The 2026 Sundance Film Festival will take place in person, in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah from January 22-February 1st. The virtual component of the festival will begin on January 28th. This is my 8th Sundance Film Festival and the final year in Utah. So, to say this is a special year feels like an understatement.
For the 42nd edition, the lineup includes 90 feature-length films from 28 countries across the globe, 36 of which are from first-time filmmakers. This year promises to finish its Park City run with a bang:
The program for the 2026 Festival invites audiences to experience intimate character journeys, deeply human stories, and compelling explorations of stories from around the globe – Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming.
Without further ado, here is my watchlist, which consists of films from the U.S and World Cinema dramatic competitions, the spotlight & NEXT categories, and of course, all the Midnight films:
U.S. Dramatic Competition
The Dramatic Competition offers audiences a first look at groundbreaking new voices in American independent film.
Run Amok | Director: NB Major
Sundance Synopsis: A teenage girl stages an elaborate musical about the one day her high school wishes it could forget.
Union County | Director: Adam Meeks
Sundance Synopsis: Assigned to a county-mandated drug court program, Cody Parsons embarks on the tenuous journey toward recovery amid the opioid epidemic in rural Ohio.
Josephine | Beth de Araújo
Sundance 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.
The Musical | Director: Giselle Bonilla
Sundance Synopsis: When a frustrated playwright and middle school theater teacher finds out his ex-girlfriend has started dating his nemesis, the school’s principal, he decides to ruin the principal’s chances of winning the Blue Ribbon of Academic Excellence.
World Cinema Dramatic Competition
The World Cinema Dramatic Competition demonstrates fiction projects from emerging artists around the world that offer fresh perspectives and inventive styles.
Filipiñana | Director: Rafael Manuel
Sundance Synopsis: Tee 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.
NEXT
Films in the Next category show visionary works distinguished by an innovative, forward-thinking approach to storytelling populate this program.
If I Go Will They Miss Me | Director: Walter Thomas-Hernández
Sundance 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.
Zi | Director: Kogonada
Sundance 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.
Premieres
A showcase of world premieres of some of the most highly anticipated fiction and documentary films of the coming year.
Wicker | Director: Eleanor Wilson & Alex Huston Fischer
Sundance Synopsis: A fisherwoman asks a basketmaker to weave her a husband.
Frank & Louis | Director: Petra Biondina Volpe
Sundance Synopsis: Frank, serving a life sentence, takes a prison job caring for aging inmates with Alzheimer’s and dementia. What begins as a self-interested bid for parole becomes a profound, transformative bond with fellow inmate Louis, offering Frank a glimpse of redemption in an unforgiving place.
The Gallerist | Director: Cathy Yan
Sundance Synopsis: A desperate gallerist conspires to sell a dead body at Art Basel Miami.
Jane Elliot Against the World | Director: Judd Ehrlich
Sundance Synopsis: A rural Iowa schoolteacher becomes a national voice against racism after leading a controversial 1968 lesson in discrimination with her all-white third-grade class. Now nearly 90, she refuses to hold back amid today’s fights about race, history, and power after a lifetime of speaking out.
Once Upon a Time in Harlem | Director: William & David Greaves
Sundance Synopsis: A decade after his death, genre-defying filmmaker William Greaves has one last trick up his sleeve with what he considered the most important event he captured on film: a 1972 party he engineered with the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance.
Midnight
From horror and comedy to works that defy genre classification, these films will keep you wide awake, even at the most arduous hour.
Rock Springs | Director: Vera Miao
Sundance Synopsis: After the death of her father, a grieving young girl moves to an isolated house in a new town with her mother and grandmother, only to discover there is something monstrous hidden in the town’s history and the woods behind their new home.
Buddy | Director: Casper Kelly
Sundance Synopsis: A brave girl and her friends must escape a kids television show.
Saccharine | Director: Natalie Erika James
Sundance Synopsis: Hana, a lovelorn medical student, becomes terrorized by a hungry ghost after taking part in an obscure weight loss craze: eating human ashes.
Leviticus | Director: Adrian Chiarella
Sundance Synopsis: Two star-crossed teenage boys must escape a violent entity that takes the form of the person they desire most — each other.
Undertone | Director: Ian Tauson
Sundance Synopsis: The host of a popular paranormal podcast becomes haunted by terrifying recordings mysteriously sent her way.
Thank you for reading! Which films from the 2026 Sundance Film Festival are you anticipating the most? Share with me at @BB18180 on twitter.
