The Sundance Film Festival’s lineup for its 41st edition was announced this afternoon and, as always, you won’t find many big name directors. Sundance is all about discovering new talent, and that’s why it’s such an importantly vital festival for the industry.
The most well-known directors in the lineup are Bill Condon (“Kiss of the Spider-Woman), Ira Sachs (“Peter Hujar’s Day”), Justin Lin (“Last Days”), Questlove (“SLY LIVES!”), Cooper Raiff (“Hal & Harper”), and Andrew Ahn (“The Wedding Banquet”).
Watch out for A24 and Mark Anthony Green’s “Opus,” starring Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich, which I have heard GREAT things about — it’s screening in the Midnight section. In fact, A24 has two other films at the festival this year, Isaiah Saxon’s “The Legend of Ochi,” and Mary Bronstein’s “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”
This year there were 15,775 submissions from 156 countries or territories, including 4,138 feature-length films — 87 feature-length films (representing 24 countries) were chosen to be part of the lineup.
A few glaring omissions from the 2024 lineup — Celine Song’s “Materialists,” David Michod’s “Wizards,” Mimi Cave’s “Holland, Michigan,” Duke Johnson’s “The Actor,” Geremy Jasper’s “Odessa,” Trey Edward Shults’ “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” and Daniel Goldhaber’s “Faces of Death.”
The 2024 edition of the fest delivered some marquee films for the rest of the year including “A Real Pain,” “I Saw the TV Glow,” “Love Lies Bleeding,” “A Different Man,” “My Old Ass,” and “Good One.”
The 2025 festival will run January 23 – February 2 in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah, with online screenings during the second half of the festival. You can see the full lineup of titles here.
Nobody expected a 55-year-old NC-17 movie to be one of the surprise box office stories of the fall. Yet here we are, and this absolutely puts a smile on my face.