The Sundance Film Festival received over 16,201 submissions for their final year in Park City, Utah and presented its narratives categories with just over 60 features. Here is a mostly spoiler-free look at my favorites. With the announcement that the 2027 festival will take place in Boulder, Colorado, I must state that this year’s edition was a poignant end of an era. I was honored to experience the festival as originally designed, one final time. Please write these titles down in your diary and keep your eyes glued to your local film festival, art-house theaters, and streaming sites for them throughout the upcoming year. Check out my list of favorite documentaries here.
NB Mager’s Run Amok (US)
The is the kind of risk-taking indie film that Sundance has made its name showcasing throughout its 47-year history. Expanding on the director’s Oscar-qualifying 14-minute film from 2023, this genre shape-shifter follows a teenage girl who attempts to stage an elaborate musical about the most traumatizing day of her life. No other movie at this year’s festival had as many walkouts (with some verbally expressing their frustrations as they stormed down the aisles.) This seemed to be primarily in response to the fluctuating tonal shifts that director NB Mager makes, from dark humor to heartbreak to downright absurdist comedy. For those that powered through (and mind you, not everything gelled for me either), Run Amock indisputably stuck its audacious landing, and it left me in a daze for days. Supported by a star-making performance by lead actor Alyssa Marvin—think Reese Witherspoon in Alexander Payne’s Election (1999)—along with the deceptively profound skills of Patrick Wilson, this is a brave film that deserves to be seen. It is seeking distribution in the United States.
Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex (US)
Proof that cinema’s 1990s “enfant terrible” has still got what it takes to challenge the sexual boundaries of his current era, as he did in The Living End, The Doom Generation, Kaboom!, Nowhere. Araki’s hilarious script was born out of his own fascination in how younger generations are rumored to be uninterested in having sex. Olivia Wilde is downright stunning as a problematic Los Angeles art gallery director, while Licorice Pizza‘s Cooper Hoffman is hilarious as he falls head over heels into his boss’s sadomasochistic expectations. This is a satirical skewering of the art world that, at the same time, celebrates the delicious depravity of it all. Throw in hilarious side characters played by Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Daveed Diggs, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, and the unstoppable Charli XCX, and you’ve got one of the funniest films of the year. Produced by Black Bear Productions, Magnolia Pictures is acquiring distribution rights in the United States.
Padraic McKinley’s The Weight (Germany/US)
A rip-roaring crime drama that gives Ethan Hawke, Russell Crowe, and Julia Jones the kind of roles that people will be talking about for years to come. Taking place during the Depression of the early 1930s and set in the backcountry of Oregon (though filmed in Viechtach, Germany), the film sees a group of desperate convicts attempting to earn their freedom in exchange for partaking in a dangerous gold-smuggling operation. The cinematic fervor of the whole production feels like it was directly inspired by such classic Wester film noirs like John Huston’s Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Raoul Walsh’s High Sierra (1941), and Mervyn LeRoy’s I Was a Fugitive on a Chain Gang (1932)—with a touch of William Friedkin’s Sorcerer (1977) thrown in for good measure. The saying “they don’t make ’em like they used to” imminently applies here, and I urge every cinephile to do whatever it takes to see this thrilling spectacle on the biggest and loudest screen imaginable. The film is currently in the process of securing distribution in the United States.
Casper Kelly’s Buddy (US)
A truly intriguing entry in Sundance’s Midnight Movie program that felt like three incredible 22-minute episodes stretched-out into a 95-minute feature. Stay away from spoilers and go into it knowing only the tagline: a brave girl and her friends must escape a children’s television show. Playing out like Dave McCary’s overlooked masterpiece Brigsby Bear (2017), “Pee Wee’s Playhouse”, and Cristin Milioti’s The Penguin, the flick moves along with nice turns by Topher Grace, Keegan-Michael Key, Michael Shannon, and Patton Oswalt. It is—surprisingly—still seeking distribution in the United States.
Ian Tuason’s undertone (Canada)
This film premiered at last year’s Fantasia International Film Festival, winning the Gold Audience Award for Canadian films, and for good reason. It’s asily my favorite entry in this year’s Midnight Movie program. It follows a pragmatic young woman who is providing end-of-life care to her ailing mother whose late-night loneliness is remedied by calling her best friend and recording a supernatural podcast. The haunting production design by Mercedes Coyle is especially eerie as the director shot the entire movie in his actual parent’s house, making its sentimental tchotchkes and childhood memories all the more poignant. Multiple viewings are an absolute must for this cinematic treat, and a special shoutout is in order for Michèle Duquet, who worked some subtle magic as Mama. (I am curling my toes remembering, even as I write this.) A24 acquired its distribution rights in the United States—in a seven-figure deal!—and is releasing it on March 13.
Georgia Bernstein’s Night Nurse (US)
My favorite film from this year’s NEXT program, which was created in 2010 to showcase innovative independent cinema made on a much lower budget than the main categories. This is where you find the “fever dreams”, and debut director Georgia Bernstein’s atmospheric, psychosexual thriller has the exact bizarre vibe I am always hoping to come across. Cemre Paksoy is stunning as Eleni, a starry-eyed, newly hired nurse who becomes fixated on a mysterious older patient. The disorienting cinematography (by Lidia Nikonova) is utterly hypnotic as it slowly pulls the viewer into Eleni’s sexual obsessiveness. While channeling David Lynch, Brian De Palma’s erotic cinema of the early 1980s, along with a direct nod to Michael Tolkin’s underrated The Rapture (1991), the film unfortunately chooses to shy away from its most daring situations. It even started to feel as if it has been censored by a network TV station (like USA’s “Up All Night” program with Joe Bob Briggs, who would come on screen after the film to tell you how many nude body parts and unrated sex scenes had been cut out.) An unrated version would be my fever dream (released on LaserDisc, perhaps?) with say, 13 minutes of risqué footage added back to its 95-minute runtime. Even still, Night Nurse is still highly recommended. The film is seeking distribution in the United States.
Wregas Bhanuteja’s Levitating (Para Perasuk; Indonesia/Singapore/France/Taiwan, 2026)
One of the wildest supernatural films at this year’s Sundance. It showcases an incredible performance by Indonesian pop singer Anggun, who plays a trance guru in a town where “pleasure equals being possessed by spiritual beings”. Nothing can prepare you for how outrageous its trance parties become, where dancers (compelled by powerful flute playing) are suddenly inhabited by “creature-energies from the land that teleports them into a psychedelic, hallucinatory realm”. With plenty of homages to Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle (2004), this age-old battle of an Indigenous community attempting to fight off the modern government makes for an untamed (and frustratingly uneven) 120-minute ride, definitely an experience to seek out. Theatrical release in Indonesia is in April, so keep your feelers out here in the States.
Beth de Araújo’s Josephine (US)
This year’s top Sundance winner, snagging both the U.S. Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award for Best Dramatic Film. Channing Tatum gives the best dramatic performance of his career as a San Francisco father-husband attempting to keep ahold of his fractured family. Eight-year-old newcomer Mason Reeves is an absolute discovery, casually wrestling with some newly discovered feelings she can neither escape nor fully comprehend. While the film explores an intensely difficult subject, Bay Area based filmmaker Beth de Arújo handles everything so masterfully. Those curious as to how de Araújo was able to achieve such an accomplished and nuanced second feature might want to go back and check out her outrageously exploitative debut Soft & Quiet, which made my year-end Ficks’ Picks list in 2022. Sumerian Pictures acquired the distribution rights in the United States for Josephine and will be releasing the film later this year.
Andrius Blaževičius’s How to Divorce During the War (Lithuania/Luxembourg/Ireland/Czech Republic, 2026)
A film that was not only one of the best at Sundance, but that will also surely be at the top of my year-end list. Winner of Sundance’s World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award, this humorously harsh look at a relationship crumbling right before its integrants’ eyes that is suddenly upstaged by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As the two Lithuanians navigate what it’s like to live separately, filmmaker Andrius Blaževičius’ script proves exquisite at illustrating the countless ironic ways that the Russian invasion impacts everyone around them. Fans of Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure (2014) and Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World (2023) need to seek out this hilarious heartbreaker at all costs. New Europe Film Sales has acquired the film’s international sales rights, while no distribution in the United States has yet been confirmed.
