From Lagos to London Sundance 2026’s must-see films
From irreverent mockumentaries to intimate love stories and films of quiet protest, Sundance 2026 promises a lineup of bold, unforgettable storytelling. Here, Simran Hans picks the eight films you won’t want to miss.
This January, the sleepy, snow-covered town of Park City will host the Sundance Film Festival for the final time. Founded by veteran Hollywood actor Robert Redford, who died last autumn, it has been held in Utah for the past 45 years. In 2027 the festival will relocate to Boulder, Colorado, and so this edition is bound to have a bit of chaotic, last-hurrah energy. Celebrities, journalists and film lovers alike will be donning their puffer jackets and watching movies at high altitude, hoping to discover new classics of American independent cinema, a star to define the decade to come, or perhaps the documentary that will sweep the following year’s Oscars (the festival has premiered 20 of them since 1991). Here are eight films to keep an eye out for at the festival, and in the months to come…
THE MOMENT FILM STILL
THE MOMENT
DIRECTOR AIDAN ZAMIRI
Not many pop stars would choose to consolidate a career high point by deliberately making fun of it. Then again, Charli XCX is not your average pop star. The Moment is a send up of her 2024 album Brat, its subsequent arena tour and the hugely successful marketing campaign that surrounded it. There is an absurdist element to the casting choices, which include Alexander Skaarsgaard as a villainous creative director, comedians Jamie Demetriou, Kate Berlant and Rachel Sennott, and a cameo from Kylie Jenner. Directed by Charli XCX’s friend and frequent collaborator Aidan Zamiri, a photographer and music video director whose star is rising steadily, the mockumentary is also co-written by Bertie Brandes, best known for editing the satirical countercultural zine Mushpit in the 2010s. Its creative team, then, has firsthand knowledge of the awkward venn diagram of coolness, credibility, fame, and success. The film also marks Charli XCX’s foray into acting–it’s one of eight film projects the singer has lined up, with three of them playing as part of the festival.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HARLEM FILM STILL
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HARLEM
DIRECTOR WILLIAM GREAVES AND DAVID GREAVES
Upon watching a rough cut of this long-gestating documentary, New Yorker film critic Richard Brody called it “one of the greatest cinematic works of creative nonfiction that I’ve ever seen.” Directed by legendary Black documentary filmmaker William Greaves (1968’s Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One), who died in 2014, and completed by his late wife and children, it tells the history of the Harlem Renaissance, as recounted by the artists and activists who lived through it. The Black arts movement that blossomed in New York City between the 1920s and 1940s saw the rise of jazz and poetry, painting, political action, and, importantly, parties. The film takes place at a gathering Greaves had facilitated in 1972, at the home of jazz pianist and composer Duke Ellington, two years before Ellington’s death.
I WANT YOUR SEX FILM STILL
I WANT YOUR SEX
DIRECTOR GREGG ARAKI
In 1993, the first instalment of Gregg Araki’s ‘Teenage Apocalypse’ trilogy premiered at Sundance. Totally F***ed Up is a time capsule of 90s youth culture, a landmark in the New Queer Cinema movement and a middle finger to the mainstream. More than thirty years later, Araki might be considered an elder of the cinema he helped to define. Yet he remains a provocateur, with an acid sense of humour; his latest, a dark erotic thriller set in the LA art world, is co-written with Karley Sciortino of the blog-turned-VICE documentary series Slutever, and stars Olivia Wilde as a performance artist slash dominatrix. Wilde’s Erika Tracy finds a new muse in the 22 year-old Cooper Hoffman (star of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza and son of the late, great actor Philip Seymour). Look out, also, for the outfits, from costume designer Arianne Philips (Girl Interrupted, A Single Man and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).
THE GALLERIST FILM STILL
THE GALLERIST
DIRECTOR CATHY YAN
Another opportunity to skewer the art world comes in the form of The Gallerist. Its plot centres on a gallerist’s discovery of a dead body at Art Basel Miami, and follows her cynical (or is it simply desperate?) attempt to flog it as art. Natalie Portman plays Polina Polinksi, a morally questionable gallerist, while Zach Galifianakis stars as an influencer whose pockets she hopes to empty. With a supporting cast including Oscar-winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Jenna Ortega, Charli XCX and Catherine Zeta-Jones as an art dealer, it comes from the mind of Chinese-American filmmaker Cathy Yan, whose eccentric first feature Dead Pigs looked at class struggle and corruption incontemporary China.
EXTRA GEOGRAPHY FILM STILL
EXTRA GEOGRAPHY
DIRECTOR MOLLY MANNERS
British filmmaker Molly Manners makes her feature debut with this comedy about two teenage girls navigating boarding school, who are determined to fall in love. The object of their affections turns out to be their geography teacher, played by Australian actress Alice Englert (daughter of filmmaker Jane Campion). Manners is one to watch; the winner of two BAFTAs for directing Netflix’s One Day, she also directed a witty and very charming Christmas advert for Waitrose, starring Love Actually’s Keira Knightley as a knowing version of herself. Clearly, Manners has a handle on the rom-com genre. Based on a short story by the British novelist Rose Tremain, Extra Geography’s screenplay is by Miriam Battye, one of the writers on HBO’sSuccession.
LADY FILM STILL
LADY
DIRECTOR OLIVE NWOSU
In Olive Nwosu’s first feature length film, a female cab driver in Lagos gets involved with a raucous group of sex workers, when she takes a job as their night driver to earn some extra cash. But driving them around the city’s chaotic underbelly, she finds an unexpected route to sisterhood. In 2023, the Nigerian-British director, who was born in Lagos, won the Sundance NHK Award for Lady’s screenplay, and her short films Egúngún and Troublemaker were snapped up by the Criterion Channel. She has described Lady as her “love letter to the women of Lagos: a mythic portrait of joy, danger, and self-invention.”
ANTIHEROINE FILM STILL
ANTIHEROINE
DIRECTOR EDWARD LOVELACE AND JAMES HALL
Authorised celebrity documentaries rarely yield fresh insights, but this film about Courtney Love sees the singer and actress sitting for a rare longform interview as she prepares to release new music for the first time in ten years. The frontwoman of beloved feminist rock band Hole is a cultural icon in her own right, though her story has been marked by the high profile death of her husband, fellow musician Kurt Cobain, in 1994. It seems only right that she speaks on her own terms, and in her own words. The film is produced by Dorothy Street Pictures, who have made recent high profile Netflix documentaries about Pamela Anderson and Victoria Beckham.
EVERYBODY TO KENMURE FILM STILL
EVERYBODY TO KENMURE STREET
DIRECTOR FELIPE BUSTOS SIERRA
As civil unrest unfolds all over the world, stories of successful protest feel more urgent than ever. Cue this small but mighty tale of people power and resistance, that took place in a mixed neighbourhood in Glasgow in 2021, and saw hundreds of ordinary people surrounding a police van attempting to seize and deport two local men. They stayed there for eight hours. British actress Emma Thompson was so inspired by the story that she joined the film as an executive producer.
Jack O’Connell on playing the Satan-worshiping anti-hero of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple Jack O’Connell on playing the Satan-worshiping anti-hero of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
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How Intellectualism became the new status symbol How Intellectualism became the new status symbol
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A Life in Pictures with Miranda Barnes A Life in Pictures with Miranda Barnes
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Growing up together: Three sets of siblings on the power of sibling bonds Growing up together: Three sets of siblings on the power of sibling bonds
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Young Londoners on community, connection and their hopes for 2026 Young Londoners on community, connection and their hopes for 2026
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Tokyo based creatives share their hopes for 2026 Tokyo based creatives share their hopes for 2026
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“My hope for 2026 is that my queer and trans siblings can live fully and unapologetically, without fear or stigmatization” “My hope for 2026 is that my queer and trans siblings can live fully and unapologetically, without fear or stigmatization”
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Fehinti Balogun is using film to shift the conversation around climate Fehinti Balogun is using film to shift the conversation around climate
