboration, a greater focus on accessibility, and an increased interest in a hybrid film festival model — all of which are expected to improve festival experiences for future festival-goers and to enable a brighter future for the entire industry.