The 2025 Sundance Film Festival will have not one but two events potentially drawing eyeballs away from the programming. The festival, running from Jan. 23 to Feb. 2, will begin just days after the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump. Then there will also be much anticipation and expectation around the upcoming announcement of where the festival will be moving beginning with its 2027 edition.
The program for the 2025 festival, which was announced on Wednesday, should provide a relief from the uncertainty: the usual mix of fresh talent and provocative subject matter.
“I think the program will do the work of putting aside for a moment the conversation about the long-term home,” said Eugene Hernandez, director of the festival, noting that a decision is expected to be announced after the festival concludes, in late winter or early spring. “This program really just underscores what Sundance is and has been for these 40-plus years. And that is just an incredible place for discovery.”
Among the films in the U.S. dramatic competition are Hailey Gates’ “Atropia” starring Alia Shawkat, Callum Turner and Chloë Sevigny, Evan Twohy’s “Bubble & Squeak” starring Himesh Patel, Sarah Goldberg and Steven Yeun, Katarina Zhu’s “Bunnylovr” starring Zhu along with Rachel Sennott, Rachel Abigail Holder’s “Love, Brooklyn” starring André Holland, Nicole Beharie and DeWanda Wise, Rashad Frett’s “Ricky” starring Stephan James and Sheryl Lee Ralph, and Eva Victor’s “Sorry, Baby,” starring Victor, Naomi Ackie and Lucas Hedges.
In the U.S. documentary competition, titles will include Anthony Benna’s “Andre Is an Idiot,” Reid Davenport’s “Life After,” Geeta Gandbhir’s “The Perfect Neighbor,” David Osit’s “Predators” and Rachel Fleit’s “Sugar Babies.”
The NEXT section includes Amanda Kramer’s “By Design,” which features arguably the program’s most eye-raising logline about a woman who swaps bodies with a chair. Other titles in the section include Pasqual Gutierrez’s “Serious People” and Charlie Shackleton’s documentary “Zodiac Killer Project.”
The Premieres section, which typically includes many of the festival’s breakout titles, has a mix of both fiction features and documentaries. Among the films premiering in the section are James Griffith’s “The Ballad of Wallis Island,” Nyle DiMarco and Davis Guggenheim’s “Deaf President Now!,” Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s “Folktales,” Mary Bronstein’s “If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You,” Bill Condon’s remake of “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” Amalia Ulman’s “Magic Farm,” Sophie Brooks’ “Oh, Hi!,” Clint Bentley’s “Train Dreams” and Ira Sachs’ “Peter Hujar’s Day.”
The Midnight section is where some of the most anticipated titles of the festival can often be found. Among them is Mark Anthony Green’s “Opus,” starring Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich, Juliette Lewis and Amber Midthunder, Meera Menon’s “Didn’t Die,” Bryn Chainey’s “Rabbit Trap” and Michael Shanks’ “Together.”
When Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson premiered his debut documentary ”Summer of Soul” at the festival in 2021, it began a run that ended with winning an Academy Award. Thompson will be back at the festival with “Sly Lives! (a.k.a. The Burden of Black Genius,)” a portrait of musician Sly Stone and the specific challenges faced by Black artists.
Other celebrity-portrait docs include Amy Berg’s “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley,” Shoshannah Stern’s “Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore,” Isabel Castro’s “Selena y Los Dinos,” Michelle Walshe and Lundsay Utz’s “Prime Minister,” on former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Cristina Costantini’s “Sally,” on astronaut Sally Ride and Matt Wolf’s “Pee-wee as Himself,” on Pee-wee Herman performer Paul Reubens.
“With these films that focus on particular people, we’re always looking at what’s the new angle that we’re seeing? What is special about this film?” said Kim Yutani, the festival’s director of programming.
When the first Trump inauguration coincided with the festival in 2017, an estimated 8,000 people marched in the streets. While it is not yet clear whether there will be such an organized expression of protest in 2025, one can only assume that some films will play to audiences much differently than if the election had had a different outcome, such as Jesse Short Bull and David France’s documentary “Free Leonard Peltier,” on the imprisoned leader of the American Indian Movement, Kim A. Snyder’s doc “The Librarians,” about the role of librarians amid a wave of state book bans, or Andrew Ahn’s remake of the LGBTQ+-themed “The Wedding Banquet.”
“I think that what Sundance has contributed to the culture is a space that celebrates freedom of expression,” said Hernandez, “and nurtures the opportunities for artists of all different backgrounds and experiences and cultures to tell personal stories.”
In the episodic section dedicated to work told in multiple episodes, there will be the docuseries “Bucks County, USA,” from directors and executive producers Barry Levinson and Robert May, a look at two 14-year-olds in Bucks County, Pa., who are friends despite their opposing political beliefs.
“It offers a perspective that is enriched by the exploration of these two individual girls, their friendship, the connection to their families who are on different sides of the red and blue divide,” said Hernandez. “And so it really invites greater understanding and consideration about what’s in front of us in this country.”
Also in the episodic section will be “Hal & Harper,” a series from director and executive producer Cooper Raiff, starring Lili Reinhardt, Mark Ruffalo, Betty Gilpin and Havana Rose Liu.
Eugene Jarecki’s “The Six Billion Dollar Man,” a documentary on Julian Assange, will play as a special screening.
The mission of Sundance has always had ideas of diversity and inclusion at its core, going all the way back to when Robert Redford first founded the Sundance Institute in 1981. Even as those core values have become increasingly contentious within the larger political discourse, festival organizers would not describe their work as part of any cultural agenda.
“If we do have an agenda, it’s to support artists and the voice of the artist,” said Yutani. “And that’s always our North Star. We get a lot of pressure and we hear a lot of voices outside — there’s a lot of noise wherever we go. But what is always so grounding is the idea that we are supporting artists. Every time we start a film, that’s what we have in mind — what are these artists saying, what’s on their minds? How are they processing the world we live in through their work? And together we have this opportunity to see what’s on artists’ minds in any given year.”
Among the films premiering at the 2024 festival that have remained in the conversation since then are “A Real Pain,” “A Different Man,” “Thelma,” “I Saw the TV Glow” and “Union.”
How the films of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival will meet their moment as they are discovered by audiences will form the core of the response to the upcoming program.
“I know sometimes things can be snapshotted in a certain way in a particular cultural moment,” said Hernandez. “But Sundance is 40-plus years old and it continues to hold true to our mission. So whatever city we’re in, Sundance will be Sundance and we will be true to and fight for and preserve that mission that Mr. Redford established for us in the founding of this institute.”
