The Sundance Film Festival starts tomorrow in Park City for the last time before its move to Boulder, Colorado next year. Here’s our roundup of all that you can expect in the mountain air.
The 2026 Sundance Film Festival starts tomorrow and runs until February 1, and this year’s edition truly marks the end of an era. This year’s event is the final Sundance to be staged in Park City and Salt Lake City before the festival relocates lock, (film) stock, and barrel to Boulder, Colorado in 2027.
It is also the first Sundance without founder Robert Redford, who died aged 89 in 2025. Tributes and legacy programming are understandably threaded through the schedule as a result. But, as ever, the festival’s core focus remains firmly on new work, emerging voices, and the evolving shape of independent film. Not to mention the Festival’s legacy. Of the 90 feature films chosen for a Sundance screening, 36 of those come from first timers. And 14 features in the lineup were supported by Sundance Institute in development through direct granting or residency labs.
The US Dramatic Competition once again mixes first-time filmmakers with more established names. We’ve already listed some of the titles making waves that were edited on Adobe Premiere, and other titles attracting early attention include the classic American dramas of Union County and Carousel, Hot Water, a coming-of-age road story that blends family dynamics with cultural identity, and Ha-chan, Shake Your Booty!, which stands out for its focus on competitive dance culture and stunning performances.
World Cinema competitions continue Sundance’s long-standing role as a launchpad for international voices. Documentaries such as Birds of War and Sentient tackle themes of conflict, ethics, and displacement, while narrative entries from New Zealand, Australia, and across Europe reflect the festival’s increasingly global remit. As Sundance expands into its new home from next year, it will be interesting to see if this aspect of the Festival expands as well.
There’s quite a lot of online screenings this year, but the $815 festival passes have all sold out. Individual screenings can still be accessed at $35 a title, though not every title is on the online slate. Details here.
As ever, Sundance’s Beyond Film programme provides a parallel track of talks and panels that often prove as influential as the screenings themselves.
The Cinema Café series brings filmmakers into direct conversation with audiences, while larger panels feature figures including Ava DuVernay, Olivia Wilde, Richard Linklater, Gregg Araki, Antoine Fuqua, and Nicole Holofcener, discussing craft, career longevity, and creative risk.
There is a rich gumbo of events to dig into. Here’s a quick selection to show the sheer breadth.
Dreams & Embodiment for the Creative Process is led by filmmaker Chloé Zhao and creative dreamwork specialist Kim Gillingham and looks at listening to dreams, the body, and the subtle inner movements that often guide creative work before it has language.
Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: Activism on Film and the Women Fighting for Change highlights the Sundance Film Festival’s central role as the gathering place for these vital voices.
Designing Story Through Sound with filmmakers Beth de Araújo (Josephine) and Josef Kubota Wladyka (Ha-chan, Shake Your Booty!) will use film clips and behind-the-scenes insights to explore how sound choices shape emotion, perspective, and narrative — especially when working in Dolby Atmos.
The State of Producing & Future of Producing brings together a dynamic mix of producers to discuss the evolving landscape of film production, from the rise of AI to changes in distribution, tax incentives, and how they overcame the challenges to launch their productions.
Hidden Empire Sports: Where Storytelling Meets the Game looks at how sports, film, television, and culture intersect to create powerful narratives that extend far beyond the game.
You get the picture. It’s varied.
Salman Rushdie’s appearance at a Cinema Café session in connection with one of Sundance’s most anticipated premieres Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie adds a further dimension, positioning Sundance once again as a space where cinema and politics intersect.
“As the 2026 Festival comes to a close — the culmination of our 43 years in Park City and Utah — we honor the transformative vision of founder Robert Redford and his belief that “everyone has a story.” This special event brings together artists, alumni, industry, veteran attendees, staff and volunteers, and the local community for a program of stories, shared memories, archive treasures, and legendary moments — some poignant, some funny — as we reflect on the many voices who have told the story of the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.”
From 2027 those voices will still be heard but they will be heard in Colorado. What will change? Now that Redford is no longer with us, will the Festival continue in the spirit he founded? It will be interesting to chart its progress.
Sundance 2026 arrives at a moment when independent film is under sustained pressure from rising production costs, shifting distribution models, and an increasingly crowded streaming landscape. How it moves on from here, and from Park City, will play an important part in the way that independent film is valued not just in the US, but around the world in years to come.