The upcoming Sundance Film Festival (January 22-February 1, 2026) – the final edition in Park City, Utah, before the event decamps to Colorado in 2027 – will feature returning talents including Gregg Araki, Liz Garbus and Alex Gibney, three films with Charli XCX, and new films starring Olivia Colman, Natalie Portman, and Channing Tatum.
Festival organisers have unveiled 90 features and seven projects in the Episodic section, which combine with the previously-announced Park City Legacy programme for a total of 105 projects. There were 16,201 submissions from 164 countries or territories, including 4,255 feature films, of which 1,676 hail from the US and 2,579 from the rest of the world.
Araki, a member of the New Queer Cinema movement who premiered his first film The Living End in Park City in 1992, brings Premieres selection and comedy thriller I Want Your Sex starring Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, Chase Sui Wonders, and Charli XCX.
British superstar Charli XCX is in two other Premieres entries, playing the lead as a pop star on the rise in Aidan Zamiri’s The Moment, and appearing alongside Natalie Portman in Cathy Yan’s art world satirical thriller The Gallerist. Olivia Wilde is the lead in I Want Your Sex, and directed and stars alongside Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Ed Norton in Premieres comedy drama The Invite.
Petra Volpe, whose Late Shift is the Swiss Oscar submission this season, makes her English-language debut in Premieres entry Frank & Louis (main picture) starring Kingsley Ben-Adir and Rob Morgan. Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård are among a starry cast in Wicker, Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer’s drama about a fisherwoman who asks a basketmaker to weave her a husband.
Louis Paxton’s UK drama The Incomer premieres in Next and stars Domhnall Gleeson, Gayle Rankin and John Hannah. It was backed by BFI-awarded National Lottery funding, Screen Scotland, musician Moby, and Head Gear Films, among others. Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe star in The Weight, Padraic McKinley’s US drama set in 1933 Oregon that tells of a father who gets sent to a brutal work camp.
Sundance is a renowned launchpad for awards season documentary contenders and indeed the Producers Guild Of America’s non-fiction nominees this week include several that premiered at the 2025 festival like The Alabama Solution and The Perfect Neighbor. Returning filmmakers Gibney and Garbus will present, respectively, Knife: The Attempted Murder Of Salman Rushdie and Give Me The Ball!, a profile of tennis great Billie Jean King. Both play in Premieres.
The festival’s fierce social conscience is writ large across the selection. Sharon Liese’s Seized explores abuse of power and journalistic ethics, and J M harper’s Soul Patrol focuses on the Vietnam War’s first Black special operations team (US Documentary Competition); Suzanne Andrews Correa examines violence against women in Mexico in The Huntress (World Cinema Dramatic Competition); and Antoine Fuqua’s documentary Troublemaker in Premieres recounts Nelson Mandela’s struggle against Apartheid through Mandela’s own voice, drawn from recordings that South Africa’s first Black president made while writing his autobiography Long Walk To Freedom.
Selina Miles follows Australian human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson in Silenced in World Cinema Documentary Competition. The same section brings Birds Of War from Janay Boulos and Abd Alkader Habak, about the love story between a London-based Lebanese journalist and a Syrian activist and cameraman, and To Hold A Mountain from Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić, about a Montenegrin shepherd and her daughter defending their ancestral mountain from a multinational corporation.
US Dramatic Competition brings Channing Tatum in Beth de Araújo’s Josephine, about a child who witnesses a crime. Chris Pine stars in Rachel Lambert’s Carousel, a drama about a second chance for a divorced doctor. And Josef Kubota Wladyka’s Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! is set in Tokyo’s ballroom dance scene and stars Rinko Kikuchi.
All competition titles form the bulk of the online programme available from January 29 to February 1, which will include selections from other strands and the short films, which will be unveiled on December 15.
The 2026 edition is certain to be an emotional affair. Not only is the festival staging its final hurrah in the Utah mountains before the 2027 event moves to Boulder, Colorado, but it will play out following the death of two important figures in the Sundance annals: founder Robert Redford and communications head Tammie Rosen.
“As we prepare to gather for this landmark edition of our festival in a cherished locale, we’re also honoring the enduring impact of our beloved founder, Robert Redford, and celebrating what he created: a dynamic home for independent, global storytelling,” Eugene Hernandez, director, Sundance Film Festival and Public Programming, said.
Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival director of programming, noted: “The upcoming edition will be especially profound in introducing brand-new works while concurrently marking the significance of the many films we have been fortunate to present and gone on to have a long-lasting impact on independent film and culture.”
The 90 features announced on Wednesday represent 28 countries and territories. The 2026 programme comprises 36 out of 90, or 40%, first-time films. Fourteen of the entire feature and projects selection were supported by Sundance Institute in development through direct granting or residency labs.
The Beyond Film talks and additional programming announcements will be announced through January. The 2026 Sundance Film Festival jury and audience awards will be presented on January 30 at a ceremony at The Ray Theatre in Park City.
The 2026 Sundance Film Festival Feature Films and Episodics appear below. All are world premieres unless stated otherwise.
US DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Bedford Park
Dir. Stephanie Ahn
Available online for public
Sales: Cornerstone/CAA Media Finance
Carousel
Dir. Rachel Lambert
Available online for public
The Friend’s House Is Here (US-Iran)
Dirs. Hossein Keshavarz, Maryam Ataei
Available online for public
Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!
Dir. Josef Kubota Wladyka
Available online for public
Hot Water
Dir. Ramzi Bashour
Available online for public
Josephine
Dir. Beth de Araújo
Available online for public
The Musical
Dir. Giselle Bonilla
Available online for public
Run Amok
Dir. NB Mager
Available online for public
Take Me Home
Dir. Liz Sargent
Available online for public
Union County
Dir. Adam Meeks
Available online for public
US DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
American Doctor (US-Pal-Malay-Qat)
Dir. Poh Si Teng
Available online for public
American Pachuco: The Legend Of Luis Valdez
Dir. David Alvarado
Available online for public
Barbara Forever
Dir. Brydie O’Connor
Available online for public
Joybubbles
Dir. Rachael J. Morrison
Available online for public
The Lake
Dir. Abby Ellis
Available online for public
Nuisance Bear (US-Can)
Dirs. Gabriela Osio Vanden, Jack Weisman
Available online for publi
Public Access
Dir. David Shadrack Smith
Available online for public
Seized
Dir. Sharon Liese
Available online for public
Soul Patrol
Dir. J.M. Harper
Available online for public
Who Killed Alex Odeh?
Dirs. Jason Osder, William Lafi Youmans
Available online for public
WORLD CINEMA DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Big Girls Don’t Cry (NZ)
Dir. Paloma Schneideman
Available online for public
How To Divorce During The War (Lith-Lux-Ire-Czech)
Dir. Andrius Blaževičius
Available online for public
Extra Geography (UK)
Dir. Molly Manners
Available online for public
Sales: HanWay Films
Filipiñana (Sing-UK-Phil-Fr-Neth)
Dir. Rafael Manuel
Available online for public
Hold Onto Me (Cyp-Den-Greece)
Dir. Myrsini Aristidou
Available online for public
The Huntress (La Cazadora, Mex-US)
Dir. Suzanne Andrews Correa
Available online for public
Lady (UK-Nigeria)
Dir. Olive Nwosu
Available online for public
Levitating (Indo-Sing-Fr)
Dir. Wregas Bhanuteja
Available online for public
Shame And Money (Ger-Kos-Slovenia-Alb-N Mac-Bel)
Dir. Visar Morina
Available online for public
Tell Me Everything (Isr-Fr)
Dir. Moshe Rosenthal
Available online for public
WORLD CINEMA DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
All About The Money (Ire)
Dir. Sinéad O’Shea
Available online for public
Birds Of War (UK-Syria-Leb)
Dirs. Janay Boulos, Abd Alkader Habak
Available online for public
Closure (Pol)
Dir. Michał Marczak
Available online for public
Everybody To Kenmure Street (UK)
Dir. Felipe Bustos Sierra
Available online for public
Hanging By A Wire (US-UK-Pak)
Dir. Mohammed Ali Naqvi
Available online for public
Kikuyu Land (Ken)
Dirs. Andrew H. Brown, Bea Wangondu
Available online for public
One In A Million (UK)
Dirs. Itab Azzam, Jack MacInnes
Available online for public
Sentient (Australia)
Dir. Tony Jones
Available online for public
Silenced (Australia)
Dir. Selina Miles
Available online for public
To Hold A Mountain (Ser-Fr-Mont-Slovenia-Cro)
Dirs. Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić
Available online for public
NEXT
Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild] (US-Den)
Dirs. Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil
Available online for public
Burn (Japan)
Dir. Makoto Nagahisa
Available online for public
Ghost In The Machine (US)
Dir. Valerie Veatch
Available online for public
If I Go Will They Miss Me (US)
Dir. Walter Thompson-Hernández
Available online for public
The Incomer (UK)
Dir. Louis Paxton
Available online for publi
Jaripeo (Mex-US-Fr)
Dirs. Efraín Mojica, Rebecca Zweig
Available online for public
Night Nurse (US)
Dir. Georgia Bernstein
Available online for public
TheyDream (US)
Dir. William David Caballero
Available online for public
zi (US)
Dir. Kogonada
Available online for public
PREMIERES
The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist (US)
Dirs. Daniel Roher, Charlie Tyrell
Documentary
Focus Features
Antiheroine (UK-US)
Dirs. Edward Lovelace, James Hall
Documentary
The Brittney Griner Story (US)
Dir. Alexandria Stapleton
Documentary
Chasing Summer (US)
Dir. Josephine Decker
Available online for public
Sales: Cinetic/UTA Independent Film Group
The Disciple (US-UK)
Dir. Joanna Natasegara
Documentary
Frank & Louis (Switz-UK)
Dir. Petra Biondina Volpe
Sales: TrustNordisk
Gail Daughtry And The Celebrity Sex Pass (US)
Dir. David Wain
Sales: WME Independent
The Gallerist (US-Fr)
Dir. Cathy Yan
Give Me The Ball! (US)
Dirs. Liz Garbus, Elizabeth Wolf
Documentary
The History Of Concrete (US)
Dir. John Wilson
Documentary
I Want Your Sex (US)
Dir. Gregg Araki
In The Blink Of An Eye (US)
Dir. Andrew Stanton
2026 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize Winner
The Invite (US)
Dir. Olivia Wilde
Sales: FilmNation
Jane Elliott Against The World (US)
Dir. Judd Ehrlich
Documentary
Available online for public
Knife: The Attempted Murder Of Salman Rushdie (US)
Dir. Alex Gibney
Documentary
The Last First: Winter K2 (US-UK)
Dir. Amir Bar-Lev
Documentary
The Moment (US)
Dir. Aidan Zamiri
The Oldest Person In The World (US)
Dir. Sam Green
Documentary
Once Upon A Time In Harlem (US)
Dirs. William Greaves, David Greaves
Documentary.
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York (US)
Dir. Noah Segan
Paralyzed By Hope: The Maria Bamford Story (US)
Dirs. Judd Apatow, Neil Berkeley
Documentary
Queen Of Chess (US)
Dir. Rory Kennedy
Documentary
See You When I See You (US)
Dir. Jay Duplass
The Shitheads (US)
Dir. Macon Blair
Time And Water (US-Ice)
Dir. Sara Dosa
Documentary
Available online for public
Troublemaker (S Afr-US-UK)
Dir. Antoine Fuqua
Documentary
The Weight (US)
Dir. Padraic McKinley
When A Witness Recants (US)
Dir. Dawn Porter
Documentary
Wicker (US)
Dirs. Eleanor Wilson, Alex Huston Fischer
MIDNIGHT
The Best Summer (US-Australia-Indo-Thai)
Dir. Tamra Davis
Documentary
Available online for public
Buddy (US)
Dir. Casper Kelly
Leviticus (Australia)
Dir. Adrian Chiarella
Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant (NZ)
Dir. THUNDERLIPS
Rock Springs (US-Can)
Dir. Vera Miao
Available online for public
Saccharine (Australia)
Dir. Natalie Erika James
undertone (Can)
Dir. Ian Tuason
EPISODIC
Bait (UK-US)
Eps. Riz Ahmed, Allie Moore, Ben Karlin
Six-episode season, screening first three episodes in person
The Screener (US)
Dirs. Jim Cummings, PJ McCabe
Five-episode series, screening first three episodes in person.
Fiction Pilot Showcase
FreeLance (US)
Dirs. The Turner Brothers
Soft Boil (US)
Dir. Alec Goldberg
Worried (US)
Dir. Nicole Holofcener
Nonfiction Pilot Showcase:
Murder 101 (US)
Dir. Stacey Lee
The Oligarch And The Art Dealer (Den-Fr-US)
Dir. Andreas Dalsgaard
SPOTLIGHT
Broken English (UK)
Dirs. Jane Pollard, Iain Forsyth
Documentary
US premiere
Tuner (Can-US)
Dir. Daniel Roher
FAMILY MATINEE
(Formerly known as KIDS)
Cookie Queens (US)
Dir. Alysa Nahmias
Documentary
Salt Lake City Celebration Film
Fing! (Australia-UK)
Dir. Jeffrey Walker
SPECIAL SCREENINGS
The Story Of Documentary Film (UK)
Dir. Mark Cousins.
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