Due to run from 19 to 29 January, the first in-person edition of the Sundance Film Festival since 2020 will be crammed with taut thrillers, eye-opening documentaries and sweeping Oscar hopefuls, not to mention two of the most hotly anticipated literary adaptations of the year. These are the 10 releases you just can’t miss.
Cat Person
Kristen Roupenian’s viral New Yorker short story about a quippy sophomore (CODA’s Emilia Jones) who is pursued by an older man (Succession’s Nicholas Braun) is brought to the big screen by Booksmart co-writer Susanna Fogel, with Isabella Rossellini, no less, in a supporting role.
Eileen
Who better than William Oldroyd, the director of the intensely atmospheric Lady Macbeth, to helm this bold take on Ottessa Moshfegh’s beguiling chiller? It casts Thomasin McKenzie as the titular prison employee and Anne Hathaway as a charming colleague who upends her life.
Polite Society
Those awaiting the second season of Nida Manzoor’s raucous We Are Lady Parts will be consoled by the filmmaker’s delightful feature debut: the tale of a schoolgirl and martial artist (Priya Kansara) who devises a madcap plan to stop her sister’s (Ritu Arya) wedding.
You Hurt My Feelings
When a neurotic New York novelist (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) overhears her husband (Tobias Menzies) criticising her latest book, she questions the foundations of her decades-long marriage in this delicious satire from Nicole Holofcener (Can You Ever Forgive Me?).
Drift
Cynthia Erivo takes the lead in Anthony Chen’s delicate portrait of a Liberian refugee struggling to survive on a Greek island. Haunted by memories of her war-torn homeland, she finds some solace in a budding friendship with a lonely American tour guide (Alia Shawkat).
Fair Play
Bridgerton breakout Phoebe Dynevor swaps her ball gowns for power suits in Chloe Domont’s slippery psychological drama tracking an ambitious executive whose relationship with her highly competitive partner (Alden Ehrenreich) implodes following a coveted promotion.
Invisible Beauty
Bethann Hardison, the model-turned-agent and early champion of diversity in fashion, is the subject of this decades-spanning documentary about her spectacular rise and legacy, co-directed by Dior and I and Halston’s Frédéric Tcheng and the trailblazer herself.
Run Rabbit Run
Before returning to screens as Succession’s ruthless Shiv for season four, Sarah Snook delivers an anguished turn in Daina Reid’s eerie thriller centred on a doctor and her young daughter, whose increasingly strange behaviour is connected to her mother’s dark past.
Rye Lane
A love letter to the bustling streets, art galleries and karaoke bars of Peckham, Raine Allen-Miller’s irresistible rom-com features David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah as two twenty-somethings reeling from recent break-ups who come to each other’s aid.
The Pod Generation
Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor play a couple who consider becoming parents via detachable artificial womb pods in Sophie Barthes’s sci-fi saga set in a not-so-distant future. It makes for a fascinating study of our reliance on technology and eternal pursuit of convenience.
