It’s that time of the year again when we are ready to close the books on the movie year and look forward to what might be in store at Sundance in January. I will be there, rooming with Hollywood-Elsewhere thespian Jeffrey Wells.
I haven’t been hiding the fact that this past January’s edition of the Sundance Film Festival was underwhelming. The weakest edition of the 6 last years I’ve attended. That’s ok, festivals are allowed to have “off” years. The fest still managed to produce an Oscar contender in the Best Picture category (“The Farwell”), a critical darling which has absolutely no chance at a nomination (“The Souvenir”), not to mention a slew of Oscar-buzzed documentaries (“Apollo 11,” “David Crosby: Remember My Name,” “Hail Satan,” “Knock Down the House,” “Ask Dr. Ruth.” “Where’s My Roy Cohn,” “American Factory,” “Honeyland,” “Midnight Family,” “The Edge of Democracy”). In fact, docs are the primary reason why I attend Sundance; it’s quite simply the best non-fiction film festival in the world.
The rest of the 2019 field consisted mostly of films that have had their buzz dwindle over the months following their release (“The Report,” “Honey Boy,” “The Last Black Man in San Francisco,” “Brittany Runs a Marathon,” Clemency” “Blinded By The Light” “Late Night”). For my money, the best films I saw at this past edition of Sundance would have to be Lulu Wang’s already-mentioned “The Farewell,” Julius Onah’s “Luce” and Apple’s upcoming Minhal Baig-directed “Hala.”
With all that being said, the upcoming 2020 edition of the festival looks really great on paper. These are the 25 most buzzed-about titles that could make their way to the snowy mountains of Utah and premiere at Park City’s famous Eccles theater. The festival usually chooses 100 or so titles every year, almost half of which are documentaries. I didn’t put any non-fiction in the below list because it is very hard to predict what could come out of the doc categories.
“After Yang” (Kogonada)
”All the Bright Places” (Brett Haley)
”Bliss” (Mike Cahill)
”Breaking News in Yuba Country” (Tate Taylor)
”Da 5 Bloods” (Spike Lee)
”The Devil All the Time” (Antonio Campos)
”Dreamland” (Nicholas Jarecki)
”Fonzo” (Josh Trank)
”Gloria” (Julie Taymor)
”Harry Haft” (Barry Levinson)
”The Hunt” (Craig Zobel)
”Irresistible” (Jon Stewart)
”Kajillionaire” (Miranda July)
”The Last Thing He Wanted” (Dee Rees)
”Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon” (Ana Lily Amanpour)
”The Nest” (Sean Durkin)
”Never Really Sometimes Always” (Eliza Hittman)
”Nomadland” (Chloe Zhao)
”On the Rocks” (Sofia Coppola)
”Shirley” (Josephine Decker)
”Tesla” (Michael Almereyda)
”Uncle Frank” (Alan Ball)
”Wendy” (Benh Zeitlin)
”What is Life Worth” (Sara Colangelo)
”The Lovebirds” (Michael Showalter)
Sundance 2020 will run from January 23rd to February 2nd, 2020.