The Best of Sundance 2026: Top Films, Breakouts, and Award Winners from the Final Park City Festival

February 6, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Lists, Most Popular Tagged All About the Money, American Doctor, Big Girls Don't Cry, Closure, Everybody to Kenmure Street, Frank & Louis, Ha-Chan Shake Your Booty, Hold Onto Me, How to Divorce During the War, If I Go Will They Miss Me, Josephine, Mum I’m Alien Pregnant, Night Nurse, Nuisance Bear, One in a Million, Rock Springs, See You When I See You, Seized, Shame and Money, Silenced, Sundance, Sundance 26, Take Me Home, Tell Me Everything, The Gallerist, The Incomer, The Invite, The Lake, The Last First: Winter K2, The Musical, The Weight, Time and Water, Undertone, Union County 2 Comments

Sundance 2026 delivered one last cinematic dump (in a good way, like powder on a snow-barren mountain) before packing up and leaving Park City for good. From chilling headphone horror to sex comedies with emotional rot, audacious midnight freakouts to quietly devastating documentaries, this year’s lineup proved that the festival still has what it takes to be one of the preeminent film festivals in the world. Although I didn’t get a chance to see everything I had hoped to see (Leviticus top on the list of those I’ll be anxiously awaiting), I still managed to watch more Sundance premieres this year (35 total) than nearly any other year covering the festival. As should then be assumed, I have a pretty good handle on what was what so I full more than qualified to give a complete rundown of the best films from Sundance 2026. Read More

Sundance ‘26: ‘THE INVITE’ A Zesty Swinger Comedy That’s Equally Hilarious and Therapeutic

February 3, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Edward Norton, Olivia Wilde, Penélope Cruz, Seth Rogan, Sundance, Sundance 2026, The Invite 2 Comments

Joe and Angela’s relationship is in the dumps. The second Joe returns home from his mediocre job at a middling music conservatory, their bickering begins. Taking shoes off at the door, neglecting to pick up a bottle of wine, forgetting about plans — all seem like ripe opportunities to launch a new feud. Their married-couple’s rocky connection is further tested when Angela invites over the upstairs neighbors, Hawk (Edward Norton) and Pina (Penélope Cruz), for an impromptu dinner party. Joe doesn’t want them over in the first place, harboring resentment over their loud, late-night sex. What begins as awkward conversation and flimsy attempts at forging new friendships peels into Hawk and Pina’s real reason for coming: to invite Joe and Angela to engage in sexual extracurriculars. Read More

Sundance ‘26: ‘FRANK & LOUIS’ Is a Somber Reflection on Finding Compassion in a Cage

February 3, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Frank & Louis, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Petra Volpe, Rob Morgan, Sundance, Sundance 2026 3 Comments

Frank (Kingsley Ben-Adir) is up for parole soon, serving a long sentence in a maximum security prison. Years ago, he killed a man, but now considers himself changed. We’re not so convinced. Yes, Frank can be patient and carries himself with a calm stillness, but there’s a rage inside him that boils over when no one’s looking. To improve his chances with the parole board, Frank takes an assignment caring for fellow inmates suffering from degenerative mental conditions like dementia or Alzheimer’s. His charge is Louis Nelson (Rob Morgan), a once-notorious thug with a formidable reputation and more than a few enemies. Throughout writer-director Petra Volpe’s Frank & Louis, we watch their paths converge: one man aims for self-discovery, while the other forgets who he is entirely. Read More

Sundance ‘26: ‘UNION COUNTY’ A Maybe Too-Authentic Portrait of Addiction and Rehabilitation

February 2, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Adam Meeks, Sundance, Sundance 2026, Union County, Will Poulter 3 Comments

Grounded in a lived-in addict experience, Union County, written and directed by Adam Meeks, is a stripped-down recovery drama anchored by a soft-spoken, quietly emotive performance from Will Poulter. Set in rural Ohio, where the opioid epidemic has left deep scars, Meeks draws from personal history, using his own hometown of Bellefontaine to portray the far-reaching impact of addiction not just on individuals, but on the systems meant to help them. Supportive judges, rehab-over-jail programs, and small-town efforts form the fragile infrastructure holding it all together. Read More

Sundance ‘26: ‘NUISANCE BEAR’ Sees Man and Beast Interests at Odds

February 2, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Gabriela Osio Vanden, Jack Weisman, Nuisance Bear, Sundance, Sundance 2026 2 Comments

This is not a story of extinction. If Cocaine Bear (also “based on a true story”) gives us a deranged cautionary tale about mankind’s reckless interference with animal instincts, Nuisance Bear offers the quieter, more unsettling counterpoint: what happens when animals start showing up in human spaces not out of curiosity, but desperation. Read More

Sundance ‘26: ‘JOSEPHINE’ Is a Feel Bad Movie Through the Eyes of a Child

February 1, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Beth de Araújo, Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan, Josephine, Mason Reeves, Sundance, Sundance 2026 5 Comments

It’s the job of parents to keep kids safe. But that doesn’t mean safety is ever really within their control. Josephine, written, directed, and produced by Beth de Araújo, and winner of both the Sundance Jury and Audience Awards, is a thoroughly depressing, feel bad film about what happens when that illusion of control is shattered. Read More

Sundance ‘26: ‘THE INCOMER’ An Oddball Isle Curio Ripe with Laughs

February 1, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Domhnall Gleeson, Gayle Rankin, Grant O’Rourke, Sundance, Sundance 2026, The Incomer 3 Comments

Brother and sister Isla (Gayle Rankin) and Sandy (Grant O’Rourke) have been living alone on the isolated, windswept Auk Isle off the coast of Scotland for 30 years. Entirely self-reliant, they spend their days hunting and gathering, swapping feverish tales of mainland threats, and preparing for phantom invaders. This translates to things like netting seagulls to make soup, resisting temptations from the seal-faced Fin-Man who may or may not be imaginary, and whacking each other about the head like a Punch and Judy act. They’re feral in that specific way only children left entirely to their own devices can be, raising each other into wild, loyal delinquents. Read More

Sundance ‘26: ‘UNDERTONE’ is Actually the Scariest Movie in Years

January 31, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews, Most Popular Tagged Ian Tucson, Nina Kiri, Sundance, Sundance 2026, Undertone 3 Comments

Anytime a new horror movie comes out, horror fans and critics trip over themselves to call it the scariest movie since Hereditary, which was the scariest movie since Paranormal Activity, which was the scariest since The Blair Witch Project, which was the scariest since The Exorcist, and so on in an endless horror ouroboros of escalating hype. Well, Undertone, a possession movie about paranormal podcast hosts who stumble upon a ten-part series of increasingly cursed audio clips, is actually, hyperbole aside, the scariest movie in quite some time. It earns that title not with jump scares or gore, but with an impressively economical command of its audience’s every sense. Writer-director Ian Tucson sets his hooks early, relying on restraint, minimalism, and some of the best sound design in the genre to ratchet tension from subtle unease to full-body chill. Read More

Sundance ‘26: ‘THE GALLERIST’ is A Frenetic Art World Satire Hoisted on Its Own Petard

January 31, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Catherine Zeta-Jones, Cathy Yan, Jenna Ortega, Natalie Portman, Sundance, Sundance 2026, The Gallerist 3 Comments

Cathy Yan’s absurdist satirical comedy The Gallerist may attempt to be an on-the-nose skewering of the art world, but even committed performances from its all-star cast can’t make up for weak jokes and thin satire. Natalie Portman stars as Polina Poliski, an ambitious and unscrupulous gallerist who, in the midst of Art Basel Miami, is confronted with an absurd situation: after a colorful confrontation, a hackneyed, rival art influencer accidentally impales himself on one of the statues her gallery is featuring. Rather than call for help, Polina sees a publicity opportunity. She decides to “curate” his corpse into art. The piece goes viral almost immediately. And so begins a countdown to sell the “art” before it’s discovered for what it actually is. Read More

Sundance ‘26: ‘ROCK SPRINGS’ Excises The Ghosts of A Not-So Distant Shame

January 31, 2026 by Matt Oakes Posted in Festival Reviews Tagged Benedict Wong, Fiona Fu, Kelly Marie Tran, Rock Springs, Sundance, Sundance 2026, Vera Miao 1 Comment

During Ghost Month, the boundary between the living and the dead is supposed to thin. The gates of hell open up. The ghosts get hungrier. Or so says Gracie’s Nai Nai (Fiona Fu), who delivers this unsettling tidbit with the weary authority of someone who’s seen some things. For Gracie’s family, this bit of folklore hits particularly hard. Her father has just died, and the family has retreated to the sleepy countryside town of Rock Springs to regroup, grieve, and move forward. No such luck. Read More