It’s a year of major change for the Sundance Film Festival: not only does 2026 mark the final in their long-time home of Park City, Utah, but it’s also the first edition without two key guiding figures. Robert Redford, who founded the Sundance Institute in 1981 and dedicated his resources to the future of independent cinema, passed away in September, while Tammie Rosen, who led Sundance’s communications operations with a level of care and detail virtually unparalleled in the industry, passed away in December following a cancer battle.
While we’ll have to wait a year to see how the festival settles into its next home of Boulder, Colorado, led by new CEO David Linde, this year’s final Utah edition once again takes place in-person, starting this Thursday, and virtually starting next Thursday, offering our first look at what the year in independent cinema has to offer. We’ll have much more coverage to come throughout the festival, but I’ve had the opportunity to preview more than 40 premieres, highlighted across sections below, plus a few anticipated selections.
Read below and follow our complete Sundance 2026 coverage by subscribing to our newsletter and bookmarking this page.
U.S. Dramatic Competition
Bedford Park
Among the most-anticipated titles in this year’s main competition section is Josephine, which finds Beth de Araújo (director of the intense, single-take Soft & Quiet) teaming with Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan; Catch the Fair One director Josef Kubota Wladyka’s next feature, the Rinko Kikuchi-led Ha-chan, Shake Your Booty!; and Sometimes I Think About Dying helmer Rachel Lambert’s follow-up Carousel, starring Chris Pine and Jenny Slate.
Poised to break out at the festival are two tender directorial debuts capturing unique viewpoints on the Korean American experience. Stephanie Ahn’s drama Bedford Park follows a Korean American woman finding an unexpected connection with a man responsible for a car accident involving her mother, while Liz Sargent’s Take Me Home centers on a disabled adoptee in her late 30s who contends with major life changes when an unexpected event strikes her family.
U.S. Documentary Competition
The Lake
Sundance has always served as an introduction to the year’s finest offerings in non-fiction filmmaking, and 2026 is no different.
An early pick for one of the most thrilling, terrifying documentaries of the year, Abby Ellis’ The Lake captures the individuals striving to attain the resources to save Utah’s Great Salt Lake, while the consequences of failure could lead to catastrophe for the surrounding population. Another visually striking documentary about keeping nature’s equilibrium in place, Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman’s Nuisance Bear takes a cinematic look at how society has caused a Manitoba polar bear to harmfully shift its natural way of life.
Poh Si Teng’s American Doctor and Jason Osder and William Lafi Youmans’ Who Killed Alex Odeh? explore the Israeli government’s targeted attacks against Palestinians with varied approaches. The former is a harrowing, heartbreaking portrait of Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian doctors who are risking their lives to tend to the overwhelming victims of the ongoing genocide and speak the truth in any way they can; the latter takes an investigative approach in picking up the trail of the unsolved assassination of a Palestinian American activist more than 40 years ago, and how suspects are still causing terror today.
A pair of riveting documentaries on lives dedicated to filmmaking, Brydie O’Connor’s Barbara Hammer film Barbara Forever and David Alvarado’s American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez pay tribute to directors who defied the norms of the medium, each crafted with a style that would make their subjects proud. Another premiere exploring the moving image, David Shadrack Smith’s Public Access is a Benny Safdie-backed, rip-roaring look at underground creators who found an audience in NYC’s underground public-access television. From the insane to the erotic, it’s an absorbing-yet-bittersweet ode to a time long gone in our new digital age.
In what should be required viewing alongside Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, J.M. Harper’s Soul Patrol is a profound look at the first Black special operations team in the Vietnam War, who reunite half-a-century later to reopen emotional wounds in the hopes of true healing. With a deep affection for its subject, Rachael J. Morrison’s Joybubbles tells the strange-but-captivating story of the blind man who found a way to hack telephone lines, stirring up both a community of like-minded individuals and the wrath of big corporations.
World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Shame and Money
A stand-out of the world cinema narrative section, Father and Exile director Visar Morina’s third feature Shame and Money is an exacting, well-articulated portrait of a Kosovan family in crisis as they attempt to make ends meet, moving from country to city. Also capturing the upheaval of a family with a patient, observant eye is Andrius Blaževičius’ How to Divorce During the War, which charts the dissolution of a marriage in Lithuania’s capital of Vilnius as Ukraine is invaded by Russia. Juxtaposing the social and political effects of a nearby war and the ways it seeps into the everyday life of a crumbling partnership makes for engrossing drama.
Fans of Aftersun will surely appreciate Myrsini Aristidou’s Hold Onto Me, an intimate debut feature set in Cyprus and following a young girl’s reunion with her estranged, wayward father as she experiences a world of danger the closer she gets to him. Wregas Bhanuteja’s Indonesian feature Levitating takes an immersive plunge into the rituals of trance dance hypnosis with truly memorable sequences, while Moshe Rosenthal’s moving Tell Me Everything sets a coming-of-age story in the 1980s as a young boy contends with the emotions of both discovering his passions and a secret harbored by his father. Another notable period coming-of-age drama is Paloma Schneideman’s debut feature Big Girls Don’t Cry, set in 2006 New Zealand and following a 14-year-old through a series of sharply crafted, empathetic vignettes, navigating the awkwardness of desire and acceptance.
World Cinema Documentary Competition
One in a Million
In a particularly strong year for international documentaries, Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes’ One in a Million is a major highlight. Filmed over a decade, this epic saga captures the refugee experience, traveling from Syria to Germany and through the years of both joy and tumult as bonds are tested as each family member assimilates in varying ways. Janay Boulos and Abd Alkader Habak’s touching Birds of War takes another vantage point on the Syrian civil war, following the long-distance relationship between a Syrian activist and cameraman and a Lebanese journalist living in London as they weather personal and professional tribulations.
Set across the stunning vistas of Montenegro, Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić’s To Hold a Mountain follows a rural community fighting back against the threat of their homeland becoming a NATO military training ground. Following Gara, a tenacious mother who exudes a love and knowledge for the land she calls home, it’s among a number of David vs Goliath stories in the lineup. Another is Kikuyu Land, following journalist Bea Wangondu (who co-directs with Andrew H. Brown) and her investigative mission to uncover the mistreatment and abuse faced by the Kenyan workers who are responsible for the hard labor of a multi-billion-dollar tea industry. It’s an exposé revealing deep layers of systemic issues related to the treatment of the low-wage worker force, as well as a familial reckoning as a level of personal involvement for Wangondu is revealed. Also taking an investigative bent is Toby Jones’ Sentient, a deeply affecting examination into the distressing ways animals are used for laboratory research.
A documentary with quite a hook, Sinéad O’Shea’s All About the Money follows the life of Fergie Chambers, heir to one of the richest families in the world, who also happens to be a communist. In pet projects—including creating a Marxist-Leninist collective in rural Massachusetts where residents don’t pay a dime—the limits of goodwill start to take shape, leading to a compelling character study of hubris.
As ICE wreaks havoc in communities across America, it would be advantageous to look at the activist tactics on display in Felipe Bustos Sierra’s Everybody to Kenmure Street, which provides a detailed look at the way a Scottish community fought back within seconds when their neighbors were rounded up for deportation back in 2021.
The nail-biting Hanging by a Wire takes a breathless look at a 2023 cable car incident in which a group of schoolboys were trapped nearly 900 feet in the air in northern Pakistan. Quickly setting the stakes, director Mohammed Ali Naqvi amasses all the footage at his disposal to craft a thriller that will certainly best any narrative adaptation that may arrive down the road.
NEXT
Night Nurse
A movie that very much walks to the beat of its own strange drum, Night Nurse is a highlight of the forward-thinking NEXT section. With shades of early Atom Egoyan, Georgia Bernstein’s directorial debut is a psychosexual drama following a nurse’s peculiar journey, becoming connected to a strange patient’s perverse idea of fun.
Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig’s debut Jaripeo is a queer stand-out in the lineup, showcasing with great formal verve the Michoacán community of gay ranchers and juxtapositions of what is usually perceived as a rather masculine world. Also showcasing a formal free spirit is BURN, the latest from We Are Little Zombies director Makoto Nagahisa, following a runaway joining a group of freewheeling misfits as her colorful escape turns sour in the underbelly of Tokyo.
In what should be essential viewing in society’s ever-(de)volving reliance on and exploitation of A.I., Valerie Veatch’s Ghost in the Machine explores how the ideologies behind artificial intelligence are deeply rooted in fascism and eugenics.
Also premiering in this section is zi, the latest film from Kogonada following last fall’s studio outing A Big Bold Beautiful Journey; the Domhnall Gleeson-led The Incomer; and Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild], from Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil of New Red Order.
Premieres
Once Upon A Time In Harlem
The festival’s largest section, combining high-profile narrative and documentary features, includes much-anticipated premieres we’re hoping to catch in person, including John Wilson’s The History of Concrete, Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex, Josephine Decker’s Chasing Summer, and David Wain’s Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass, as well as new films from Andrew Stanton, Macon Blair, Olivia Wilde, and Jay Duplass.
In terms of titles that hopefully don’t fall under the radar, it will be a strong Sundance if there’s a better film than Once Upon a Time in Harlem, an extraordinary time capsule featuring footage the late William Greaves (Symbiopsychotaxiplasm) and his son David Greaves shot of a 1972 party taking place in Duke Ellington’s party. Featuring key figures in the Harlem Renaissance, what unfolds is a lively, sprawling conversation reflecting on the individual personalities and artistic interests that gave way to a historic movement.
Two Sundance alums return with captivating new films: both Fire of Love director Sara Dosa’s Time and Water and 32 Sounds director Sam Green’s The Oldest Person in the World are poetic, stirring documentaries contending with the slippery passage of time and a personal look at familial bonds and carrying values to the next generation.
A handful of documentaries this year portray women breaking boundaries in their respective fields, and two of the most compelling are Rory Kennedy’s Queen of Chess, capturing Judit Polgár’s rise in the male-dominated sport, and Judd Ehrlich’s Jane Elliott Against the World, which documents the fiery crusade of its nonagenarian subject as she pulls no punches in fighting back against right-wing dismantling of free speech across schools and beyond.
Midnight
Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant
While much of this section’s delight is experiencing late-night screenings with a crowd, we’ll single out the New Zealand oddity Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant, which takes its premise—a slacker getting, as promised, extraterrestrially pregnant—to its ultimate conclusion. It’s a B-movie delight that also voices quite a bit about what often goes unsaid around social and personal fears surrounding physical and emotional changes during pregnancy.
Also exploring new areas of body horror, but in a more haunting fashion, is Saccharine, the latest from Relic filmmaker Natalie Erika James. Following medical student Hana (played in an uncompromising lead performance by Midori Francis), who embarks on a weight-loss craze that involves eating human ashes, the filmmaker explores cycles of body dysmorphia and addiction to chilling lengths.
A fascinating outlier amongst the genre thrills is The Best Summer, an all-archival documentary from Billy Madison and Half Baked director Tamra Davis, featuring footage she shot three decades ago and only recently uncovered, capturing the Australian indie music fest Summersault. It’s a gem for any fans of the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Pavement, and the Foo Fighters, among others, and interspersed between incredibly energetic performances are off-the-cuff, behind-the-scenes interviews with the musicians on the front lines of the scene.
Sundance 2026 tickets, both in-person and online, are available here. Follow our complete festival coverage by subscribing to our newsletter and bookmarking this page.
