The 17 Films We’re Most Excited to See at Sundance

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival gets underway on January 23, kicking off an 11-day parade of the latest in American and international independent cinema. (Or, at least, some of the latest.) Last year’s festival saw the debuts of, among many other films, Oscar favorite A Real Pain, critical darling I Saw the TV Glow, and sneaky awards contender A Different Man. Will this year’s edition similarly launch previously unknown films onto the world stage? Let’s take a look at some of the breakout possibilities.

Jimpa

Six years ago at Sundance, I took a flyer on a little Irish film called Animals, from a filmmaker I hadn’t heard of, Sophie Hyde. Animals turned out to be one of the best films I saw at the festival that year, thoughtfully written and blisteringly acted by Holliday Grainger—giving one of the most criminally underseen performances in the last decade. This year, Hyde returns to Sundance (she was last there in virtual form with Good Luck to You, Leo Grande) with Jimpa, a family dramedy about a mother (Olivia Colman) and her non-binary teen (Aud Mason-Hyde, the director’s own child) traveling to Amsterdam to visit with the kid’s gay grandfather, played by John Lithgow. There’s a corny, overly sentimental family comedy lurking in that premise—but my guess is that Hyde, who tends to zig when another movie would zag, will find a smart and poignant path through the story.

Twinless

Little birdies have told me that this movie, from second-time writer/director/star James Sweeney, could be a breakout. It stars Sweeney and Dylan O’Brien, a nimble actor who’s long seemed poised for something big. Maybe this comedy, about two men who meet in a support group, will be just that. Sweeney’s first film, the romantic comedy Straight Up, was well received six years ago, and I’m curious to see how Sweeney has evolved from that early promise. And to see if O’Brien can further develop his innate star power.

The Ugly Stepsister

Norwegian filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt no doubt wrote and directed her twisted fairytale film before The Substance ran rampant through Cannes and, later, the awards season—but her body-horror reimagining will earn comparisons to that movie nonetheless. The Ugly Stepsister is a tweak on the Cinderella story from the titular character’s perspective, said to be a descent into the grotesque as a less-than sibling tries to compete with her poor soot-sweeping sister’s beauty. This definitely seems like the kind of movie that will lock in with a particular kind of Sundance zeitgeist.

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You

Remember Mumblecore? Writer-director Mary Bronstein was part of that unfairly maligned (and very influential!) film movement, but has been quiet since her first feature, 2008’s Yeast. Seventeen years later, Bronstein is making her Sundance debut with a dramedy starring Rose Byrne as a mother unraveling from various anxieties. That sounds like an intriguing vehicle for Byrne, a versatile and always engaging actor who is adept at balancing silliness with seriousness. Also intriguing is that Conan O’Brien is in the cast; could this be his great dramatic breakthrough? Probably not. But it’s still notable that O’Brien has been popping up in movies recently, and has now wound up in a buzzy Sundance title from Sundance-buzz-generator A24.

Ricky

Fingers crossed that this film, from writer-director Rashad Frett, gives the terrific Stephan James the juicy starring film role he’s deserved since If Beale Street Could Talk. In this debut feature, James plays a 30-year-old man who was sent to prison as a teenager, and upon release, is forced to learn the ways of the world and find his place in it. There’s a lot to play there, a potentially bountiful opportunity for James to remind filmgoers of his talents. This seems like one to keep a close eye on.

Rabbit Trap

I didn’t love Sundance’s last foray into British folk horror, 2021’s In the Earth, so here’s hoping that this time’s the charm. Rabbit Trap stars Dev Patel and Rosy McEwen as a husband and his musician wife traveling to the Welsh forests on a research trip. An encounter with a local sets a dark plot in motion, the nature of which has been kept understandably vague. This is the first feature from writer-director Bryn Chainey, who has been winning awards for his short films for years now. It’s always exciting to see that kind of debut at Sundance, just as it’s exciting to be on the ground for the premiere of what might become the next great horror sensation.

Atropia

Another feature debut, Atropia is a satire about an elaborate soundstage built to simulate the war in Iraq. So maybe it’s a little Synecdoche, New York and a little Wag the Dog? Whatever the film turns out to be, it has the makings of the kind of ambitious big swing that Sundance was designed to support. Writer-director Hailey Gates has worked as a model and as the host of a Vice show covering fashion, so she probably knows a thing or two about tweaked reality. And she’s found quite a cast to realize her vision: Alia Shawkat, Callum Turner, Chloë Sevigny, and Tim Heidecker.

Plainclothes

Who wouldn’t want to see the bad guy from the Hunger Games prequel (Tom Blyth) play a ’90s cop embarking on an undercover gay sting operation and falling in love with Russell Tovey? I will certainly be seated for this debut from writer-director Carmen Emmi. Set in Syracuse, New York, Plainclothes could prove an accent challenge for its two British leads, although we’ve gotten so used to British hunks playing all the American parts these days that maybe we won’t even notice. Either way, Plainclothes has one of the grabbier premises in the US competition category this year—it’s sure to be talked about.

The Thing With Feathers

Based on an acclaimed novella (which gets its title from an Emily Dickinson poem), Dylan Southern’s film seems to be one of those grief-y horror movies that have been so au courant in the last decade. The Thing With Feathers evokes The Babadook: Benedict Cumberbatch plays a man mourning the loss of his wife while some kind of entity stalks the house that he shares with his two young sons. It’s emotion made manifest, essentially—territory that may not be new, but can still be fertile in the right hands. At the very least, seeing Cumberbatch in a modern horror-flecked indie ought to be something novel.

Train Dreams

Clint Bentley, director of the well-regarded 2021 film Jockey, returns to Sundance with this period piece about a railroad worker in the turn-of-the-20th-century American West. He’s played by Joel Edgerton, a reliably compelling actor who could stand to have a few more big lead roles on his résumé. Maybe a dreamy, evocative mood piece (as Jockey suggests this one will be) is exactly what the career gods demanded.

Rebuilding

Given all that’s been happening in Los Angeles in recent weeks, I’d imagine some special attention will be paid to this film about a rancher (Josh O’Connor) recovering after a wildfire destroys his property. Writer-director Max Walker-Silverman’s first feature, A Love Song, was a little gem at Sundance a few years back, exhibiting a careful sensitivity that the story of Rebuilding will certainly require. I’m quite eager to see O’Connor switching gears post-Challengers to do something quieter and more contemplative, perhaps more in line with his breakout film God’s Own Country. (Though this one probably has less gay shepherd sex.)

Kiss of the Spider Woman

In general, a Jennifer Lopez musical might sound too big for Sundance. But when it’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, a chamber piece about two imprisoned Argentinian men visited on occasion by a seductive vision, it makes a little more sense. Director Bill Condon has mostly worked on big projects in the last couple of decades—Dreamgirls, two Twilight movies, Beauty and the Beast—so it will be interesting to see what happens when he returns to the slightly more intimate environs of his earlier work, like Kinsey and Gods and Monsters. Diego Luna and Tonatiuh play the two cellmates, while Lopez is an old-school movie siren conjured up in their fantasies. The last actor to play Luna’s part in Spider Woman (William Hurt, in a non-musical version) won an Oscar, while Chita Rivera won a Tony in Lopez’s role on Broadway. Could similar awards fortune be in this film’s future?

Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)

While the glossier, star-driven, boutique studio stuff (think A24) is often worth one’s time at Sundance, one should never forsake the festival titles with less built-in visibility. This year, one film I’m curious about is Mad Bills to Pay, from writer-director Joel Alfonso Vargas. The film is set in Vargas’s native Bronx, telling the story of a kid’s wild summer interrupted by his girlfriend’s pregnancy. Featuring a cast of largely first-time actors, Mad Bills to Pay may satisfy the craving of those looking to find the next Sean Baker. Or those hoping to see a project emerging from a world quite different from the increasingly nepotistic climes of mainstream filmmaking.

Peter Hujar’s Day

An Ira Sachs film is always an event—of the spare, ruminative, occasionally sexy variety. His last film, the wondrous relationship study Passages, pushed him into a new echelon of recognition, despite his long and venerated career. For his followup, he’s decided to retreat, though, into a small niche of gay history. Peter Hujar’s Day is a performed transcript of a conversation between the late photographer Hujar and the writer Linda Rosenkrantz, in which Hujar simply recounts how he spent a day in the mid-1970s. That might sound dry, but with Ben Whishaw in the titular role and Rebecca Hall as his interviewer—and with Sachs behind the camera—we can expect another kind of event.

The Wedding Banquet

While an Ang Lee film probably never needs to be remade, it’s my understanding that Andrew Ahn’s Wedding Banquet is more a riff on Lee’s beloved 1993 queer comedy than an outright redo. For one thing, the plot of the film has been greatly altered, expanding 1993’s threesome of friends and lovers into a quartet. (You can read Vanity Fair’s first look at the film here.) Ahn showed a deft hand with ensemble casts and romantic hijinks in 2022’s Fire Island, so I’ve got high hopes that this film will be fizzy, clever, and sweet. And that it will be a great showcase for stars Kelly Marie Tran, Han Gi-chan, Bowen Yang, and Lily Gladstone.

Sorry, Baby

Early whispers about this title have been enthusiastic. Writer-director Eva Victor stars as a professor working to process an incalculable loss over a five-year period. That’s a somewhat familiar chassis for a Sundance movie; the innovation comes in what a filmmaker does with that basic idea. I’ve heard that Victor aces that challenge, with strong support from Naomi Ackie and Lucas Hedges, making only his second film appearance in five years.

Opus

The first trailer for this movie, from Mark Anthony Green, makes it look like the sort of Get Out–inspired indie entertainment so popular of late (The Menu, Blink Twice, etc.) Which isn’t a bad thing! We’re just hoping that the film finds something inventive and surprising to do with a fun setup: Ayo Edebiri plays a journalist invited to the estate of a reclusive rock star (John Malkovich), where things go terribly awry. Juliette Lewis gets probably the funniest line in the trailer, so I’m certainly looking forward to more of her. And I’m also looking forward to a fun couple of Sundance hours amidst the more difficult, head-scratchy stuff on offer.