The Sundance Film Festival unveiled its full lineup today.
Normally, when you see lineups, they are long lists. What we have done is broken it up into categories:
Cover Story that breaks down the top films at the festival… and why this last year at Park City is going to be special.
Sundance Industry News, which breaks out the films from top distributors.
Sundance Actor Spotlight, highlights the top talent at the festival.
Sundance Doc Spotlight, features the top docs at Sundance.
Sundance Indie Filmmaker Spotlight, showcases first and second-time filmmakers.
Sundance International News, shows the top international filmmakers at the festival.
If you know anyone that we mention, we’d appreciate you forwarding it to them.
Welcome to Sundance 2026.
This is the last year Sundance is being held in Park City, Utah. And to commemorate, the festival is screening a batch of iconic Sundance films, including:
Downhill Racer (1969)
Cast: Robert Redford, Gene Hackman
Shot at the Sundance Resort
Saw (2004)
Dir: James Wan
Mysterious Skin (2004)
Dir: Gregg Araki (I Want Your Sex)
Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet
Half Nelson (2006)
Cast: Ryan Gosling
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
Cast: Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Paul Dano, and Alan Arkin
Hoping to make it into the indie cinema pantheons of the above films, 90 features are premiering at Sundance, many starring A-listers like Russell Crowe, Natalie Portman, and Jon Hamm. What I love about Sundance is that the team makes a Herculean effort to present first-time filmmakers. This year, 40% of all features were made by first-timers.
Let’s get into it:
Most films playing at Sundance are looking for distribution, hoping to strike it big like these indies:
Sundance 2025
$16-$19M, Train Dreams, Netflix
$15-$17M, Together, Neon
$8M, Sorry, Baby, A24
Sundance 2024
$17M, It’s What’s Inside, Netflix
$15M, My Old Ass, Amazon MGM
Sundance 2023
$20M, Fair Play, Netflix
$20M, Flora and Son, Apple
Sundance 2022
$15M, Cha Cha Real Smooth, Apple
Sundance 2021
$25M, CODA, Apple
Sundance 2020
$17.5M, Palm Springs, Neon/Hulu
Here are two projects that may go for eye-popping amounts:
Dir: Cathy Yan (Birds of Prey)
Cast: Natalie Portman, Jenna Ortega, Sterling K. Brown, Zach Galifianakis, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Catherine Zeta-Jones
First look at Portman + Ortega
Synopsis:
A desperate gallerist conspires to sell a dead body at Art Basel Miami.
The cast alone could push the sale into the 8-figures.
Cast: Ethan Hawke (first look still)
Cast: Russell Crowe (first look still)
Synopsis:
In Oregon in 1933, Samuel Murphy is torn from his daughter and sent to a brutal work camp. Warden Clancy tempts him with early release if he smuggles gold through deadly wilderness, but betrayal festers within the crew, and Murphy questions how far he’ll go to see his child again.
This is the narrative directorial debut of Padraic McKinley, but given the casting of two acting legends, this could be a historical drama that makes a big Oscar push… as long as it’s not hokey.
THE SUNDANCE INDUSTRY NEWS
As in previous years, not many indie and studio distributors are bringing anything to the festival.
Here are the exceptions:
Prime - 1 TV show:
BAIT (episodic)
Creator/Star: Riz Ahmed
Synopsis:
Struggling actor Shah Latif auditions for the role of a lifetime, only to see his life spiral out of control over four frenetic days.
Searchlight - 1 film:
In The Blink of An Eye
Dir: Andrew Stanton (Dir/Wri: WALL·E) + (VP: Pixar)
Cast: Rashida Jones, Kate McKinnon
Three storylines, spanning thousands of years, intersect and reflect on hope, connection and the circle of life.
Focus Features - 1 doc:
The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist
Co-Director: Daniel Roher (Navalny)
Prod: Daniel Kwan (Everything Everywhere All at Once)
Synopsis:
A father-to-be tries to figure out what is happening with the AI insanity, exploring the existential dangers and stunning promise of this technology that humanity has created.
A24 - 2 films
The Moment
Cast: Charli XCX, Kylie Jenner, Rachel Sennott, Alexander Skarsgård
Synopsis:
A rising pop star navigates the complexities of fame and industry pressure while preparing for her arena tour debut.
undertone
The horror film premiered at Fantasia
Synopsis:
The host of a popular paranormal podcast becomes haunted by terrifying recordings mysteriously sent her way.
Nat Geo - 1 doc
Time and Water
Dir/co-writer: Sara Dosa (Fire of Love)
Synopsis:
Facing the death of his country’s glaciers and the loss of his beloved grandparents, Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason turns his archives into a time capsule to hold what is slipping away — family, memory, time, and water.
ESPN - 2 docs
Give Me the Ball!
Co-Dir/Prod: Liz Garbus (co-founder: Story Syndicate - Sundance 2025’s Nat Geo film Sally)
Synopsis:
World champion tennis trailblazer Billie Jean King has had a game-changing impact on culture and sports. Rare archive and candid interviews with Billie Jean and those closest to her reveal how one woman put changing the world ahead of saving herself.
The Brittney Griner Story
Synopsis:
Explores the circumstances that led to Brittney Griner playing basketball outside the U.S. despite being one of the best players in the sport, including her harrowing detainment, unwavering determination to secure her freedom, and her advocacy for the release of other wrongful detainees.
Black Bear - 3 films*
*They’re only distributing one of these films at Sundance. But they’ve been picking up the films they’ve produced for US distribution, like TIFF’s Christy, TIFF’s Tuner, and SXSW’s The Rivals of Amziah King.
Here are their movies:
Wicker
Sales Rep: Black Bear
Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Olivia Colman, Peter Dinklage, Elizabeth Debicki
First look at Colman as a fisherwoman
I Want Your Sex
Prod Co/Sales Rep: Black Bear
Cast: Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman
Tuner (spotlight)
Dir: Daniel Roher (Navalny)
Premiere: TIFF
Cast: Leo Woodhall, Dustin Hoffman
Distributor: Black Bear
Mini Tidbit:
The Courtney Love doc Antiheroine hasn’t been picked up. But it’s ripe for an HBO snatch. They love music docs.
Antoine Fuqua (dir: Training Day, Equalizer series, Michael) directs Troublemaker, a doc on the struggle against apartheid recounted through Nelson Mandela’s voice.
Barry Jenkins (dir: Mufasa: The Lion King, Moonlight) and his producer Adele Romanski EP the pilot Worried from director Nicole Holofcener (Enough Said).
SUNDANCE ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Double Olivia Wilde. Wilde has two projects at Sundance. One in a directing capacity and one in an acting capacity. Although she acts in the one she directs, go figure.
Here they are:
Dir: Olivia Wilde
Cast: Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penelope Cruz, Edward Norton
Synopsis
Joe and Angela are on thin ice, and tonight might be when it all falls apart. Unfortunately, their upstairs neighbors are about to arrive for dinner, and everything that can go wrong goes worse.
Cast: Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman
Synopsis:
When fresh-faced Elliot (Hoffman) lands a job with artist and provocateur Erika Tracy (Wilde), his fantasies come true as she taps him to become her sexual muse. But Elliot finds himself out of his depth as Erika takes him on a journey into a world of sex, obsession, power, betrayal, and murder.
This is one of the most anticipated films at the festival, with director Gregg Araki making his first film in over a decade. Wilde and Hoffman’s dynamic will be awkward and electric. This is quickly turning into this year’s Babygirl.
Channing Tatum keeps it indie in his next film, Josephine.
Synopsis:
After 8-year-old Josephine accidentally witnesses a crime in Golden Gate Park, she acts out in search of a way to regain control of her safety while adults are helpless to console her.
Tatum plays her “fiercely protective father…totally devoted to his struggling child.” It’s nice to see Tatum in a really indie role. He proved he’s got the acting chops to let scenes move through him in Derek Cianfrance’s Roofman.
First look photo here. David Kaplan (It Follows, Short Term 12) produces.
Jon Hamm makes his return to Sundance as the object of desire in Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass. Following his first time at the festival as an AI hologram in Marjorie Prime (2017), Hamm returned for the Bleecker Street pickup Beirut (2018) and Scott Z. Burns’ The Report (2019) in back to back to back years.
Synopsis:
Midwestern bride-to-be Gail Daughtry has a “free celebrity pass” agreement with her fiancé— who uses it. With her relationship in crisis, Gail sets out on an epic journey through Hollywood to even the scales.
Hamm is playing himself here as Gail’s big celebrity crush. We would have loved to see him as the super cocky husband who sleeps with a celeb because that’s Hamm in spades. But the real treat would have been seeing how Hamm comes unwound, that’s always more interesting in his performances anyway.
Mad Men partner John Slattery is also in the cast. Directed by David Wein (Wet Hot American Summer).
Gillian Jacobs (Community) plays the ex, and Rob Lowe (Parks & Recreation) plays the scheming teacher. That’s the setup for their Sundance film The Musical.
Their collaboration marks a comedic meeting between two 2010 beloved sitcom staples.
It’ll be fun to see these two come together. Just imagine, Britta from Community running around with Chris Traeger in Parks and Recreation. Lowe is sure to pull some next-level shenanigans, and we can’t wait for it.
Tidbits:
The Big Lebowski famously premiered back at Sundance in 1998, with 2026 being the year we get bowling rivals John Turturro and Steve Buscemi back together at the festival in The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Their roles aren’t disclosed, but it sounds like the perfect New York crime caper, both of these actors would thrive in. Forget it John, it’s Chinatown. First look photo.
Dave Franco is a Shithead. That’s the name of the latest film he stars in about two unqualified bozos hired to transfer a rich teen to rehab. Seems like a much more Dave Franco type role, with a zillion LOLs and cheeky looks. We loved him as more thoughtful and distraught in Neon’s Together from last year. Others in The Shithead’s cast include Peter Dinklage and Nicholas Braun. First look.
Mini Tidbits:
Molly Ringwald is back on the big screen in Run Amok. The film centers on a teen who re-stages her high school shooting as a musical. Definitely not Sixteen Candles.
Will Poulter goes dramatic again, following A24’s Warfare, he stars in Union County as Cody Parsons, assigned to a county-mandated drug court program amid the opioid epidemic in rural Ohio (first look).
The Incomer stars Domhnall Gleeson. There’s nothing better than the first look photo where he plays an awkward official who tries to relocate a brother and sister in a remote Scottish isle. Worldwide sales rep: Charades (Flow, After Sun).
Adriana Paz (winner: Best Actress Cannes for Emilia Perez) stars in The Huntress (La Cazadora).
Vanessa Kirby produces The Disciple about an outsider fueled to work his way into the inner circle of the Wu-Tang Clan.
SUNDANCE DOC FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Oscar-winner Alex Gibney (dir: Going Clear: Scientology, Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room) is back at Sundance with a project he directed for the first time since The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019).
His new doc is Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie.
Synopsis:
Previously unseen footage captured by Salman Rushdie’s wife, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, documents his journey. Following not just his physical rehabilitation, but also the restoration of his spirit and optimism. Inspired by Rushdie’s memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder.
Like all of Gibney’s docs, it’ll explore human cruelty and an enlightened response. Get this: Rushdie actually visited his attacker in prison.
Tidbits:
Judd Apatow co-directed a doc! It’s called Paralyzed by Hope, which follows the wild, inspirational, and hilarious story of Maria Bamford. Want to see Apatow riff a little on Sundance? Here’s his Meet the Artist video shot like a webcam outtake.
Ok, this one sounds amazing. Joybubbles is a doc about a blind man who can manipulate the telephone system by whistling a magic tone. Pretty much credited as the first hacker. Directed: Rachael J. Morrison. Producer: Sarah Winshall (I Saw the TV Glow).
2011 New Yorker, TIFF premiering short, Nuisance Bear gets a feature 14 years later. It follows a polar bear as it navigates a human world of tourists and wildlife officers. Migration colliding with modern life.
Safdie Bros. Prod Co, Elara (Good Time, Uncut Gems) produces doc Public Access, an unprecedented look inside one of the greatest media experiments to hijack American screens.
Rémi Grellety (Prod: I Am Not Your Negro) is producing Closure. Synopsis: After his teenage son goes missing, Daniel scours the depths of the Vistula River, torn between the dread of a fatal leap and the hope that his son may still be alive.
Emma Thompson EPs Everybody To Kenmure Street about a U.K. Home Office dawn raid that triggers civil resistance.
Department of Motion Pictures (prod co: Beasts of the Southern Wild) has The Oldest Person in the World, which follows the ever-changing globe-crossing tale of the longest person on planet earth. Fun first look.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will EP Cookie Queens. It’s a doc about the $800M Girl Scout Cookie season. Michael Dweck (Gaucho, Gaucho, The Truffle Hunters) produces.
SUNDANCE INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
Rachel Lambert (dir: Sometimes I Think About Dying) returns to Sundance with Carousel.
Synopsis:
A divorced doctor’s (Chris Pine) carefully constructed life in Cleveland is upended when his daughter’s debate aspirations and the unexpected return of a past love (Jenny Slate) force him to confront his own choices and embrace a second chance.
Lambert always gets impeccable cast for her films. And this feels a little more straightforward and less absurd than her previous Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023), starring Daisy Ridley.
In that movie, Ridley’s character is plain to the level of absurdity. In the one romantic scene in the film, Ridley goes over to a male co-worker’s house. And just suffers because of her introversion.
I can see Chris Pine and Jenny Slate, as stripped-back versions of themselves, having a similar dynamic in Carousel.
Josh Peters (prod: Didi, EP: The Last Showgirl) is producing three films at Sundance:
Hot Water
Also producing is Max Walker-Silverman (dir: Rebuilding)
North American Sales Rep: Cinetic
International Sales Rep: Films Boutique (Peter Hujar’s Day, The Seed of the Sacred Fig)
Synopsis:
After he’s kicked out of his Indiana high school, an American kid and his Lebanese mom hit the road west.
If I Go Will They Miss Me
Based on the 2022 short (video) won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize
Synopsis:
Twelve-year-old Lil Ant struggles to connect with his father when he begins to see surreal, almost spectral visions of boys drifting around his neighborhood. Their presence reveals a link between father and son, laying bare the threads that bind family, legacy, and place
And lastly, Josephine, the Channing Tatum film.
Kogonada (dir: After Yang, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey) returns to Sundance with zi.
Synopsis:
In Hong Kong, a young woman haunted by visions of her future self meets a stranger who changes the course of her night — and possibly her life.
Look, truth be told, I wasn’t the biggest fan of After Yang. It brought a humanism to the sci-fi concept of robot replacement that was conceptually interesting but lacked oomph. I’m hoping this one is more stirring.
Tidbits:
Festival regular, Jay Duplass (The Baltimorons, The Puffy Chair) is gracing Sundance with his tortured indie eye with See You When I See You. Bringing his signature heartbreak and humor, the film follows a comedy writer plagued by their grief for the loss of their sister. Led by David Duchovny (The X-Files) and Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart), it falls directly in line with the Duplass canon of following ordinary people facing life for all its laughter and pain.
Chasing Summer is the latest film by Josephine Decker (Madeline’s Madeline). The film follows a woman who loses her job and boyfriend, whose life is flipped by an old love from high school. Set in a tiny Texas town. We’re excited that it’s produced by Sam Pressman (Dead Man’s Wire), who took over the iconic Pressman Films (American Psycho).
BoulderLight (prod co: Weapons) is bringing horror film Buddy to Sundance’s door. It’s about a brave girl, and her friends must escape a kids’ television show. The first look image is very disturbing. And the cast also has the potential to be equally frightening: Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Topher Grace, Keegan-Michael Key, Michael Shannon, and Patton Oswalt. Shot by my friend Zach Kuperstein (Barbarian).
John Wilson at Sundance?! The History of Concrete is his new film. And wow is the synopsis his style: After attending a workshop on how to write and sell a Hallmark movie, filmmaker John Wilson tries to use the same formula to sell a documentary about concrete.
Mini Tidbits:
Producer Gary Foster (Sleepless in Seattle, Ghost Rider) brings Bedford Park to Sundance.
Producer Stephen Feder (former VP Dev Lucas Films) is producing Rock Springs, co-starring Benedict Wong.
Best titled film at Sundance? Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant. Here’s a first look.
This year’s Thelma? Night Nurse.
SUNDANCE INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Kristina Ceyton (prod: Babadook) and Samantha Jennings (prod: Talk to Me, Bring Her Back) produce the queer Australian horror, Leviticus.
Synopsis:
Two star-crossed teenage boys must escape a violent entity that takes the form of the person they desire most — each other.
Look, that’s one hell of an Aussie horror-producing team. Commence the Neon / A24 bidding war.
Tidbits:
Frank & Louis feel like the classic, endearing character-driven drama Sundance loves. The English-language debut of Swiss director Petra Biondina Volpe, her festival luck seems to be bleeding into 2026. Her asphyxiating German drama Late Shift (2025) premiered to acclaim at Berlin last year and went on to become Switzerland’s official Oscar entry for the International category.
New Europe Film Sales (sales rep: Lamb) picks up How to Divorce During the War. Synopsis: In Vilnius in 2022, Marija has a revelation that she wants to divorce her husband, Vytas, right before Russia invades Ukraine. Forced to confront their crumbling relationship, they navigate the process of divorce as it collides with the ongoing war.
International Films at Sundance with distribution:
Film4 - 1 film
Extra Geography (UK)
Dir: Molly Manners
Worldwide Sales Rep: HanWay (Shame, Carol)
Synopsis:
In an English girls boarding school, two teenage best friends grapple with the challenges of girlhood — friendship, boys, studies, and growing up — and embark on their school project, falling in love.
The Criterion Channel - 1 film
Filipiñana
Dir/Wr: Rafael Manuel
Based on the short film
Synopsis:
Teen girl Isabel feels strangely drawn to Dr. Palanca, the president of the country club where she works. However, after piecing together a violent picture of what lies beneath the club’s pristine surface, she realizes that what began as an innocent infatuation is actually rooted in a sinister shared history.
No distribution yet, but great synopsis:
Levitating
Dir: Wregas Bhanuteja
Synopsis:
In a town where pleasure equals being possessed by spiritual beings, Bayu aspires to be the shaman of a trance party so he can fundraise enough money to prevent an impending eviction.
Mini Tidbits:
The next On Becoming a Guinea Fowl? Lady. Worldwide Sales Rep: HanWay.
The next Gaucho Gaucho? Jaripeo.
FESTIVAL INFO
In-person tickets to Sundance can be purchased here. Online here.
Sundance runs Jan 22 - Feb 1st.
Download the Sundance program here.
Written by Maddie Menapace and Gabriel Miller.
Edited by Gabriel Miller.
Follow us on: Facebook | Instagram | X
Want to advertise with us? Email: clarke.scott@theindustry.co