The 2025 Sundance Film Festival has announced its winners.
This year’s jurors for the U.S. Dramatic Competition included directors Reinaldo Marcus Green (“King Richard”), and Celine Song (“Past Lives”). This jury certainly ended up making some controversial selections, especially for its top prize.
“Atropia,” Hailey Gates’ Iraq war satire, starring Alia Shawkat, won the festival’s top award: the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Dramatic competition. The film follows an aspiring actress in a military role-playing facility. The film is still looking for distribution, and despite winning the big award, might struggle further to find a home as it was met with very lukewarm reviews (42% on Rotten Tomatoes).
Many believed that the best-reviewed film in competition, Eva Victor’s “Sorry, Baby,” an unsentimental, and at times humorous, depiction of trauma, would prevail, but it only ended up winning the Screenwriting prize. The post-incarceration drama “Ricky,” starring Stephan James, and the ’90s-set gay cruising drama “Plainclothes,” also won prizes in the U.S. Dramatic section.
Audience Awards, voted on by festival attendees, were given to James Sweeney’s “Twinless,” the other greatly reviewed competition title, which took home the Audience Award for U.S. Dramatic. Other Audience winners include “André Is an Idiot,” “East of Wall,” “DJ Ahmet,” and “Prime Minister.”
U.S DRAMATIC COMPETITION WINNERS
U.S. Grand Jury Prize: “Atropia” (Hailey Gates)
Audience Award: “Twinless” (James Sweeney)
Directing Award: “Ricky” (Rashad Frett)
Screenwriting Award: “Sorry, Baby” (Eva Victor)
Special Jury Award for Acting: Dylan O’Brien (“Twinless”)
Ensemble Cast: “Plainclothes”