The first festival since its founder, Hollywood legend Robert Redford, died in September 2025, this year’s Sundance means goodbye in more ways than one.
Bringing the best and boldest independent filmmaking to audiences, the beloved indie fest will bid farewell to Park City, its home since 1981 (together with an off-and-on location, Salt Lake City). From 2027, moviegoers and critics will flock to another snowy setting as Sundance relocates to Boulder, Colorado.
Until then, Park City is going out with a massive celebration of moviemaking. Running between 22 January and 1 February, this year’s end-of-an-era festival looks back on the event’s rich, rebellious history with screenings of Sundance classics across different genres – from crowdpleaser Little Miss Sunshine to spine-chiller Saw – and an electric line-up of new films.
We’ve rounded up ten of the freshest titles you’ll need to look out for, including a soundscape horror, an erotic thriller and a star-studded grotesque gallery comedy.
The Gallerist
Natalie Portman and Jenna Ortega appear in The Gallerist by Cathy Yan
Eight years after her directorial debut, Dead Pigs, writer-director Cathy Yan is back in Park City with a caustic satire of the art world.
Her first film since 2020’s delightfully defiant Birds of Prey, The Gallerist stars Natalie Portman as Polina Polinski, a gallerist who’s readying for her Art Basel premiere. Polina wishes for art influencer Dalton Hardberry (Zach Galifianakis) to review her client, emerging artist Stella Burgess (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), but he gravitates towards another piece.
Investigating the lengths that art can go to in order to shock and sell, Yan’s film sees a corpse becoming the hottest, if dead-cold, artwork on sale.
The cast is rounded out by Jenna Ortega, Charli XCX and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
The Moment
Charli XCX appears in The Moment by Aidan Zamiri
One of three Charli XCX-starring films premiering at Sundance 2026, mockumentary The Moment chronicles the brat star’s meteoric rise as she prepares for her arena tour.
Charli taps into Millennial Cringe to portray an 'exaggeratedly manic' version of herself, as the official synopsis puts it. Swept up into a dazzling, destructive circus, she’s joined by Alexander Skarsgård as her manager, Kylie Jenner as her bestie, and Hailey Gates as the only sane presence for miles.
The feature debut of prolific music video director Aidan Zamiri, The Moment dials to 11 the filmmaker’s blend of nostalgia and tongue-in-cheek, previously seen in Charli’s 'it girl' manifesto video for ‘360’.
The Moment is released in US cinemas on 30 January. In the UK, the film arrives on 20 February.
Wicker
Olivia Colman appears in Wicker by Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer
Olivia Colman’s feisty fisherwoman challenges medieval marital conventions in flippant fairytale Wicker, an adaptation of The Wicker Husband by Ursula Wills-Jones.
Married filmmaking duo Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer co-write and direct this spirited take on the canonic happily ever after, as the protagonist asks a basketmaker to weave her a husband.
Enter Alexander Skarsgård’s wicker man. Despite conjuring eerie memories of folk horror, he’s a composed, devoted partner to Colman’s character. If the original short story is anything to go by, the real threat comes from the villagers, jealous of the fisherwoman crafting her own romantic destiny – quite literally.
zi
Michelle Mao appears in zi by Kogonada
Kogonada’s Sundance comeback is an experimental drama playing with our sense of time and memory as it delves into the relationships of three ‘romantic misfits’.
Portrayed by the filmmaker’s frequent collaborators Michelle Mao, Jin Ha and Haley Lu Richardson, the trio is at the centre of a recursive love dynamic across the streets of Hong Kong.
Not much is known about the plot at this stage, but the intriguing premise hints at a young woman seeing glimpses of her future self and meeting a stranger who may alter the course of her life.
The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist
A still from The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist by Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell
Oscar-winning documentary Navalny’s director Daniel Roher teams up with Charlie Tyrell (behind Oscar-shortlisted short, My Dead Dad’s Porno Tapes) to dig deeper into one of the most polarising topics in our current cultural landscape.
Father-to-be Roher interrogates himself and a host of experts about the ways AI will shape our future and that of generations to come.
A thought-provoking film aiming to expand on the ‘good-bad’ dichotomy simplifying the AI debate, The AI Doc explores the possibilities and risks connected to a tool that’s entering our day-to-day.
undertone
Nina Kiri appears in undertone by Ian Tuason
Competing in the Midnight category this year is Ian Tuason’s horror undertone, loosely inspired by the filmmaker’s own experience as a caregiver.
No stranger to fear on screen after garnering big viewership numbers with his live-action virtual reality horror shorts, the writer-director makes his feature debut with a one-character scary show.
Snapped up by A24 after its Fantasia International Film Festival premiere, undertone follows Evy Babic (Nina Kiri), the skeptical co-host of a paranormal podcast and primary caregiver to her dying mother.
Relying on an unsettling soundscape, the film records Evy’s descent into paranoia when a series of disturbing audio files is sent her way.
undertone is released in US cinemas on 13 March. A UK release date is TBC.
Saccharine
Midori Francis appears in Saccharine by Natalie Erika James
Another Midnight contender, Natalie Erika James’ third feature promises to be a stomach-churning fare.
Following her acclaimed debut Relic and the uneven Rosemary’s Baby prequel, Apartment 7A, James continues tackling the horrors of womanhood through the story of Hana (Midori Francis), a body-dysmorphic medical student.
Determined to attain her weight goal, she partakes in a weight loss craze involving the consumption of human ashes, unleashing some malevolent spirits.
It’s a delicate, ever-relevant subject James is magnifying through the lens of body horror, spinning the Buddhist myth of the hungry ghost as a poignant, horrifying metaphor.
I Want Your Sex
Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde appear in I Want Your Sex by Gregg Araki
On his 11th Sundance premiere, New Queer Cinema’s Gregg Araki presents I Want Your Sex, a freeing, frank study of the state of sex, on and offscreen.
Cooper Hoffman stars as fresh-faced Elliot, a young man who can’t believe his luck when renowned provocative artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde) chooses him to become her sexual muse.
Set in LA, the film revolves around a sadomasochistic happening held at a sex-positive art gallery, with Elliot being pushed to the edge as the game turns deadly.
A thrilling, playful, erotic affair in pure Araki style, the film also stars Chase Sui Wonders, Mason Gooding, Daveed Diggs and this Sundance’s wild card, Charli XCX.
Frank & Louis
Kingsley Ben-Adir and Rob Morgan appear in Frank & Louis by Petra Biondina Volpe
Petra Biondina Volpe makes her English-language debut with an intimate prison drama based on real events.
Kingsley Ben-Adir stars as Frank, a man serving a life sentence. After taking a job caring for fellow prisoners diagnosed with dementia, he’s assigned to Louis (Rob Morgan), a once-feared inmate who’s turned paranoid and frail.
What started as a shortcut to parole for Frank becomes an unlikely friendship that prompts him to face his own regrets.
More than ten years in the making, Frank & Louis, which Volpe co-wrote with Esther Bernstorff, celebrates the power of connection and caretaking as a pathway for rehabilitation. The film is inspired by the Gold Coats programme, based at the California Men’s Colony State Prison in San Luis Obispo.
Antiheroine
Courtney Love appears in Antiheroine by Edward Lovelace and James Hall
One of the buzziest titles in this Sundance’s remarkable documentary slate, Courtney Love’s Antiheroine sets the record straight on over three decades of public scrutiny for the pop and rock icon.
As Love is about to release new music for the first time since Hole’s fourth and final album, 2010’s Nobody’s Daughter, the doc follows her relocation to London in 2019 and her sobriety.
Directed by Edward Lovelace and James Hall, the film hands the microphone back to the singer as she discusses the high-octane romance with Kurt Cobain, her multi-hyphenate career and a newly gained self-awareness in her signature husky, unapologetic voice.
Bonus – Five more films to have on your radar: lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer's documentary Barbara Forever, starry comedy Chasing Summer, coming-of-age Extra Geography, childhood trauma study Josephine, and queer horror Leviticus.
Sundance Film Festival 2026 runs between 22 January and 1 February in Park City and Salt Lake City. Full programme at festival.sundance.org