Sundance 2026: The stars, the buzzy films and the state of the industry

Before starting a cosmopolitan life as an artist in Mexico City, queer filmmaker Efraín Mojica came of age between Riverside and the rural town of Penjamillo, Michoacán: home to an annual jaripeo, or a Mexican rodeo competition that takes place every Christmas.

Every year, cowboys convene to test-drive their masculinity, namely by swigging handles of tequila and precariously mounting the backs of bucking bulls. These heroic shows of manhood long fascinated Mojica, who frequented jaripeos with family — and quietly forged a community with other locals who diverged from Mexican gender norms.

PARK CITY, Utah — “Where’s the snow?” my rideshare driver wondered with a groan as we left Park City. Usually at Sundance, the weather is a menace. But the lack of it was more concerning. Between films, there were three main topics of conversation: What’s good? What’s the latest newspaper headline? And what’s going to happen to this tourist town next week after the festival leaves during the worst snow drought in a century to date?

No one knows the answer to that last question, although nearly every local brought it up and seemed a little tense. We stayed at the same rental as last year and this time they were extra solicitous, gifting us not one but two packages of frozen croissants from the Utah tradwife influencer Ballerina Farm. I baked a dozen. They got rave reviews.

The 2026 Sundance Film Festival announced its awards winners Friday, with Beth de Araújo’s searing drama “Josephine” and Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman’s environmental-themed documentary “Nuisance Bear” taking the top jury prizes.

The audience awards went to “Josephine” for the U.S. dramatic competition and David Alvarado’s “American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez” for U.S. documentary.

Ever since she could remember, the burgeoning L.A. pop singer Nezza has written her own songs. She’s choreographed her own moves. She’s even applied her own rhinestones to her outfits.

Then last summer, she staged her own protest at Dodger Stadium — as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stormed the city and raided immigrant communities, prompting waves of demonstrations from angry Angelenos.

As the Sundance Film Festival winds down its final edition in Park City, Utah, this week, ahead of its move to Boulder, Colo., next year, its sway over the nonfiction field at the Oscars remains as steady as ever. All five current Academy Award nominees for documentary feature premiered at last year’s festival, with Sundance films winning the category six times over the last decade.

“Sundance has been a kick-starter for my entire career,” says Ryan White, director of “Come See Me in the Good Light,” his fourth film to premiere at the festival. The intimate portrait of Colorado poet laureate Andrea Gibson, who faces a terminal diagnosis with a spirit of resilience, needed the boost. “The lead words are poetry and cancer, and it’s a character-driven film about a non-binary person,” White says. “It wasn’t the easiest film to get off the ground.” A similar challenge could apply to other nominees, including “Mr. Nobody vs. Putin” and “Cutting Through Rocks,” which focus on everyday individuals taking on oppressive systems in Russia and Iran, respectively. “There are the types of films that can get lost because they’re not about a celebrity, and they don’t have these marquee descriptors. Sundance does such an amazing job of discovering these diamonds.”

After a competitive bidding process, indie studio A24 has acquired the U.S. rights to Olivia Wilde’s comedy “The Invite” in a major deal out of the Sundance Film Festival.

The film, which stars Wilde, Seth Rogen, Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton, was purchased for around $10 million, according to a person familiar with the deal who requested anonymity due to the sensitive matter. One factor for Wilde was a preference for a traditional theatrical release.

Having the world premiere of “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” at Sundance was a full-circle moment of sorts for director and co-writer David Wain. His first introduction to the festival was Steven Soderbergh’s hall of famer “Sex, Lies and Videotape,” and Wain noted after the well-received premiere of his new film that he “overtly stole” two sex scenes from that indie classic as “a tribute to Sundance.”

Of course, “Gail Daughtry” is about as oppposite as you can get from Soderbergh. It’s an absurdist, cameo-filled comedy proudly shot on location in L.A. that co-writer Ken Marino described before the screening as a “silly, fun romp.”

Even before its theatrical release, it already has the hallmarks of a cult classic à la another Wain and Co. film, “Wet Hot American Summer,” and features many faces from that movie as well as the State, the comedy troupe that cast member Kerri Kenney-Silver explained started in a supply closet at New York University because they couldn’t get any other rehearsal space.

“Making movies with your friends is a privilege,” cast member Joe Lo Truglio said. And with their ever-expanding circle of friends, we’re the ones who benefit.

PARK CITY, Utah — Welcome to a special Sundance Daily edition of the Wide Shot, a newsletter about the business of entertainment. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

Good evening — it’s Monday, Jan. 26, and you’re reading the last of our Sundance dispatches. Today we’ve seen a high of 36 degrees on a notably sunny day. We waited and waited for deal news, but it hasn’t quite arrived yet.

Premiering today in Sundance‘s U.S. Dramatic Competition is “Run Amuk,” the feature debut from writer-director NB Mager. The film is an expansion of her 2023 short of the same name.

It’s a little tricky to talk about the movie without giving too much away. Let’s just say it’s likely to be a conversation starter. A small community is still reeling from an act of gun violence years earlier. A teenager named Meg (Alyssa Marvin, who also appeared in the original short) is living with her aunt and uncle. Her closest friend is her slightly older cousin, Penny (Sophia Torres), a talented singer. When Meg decides to write a musical depicting the traumatic events, she sets off a chain reaction that impacts many people in town.

I expected the live performances of artists like the Beastie Boys, Bikini Kill and Pavement to transport me back to the mid-‘90s in Tamra Davis’ “The Best Summer,” but perhaps the biggest nostalgia hit was watching the audience on the screen react to the performers in those halcyon days of concert going before smartphones.

In the film, we see a young Dave Grohl tell Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna about his fear of speaking to the crowd from the stage; the Beastie Boys mimicking a water aerobics class happening at a tropical resort pool on a day off; and Beck reveal that he bought his underwear at Sears — all on a whirlwind tour of Australia and Southeast Asia in the final days of 1995 and into 1996.

The tidbits of regular life for these artists are just as engaging as the performances, which Davis captured on a Sony camcorder that had amazingly great sound. (She said she had to buy a camera just to be able to watch the tapes after moving them while evacuating the fires.)

The reveals continued after the screening: At the Q&A, Hanna said the bands would use hotel stationery to communicate who was throwing the party that night. And while watching the film, she realized Foo Fighters guitarist Pat Smear stole her skirt.

On a sweeter note, in the film you see Hanna and Beastie Boys’ Adam Horovitz, who recently celebrated their 30th anniversary, flirting with each other.

“It’s funny to remember that feeling of falling in love,” Hanna said.

At the moderator’s prompting, Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon imparted a final thought to the audience.

“Sorry you weren’t able to enjoy the ‘90s,” she said as the crowd laughed.

In recent years, the biggest film deals have happened toward the end of Sundance, if not in the days and weeks afterward. So far, this year seems to be following a similar trajectory.

There’s buzz around several films, including the Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan-led drama “Josephine,” as well as the romantic fantasy “Wicker” starring Olivia Colman, but no big announcements yet.

There’s still time. After all, last year’s first big deal — Neon’s acquisition of the Alison Brie and Dave Franco body-horror rom-com “Together” — was announced during the festival’s final days. Same with Netflix’s purchase of the Oscar-nominated Joel Edgerton drama “Train Dreams.”

Filmmakers are also hopeful about the emergence of new buyers in the industry.

I mentioned Warner Bros.’ new specialty label in the first Sundance edition of The Wide Shot, but there’s also West Hollywood-based Row K Entertainment and indie studio Black Bear, which launched a U.S. distribution arm last year. There’s also curiosity about Paramount’s existing acquisition-only label Republic Pictures, which is now led by producer Lia Buman.

The fact that more buyers have entered the market has given some filmmakers sense of optimism — after all, the thinking goes, why would they push into this space unless they saw an opportunity?

Newer labels in particular might want to get a buzzy title to make a splash and establish their brand, industry insiders say. It’s still early, so it remains to be seen how the deals will shape up this year.

PARK CITY, Utah — Welcome to a special Sundance Daily edition of the Wide Shot, a newsletter about the business of entertainment. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

Good afternoon — Sundance’s third day is behind us and it’s turning out to be a gray Sunday, cooler, with a high of 24 degrees.

PARK CITY, Utah — Sundance is where I get lost. My first trip to Park City I didn’t know anything or anyone, and scored a bunk bed in a room of four women by cold-emailing an acquaintance of an acquaintance and blurting, “I don’t really mind who I sleep next to as long as they don’t mind that my boyfriend says I snore.”

That was 16 years ago and I have visceral memories of circling the town on a 2 a.m. shuttle hoping to recognize my stop. There was also the afternoon I took a shortcut through some trees and got stuck in snow up to my shins. (That’s also when I learned that cheap boots dissolve under duress.) But just as vividly, I remember getting lost in that year’s movies: breakthrough films by the Safdie brothers, Luca Guadanigno and Taika Waititi, plus Jennifer Lawrence’s star-making performance in “Winter’s Bone.”

Utah police arrested a man accused of assaulting a Florida congressman this weekend at a Sundance Film Festival after the man allegedly hurled racist comments to several patrons of a Creative Artists Agency party.

Rep. Maxwell Alejandro Frost (D-Florida) posted on X that he was “okay” after being slugged by the man, identified by police as 28-year-old Christian Young.

PARK CITY, Utah — As filmmakers celebrated independent moviemaking at the Sundance Film Festival, events unfolding nationally cast a pall on the indie showcase’s final installment in Park City.

More than a thousand miles away from the mountain town, ongoing ICE crackdowns in Minneapolis resulted in the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti Saturday morning by federal agents.

See more photos from our studio at Sundance.

Riz Ahmed, one of the stars of the TV Show “Bait,” stopped by at the Los Angeles Times 2026 Sundance Film Festival studio presented by Chase Sapphire in Park City,.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Guz Khan, one of the stars of the TV Show “Bait,” stopped by the Los Angeles Times 2026 Sundance Film Festival studio presented by Chase Sapphire in Park City.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

See photos of Channing Tatum, Charli xcx, Rob Lowe and more.

There are many different approaches to making a tour film that captures the life of musicians on the road. Perhaps you focus on the highs of performance or the boredom of traveling, the anonymous backstage rooms and endless planes, buses and hotel rooms. But what if you made all of that seem really fun?

Directed by Tamra Davis, “The Best Summer,” which debuted at Sundance Saturday night in the Midnight section, is rooted in a box of videotapes that the filmmaker found early last year while evacuating from the fires near her longtime family home in Malibu. Though they are now separated, Davis still shares the compound with Michael Diamond, better known as Mike D of the group Beastie Boys. On those tapes was footage Davis shot in late 1995 and early 1996 as the band toured through Australia and Asia, sharing bills with the likes of Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Pavement, Beck, Rancid, the Amps and Bikini Kill.

Indie filmmakers have had a tough last few years.

They’ve faced a softer market at festivals like Sundance, where all-night bidding wars or at least the hope of a distribution deal after a premiere have become few and far between.

That, in turn, has made it tough to get financing to make more films, as private equity has shied away.

As the industry shifts, that has left a gap for alternative sources of funding, including crowdfunding.

I spoke with Taylor K. Shaw-Omachonu, film lead at Kickstarter, to learn more about why some filmmakers are turning to crowdfunding and the company’s expansion into distribution.

Though crowdfunding campaigns are typically ways for filmmakers to raise money for their projects, it can also allow them to build an audience and prove there’s a market for their work — a key aspect, particularly for indie films.

“It’s an opportunity to say, ‘I know who my audience is, and I have a direct relationship with them,’” Shaw-Omachonu said. “And that is the future.”

Kickstarter itself has also branched out beyond funding. The company now has a partnership with streaming service Tubi, where users can watch dozens of films that got funding through Kickstarter. There’s no guarantee that all Kickstarter-backed films will get a distribution deal with Tubi, but it’s a potential option, Shaw-Omachonu said.

Crowdfunding isn’t the silver bullet to the financing woes of the film business. But it can make sense for some films, like 2024’s “The Apprentice,” which struggled to find a distributor after legal threats from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. Producers turned to Kickstarter to raise money for the film’s marketing and release. (The film was distributed by Briarcliff Entertainment.)

“What I always say to filmmakers is work the traditional system, if you can get millions of dollars that way, amazing,” Shaw-Omachonu said. “Also leveraging, connecting with your audience, running a Kickstarter campaign — it is a tool that you can put in your toolbox of how you get your slate made.”

On Thursday night I watched Cappadonna take viewers through the Wu-Tang Clan’s humble Staten Island origins in “The Disciple,” the documentary partially about the creation of the group’s “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” the most expensive album ever sold.

Friday afternoon I was in a swanky house a couple of miles away from downtown Park City listening to a portion of the only copy in the world as Oscar-winning director Barry Jenkins wrote in a notebook a few feet away. All attendees obviously had phones locked away, while others sampled an incredibly fancy charcuterie spread.

Billed as an album listening party, we got to hear the 13-minute sampler that was originally played for potential buyers and two other tracks, including the title cut of the 31-song album, totaling about 20 minutes.

It matched what was described in Joanna Natasegara’s documentary: a return to the early Wu-Tang Clan sound. The rhymes were layered with strings, sirens, gunshots and a horn part reminiscent of Jr. Walker & the All Stars’ “Shotgun,” the latter of which got some of the biggest reaction from the pretty stoic crowd, except for the people who kept talking over the rare listen. — Vanessa Franko

Charli xcx’s “The Moment” was easily the buzziest film going into Sundance 2026 — at least to those of us still reliving the highs of “brat” summer. That 2024 album unleashed a pure, unadulterated strain of Charli’s particular brand of celebrity into the world and became a ubiquitous pop culture sensation.

When the movie “inspired by an original idea by Charli xcx” was announced, many were curious what her first major foray into film would look like. Well, the moment has come.

An hour before the premiere, moviegoers crowded in front of the Eccles, many of them in “brat green” beanies, some homemade and some that looked like official swag, waited for a chance to see Charli. A group of fans were seen walking down the line of attendees trying to buy tickets, with someone offering me $150 for mine. (I was never going to miss the opportunity to see the film at the premiere.)

Inside, some of Charli’s tracks played before the film. During their intro, director Aidan Zamiri said, “This movie is about the end of an era,” setting the tone for the film. What followed was part fever trip through the machine of the music industry and part satirical mockumentary that felt both real and exaggerated.

“She’s mocking herself,” The Times’ Suzy Exposito said immediately following the screening, “but she’s also at her commercial peak.”

Charli has three films playing at this year’s fest. That feels like both an exclamation point on her pop-music conquest and a signal of the next evolution of her career, which includes the soundtrack for the upcoming “Wuthering Heights” adaptation.

One audience member wanted to know, how does she find the time? Charli couldn’t have responded more perfectly, quoting her own lyrics: “365. Don’t eat, don’t sleep, just put it on repeat.” — David Viramontes

PARK CITY, Utah — Welcome to a special Sundance Daily edition of the Wide Shot, a newsletter about the business of entertainment. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

Good morning! It’s another crisp, beautiful day in Park City: Saturday, Jan. 24. It will be mostly cloudy today with a high (if you can call it that) of 28 degrees.

Chris Pine, Topher Grace, Jenny Slate and Keegan-Michael Key were among some of the stars who swung by our studio at Sundance today.

Arguably the most hotly anticipated film of the entire festival is this unusual pop star document from chart-topper Charli XCX, hot off the heels of her zeitgeist-shaping album “brat” and subsequent live shows.

The feature debut for director Aidan Zamiri — he also made Charli’s satirical “360” video — follows the pop star as she prepares for a world tour, pushed and pulled by competing forces all around her as she attempts to stay focused on what matters.

Both a mockumentary and a sly subversion of modern pop stardom, the film features comedic performers Rachel Sennott, Kate Berlant, Hailey Benton Gates and Jamie Demetriou along with Rosanna Arquette and Alexander Skarsgård. Charli’s own cinephilia is well documented, making this excursion into moviemaking even more exciting. Following its Sundance premiere, the movie will be in theaters at the end of the month.

I did not expect to laugh as much or as hard as I did during last night’s world premiere of Joanna Natasegara’s documentary about Wu-Tang Clan superfan Cilvaringz (Tarik Azzougarh), who became the producer of the controversial album “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.”

At the Q&A after the screening, Natasegara shared that she met Azzougarh on holiday in Morocco and he told her his incredible story, which planted the seed for the doc. As the film reveals, his first connection with the hip-hop group came after he called Wu-Tang affiliate Shabazz the Disciple after finding his number on a record in an effort to meet RZA.

After an audience member asked Shabazz if fans still call him, he said they do and he’s not afraid of talking to them. “People call me and I sell them some merchandise and give them some spiritual advice,” Shabazz said.

Among the other highlights in the film were Wu-Tang Cappadonna taking the camera crew on a hometown tour of Staten Island, where he bought some underwear and visited with old friends, and Shi Yan Ming, a 34th-generation Shaolin monk who befriended RZA. — Vanessa Franko

It’s true that dealmaking for indie theatrical releases has been unpredictable during the last few years.

But recently, industry insiders are particularly interested in the debut of Warner Bros.’ new contemporary specialty film label, led by former Neon Chief Marketing Officer Christian Parkes. He’s joined by two other former Neon executives — Jason Wald, who is the new label’s head of acquisitions and production and Spencer Collantes, who will run marketing and creative.

The three started in their roles this month, ahead of Sundance, according to a statement in December from Warner Bros. announcing the label. The goal is to focus on “smartly budgeted global theatrical releases with innovative marketing campaigns that enhance Warner Bros.’ long history of socially relevant, provocative and impactful cinema,” the studio said at the time.

What the team is interested in and whether they make any acquisitions is something many are keeping an eye on.

Another area of interest are the options for financing indie films. As traditional sources of funding have dried up, some filmmakers have turned to alternative avenues. This year, for example, four films crowdfunded via Kickstarter will be making their debut at Sundance.

Producers have dabbled in crowdfunding strategies over the years, particularly as they look for creative ways to engage a core audience and raise cash. Will this become increasingly common? Only time will tell. We’ll be watching in the days ahead.

Director Rachel Lambert returns to Sundance with a domestic romance centered on two 40-something adults reconnecting after life took them down separate paths. The film gently lilts you into the lives of its characters and its suburban Ohio setting, revealing regular-people problems — divorce, moving, aging parents, money — with which Chris Pine and Jenny Slate’s characters deal.

Pine plays a divorced doctor with a family practice and the ultimate dadcore collection of high-waisted pants. In the wake of her parents’ separation, Lambert sketches the effects of divorce on children through the character of Pine’s daughter, delicately portrayed by Abby Ryder Fortson.

She finds a sense of direction through her high school debate team, taught by Slate’s former Capitol Hill staffer returning home to be a caretaker for her parents. In both “Carousel” and her 2023 Sundance film “Sometimes I Think About Dying,” Lambert teaches viewers about who her characters are through gestures, looks, apologies and confessions — and in the process asserts herself as a leading purveyor of emotional vulnerability.

PARK CITY, Utah — Welcome to a special Sundance Daily edition of the Wide Shot, a newsletter about the business of entertainment. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

Good morning! It’s Friday, Jan. 23 and today’s forecast is for cloudy skies — and possibly a few flurries but nothing substantial — with a high of 36 degrees.

We caught up with Chris Pine and Jenny Slate ahead of the “Carousel” premiere on Thursday and asked the stars of the romance movie for dating recs and advice.

A “brujo,” a “magician,” “a social arsonist” and the “father of Chicano Theater” — these are just a few of the monikers that have been bestowed upon Luis Valdez over the course of his decades-long career. The 85-year-old filmmaker and playwright is responsible for “La Bamba” and “Zoot Suit,” films that raised a generation of Latinos and are now upheld as classics — both were inducted to the National Film Registry of the U.S. Library of Congress.

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By exploring L.A.’s racial injustice, Luis Valdez’s ‘Zoot Suit’ gave birth to Chicano theater

‘Zoot Suit’ is by far the most influential play by a Chicano writer, and the only one to reach Broadway. It changed Los Angeles’ historical memory and the American theater forever

June 2, 2023

Can it really be the festival’s final year in Park City, Utah? Braced as we are for nostalgia at every world premiere in the Eccles or every late night spent at the Library with a cup of chili, Sundance should supply plenty of newness. Below, find our picks for 10 movies to prioritize. We’ve either seen these already or have it on good authority that your time won’t be wasted. And bookmark this page for all our Sundance coverage: acquisition announcements, critical diaries, video interviews, newsletters and more.

‘The Best Summer’

Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Kathleen Hanna, Tobi Vail, Tamra Davis and Alfredo Ortiz in the documentary “The Best Summer.”

(Mike Diamond / Sundance Institute)

You know the Instagram meme where people say they don’t want a new year; they’ll take a gently used 1995 instead, accompanied by a photo of them in high school, stovepipe jeans and all? That hit of nostalgia is what I hope “The Best Summer” from director Tamra Davis (“Billy Madison,” “Crossroads,” “Half Baked”) will deliver. The documentary promises never-before-seen concert footage, backstage banter and interviews on tour from the Summersault festival in Australia in 1995. At the time, Davis was recently wed to Mike D of the Beastie Boys, among the artists on the bill. It also features some of the biggest alternative rock artists of the era, including Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Pavement, Rancid, Beck, the Amps and Bikini Kill. Even more poignant, the footage was discovered as Davis evacuated her Malibu home in the Palisades fire last January. — Vanessa Franko