My First (and Last) Time at Sundance Film Festival in Utah

In 2026, on this very blog, I remember writing a travel bucket list. It was the first time I had thought about places I really wanted to visit more than anywhere else.

Four years prior, I attended Berlinale and discovered I loved film festivals (big shocker). Naturally, I added a few to my list. I’d tick off Cannes Film Festival in 2017, and felt confident that I would attend Venice and TIFF at some point (although I’ve still never made it to either).

Of course, I added Sundance Film Festival to my bucket list. I had to Google where in Utah it was held (Park City, as it turns out). It seemed the most difficult to visit (very popular and too expensive), but I added it anyway.

Little did I know that I would meet my husband seven years later and move to Utah to be with him two years after that. I was just in the nick of time to catch the Sundance Film Festival 2026 before the event moved to Boulder, Colorado, in 2027.

I saw eight films and personally attended four screenings across Park City and Salt Lake City. It was the last festival in Utah and the first after Robert Redford’s death in September 2025.

(He didn’t found the festival, but he did create the Sundance Institute in 1981 and took over the Utah/US Film Festival, which had existed since 1978, in 1985. It adopted the Sundance Film Festival name in 1991.)

So, naturally, the tone of the Sundance Film Festival 2026 was incredibly reflective and nostalgic. The events, the introductory reels before each screening, and many of the screenings were about looking back.

There was a sizeable and sincere appreciation for volunteers, locals, and moviegoers for the last 40ish years in Utah.

I’m so, so incredibly lucky that I was able to attend my first, and Utah’s last, Sundance Film Festival as a local. Not only did I get two free in-person screenings and two free online screenings due to my new status, but I got to do so in my own new backyard.

Since I wasn’t successful in receiving press accreditation (I’m not bitter), Sundance can be an expensive event. Yes, even for someone who lives in the area!

With the sheer number of people that flock to the city in the mountains, it can be overwhelming, too.

I didn’t attend a ton of events, but I did my best to soak up the atmosphere and would like to remember it. So, here’s a little roundup of everything I did and saw at the Sundance Film Festival 2026.

As I mentioned, I was able to see four films at the Sundance Film Festival 2026 because I live in Utah. Local Lens is an initiative set up to give back to the community as a thank you for putting up with any inconvenience during the film festival.

They aren’t just held during the festival, but also in the summer. No news yet on whether they will continue in Utah this summer!

I attended Tuner (2025), which wasn’t a surprise when we booked the ticket, and Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass (2026), which wasn’t announced until after we purchased. I saw both of these movies at The Ray Theater in Park City, plus The Incomer (2026) and Ha-chan, Shake Your Booty! (2026) online.

This was a big step up from my ticket-buying experience in 2025. I remember leaving it too late to ask my partner to get a code to apply for local lens screenings, and we didn’t end up snagging any. (Not that we would have been able to watch them, but still.)

For some reason, the queuing tent for the Local Lens screenings at The Ray had small, printed pictures of Alan Alda dotted around. Not many, but enough to spark our curiosity. It gave us something to entertain us for approximately 3 seconds out of the 60 minutes we spent in line for each film.

MERCH (Or That Time We Saw Elijah Wood)

Navigating Public Transport

One reason why it might have become unsustainable to host the Sundance Film Festival in Park City is that it’s not really a city. It’s essentially a street with a smattering of residential streets branching off it, with fewer than 9,000 people living there.

While it’s 20 square miles, most of it is disconnected from Main Street and Park Avenue. For comparison, Boulder has over 100,000 residents and is 26 square miles.

Long story short, Park City doesn’t have many parking spaces, and Main Street is closed to vehicles during the festival. Most Salt Lakers, or those staying in Salt Lake City, use the Park & Ride systems. The parking lots are free, as are the buses.

We parked at Richardson Flat because it seemed like the biggest and most accessible lot to Park City. Although those buses got BUSY (I had flashbacks to my time as a student in Manchester), they were reliable.

The timetables were confusing, and we thought we would be stranded in the city. Our screening was scheduled to finish around 11 p.m., approximately the time the bus schedule was due to end.

Luckily, my partner asked a volunteer at the bus stop, and they said the buses ran until 2 a.m. And they did! I love public transport, and I think this is a great system. I hope they run something similar in Boulder.

Special Events (Or That Time I Almost Saw Chloé Zhao)

We only spotted Elijah Wood in the merch store because I did not get into the event that I had woken up on a Sunday at 6 a.m. to attend.

Filmmaker Chloé Zhao and Kim Gillingham were running a workshop called ‘Chloé Zhao and Kim Gillingham’ at The Shop Yoga Studio in Park City. It started at 9 a.m., and I arrived just before 8:30 a.m.

As you can see from the long, long line below, this was much too late. There were dozens, if not over 100 people, in front of me who didn’t get in either, and the people at the front of the line had been there since 6:30 a.m., so I didn’t feel too bad. I mean, I felt freezing, but not bitterly disappointed.

But wouldn’t it have been amazing to see Chloé Zhao, Oscar winner and nominee, in the flesh, and learn from her? Ah, well. Maybe there will be a next time …

I joined my partner in a coffee shop (whom I had awoken super early to drive me to Park City for this event). I asked him if he wanted to see a Salman Rushdie panel instead, but he declined waiting for an hour in sub-freezing temperatures. Smart boy.

Mini Film Reviews

I watched eight films at the Sundance Film Festival 2026. Some screened in Salt Lake City, some in Park City, and some online.

I’ve shared some mini reviews and a few details about each movie below. However, if you would like to read more about my thoughts, I wrote full reviews on Filmotomy. You can read my Filmotomy film reviews here.

1. The Lake (2026)

• 23rd January at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center
• Read my full review of The Lake on Filmotomy

Abby Ellis’ The Lake, premiering in the US Documentary Competition, is an expertly balanced documentary that arrives just in the nick of time. Visually pleasing and cinematic, it opens with minimal dialogue, ethereal music and breathtaking aerial shots of the Great Salt Lake – a saline inland sea now facing ecological collapse.

With beautiful lighting and ethereal music, Ellis transforms an environmental crisis into cinematic storytelling. Shot mostly in handheld close-ups and shallow focus, she avoids talking heads, capturing instead the quiet power of images – dead birds, ticking clocks, water slipping away. Scientists Dr Bonnie Baxter and Dr Ben Abbott, and Great Salt Lake Commissioner Brian Steed, embody the film’s moral tension between faith, science and politics.

Ellis, both filmmaker and Utah local, keeps her tone urgent yet hopeful. Moments of humour and warmth – activists in bird costumes, Abbott reading to his children – offer light amid the despair. The Lake is not a sermon, but a mirror held up to Utah, reminding audiences that hope and accountability can coexist.

2. Tuner (2025)

• 28th January at a Local Lens Screening in The Ray Theater
• Read my full review of Tuner on Filmotomy

Daniel Roher’s Tuner is a funny, romantic thriller with more depth than it first appears, and screened in Sundance’s Spotlight category. Dustin Hoffman plays Harry Horowitz, an ageing, deaf piano tuner living in NYC. His assistant, Leo Woodall’s Niki, suffers from hyperacusis, a condition that makes loud noises unbearable.

When Harry is hospitalised with mounting bills, Niki’s skill leads him into the orbit of a Lithuanian crime family and a web of moral choices. Roher, best known for his Oscar-winning documentary Navalny (2022), directs his narrative film debut with confidence and style. Fast-cut montages reminiscent of Soderbergh turn ordinary actions – tuning pianos, eating, playing games – into thrilling sequences.

Herbie Hancock’s collaboration with Will Bates gives the soundtrack a character of its own. The chemistry between Woodall and Havana Rose Liu’s Ruthie is tender and refreshingly funny. Though the final act wobbles under the strain of plot, Tuner remains a sharp, stylish debut that blends heist energy with heartfelt emotion. It’s proof that sometimes it’s not about hearing, but feeling.

3. Novelle Vague (2025) + Live commentary with Richard Linklater

• 28th January at The Yarrow Theater
• Read my full review of Nouvelle Vague on Filmotomy

Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague is a love letter to Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960) and the filmmakers of the French New Wave. Developed over 13 years and filmed with period-accurate cameras and film stock, it re-creates 1959 Paris with meticulous affection. It screened at Sundance with a live commentary by its revered director and Indiewire’s Editor-at-Large Anne Thompson.

Zoey Deutch plays Jean Seberg, with Guillaume Marbeck as Godard and Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo. The casting is so precise it feels like a séance. Linklater, the only American on set, avoids pastiche by infusing warmth, wit, and genuine adoration into his homage.

Nouvelle Vague mirrors the movement’s spontaneity through direct looks to camera, long takes and its own quiet rebellion. ‘Because f*ck the rules,’ he said. With black-and-white photography, funny dialogue, and a killer soundtrack featuring ‘Nouvelle Vague’ by the Three Cool Cats, the film becomes a time capsule and eulogy to cinema itself.

It’s effortlessly cool, lovingly made, and one of Linklater’s most personal works.

4. Rock Springs (2026)

• 29th January at Sundance Online
• Read my full review of Rock Springs on Filmotomy

Vera Miao’s Rock Springs is ambitious, impatient and beautifully uneven – a horror debut in Sundance’s Midnight category that demands to be felt as much as understood. Set in Wyoming across two timelines, it follows Emily (Kelly Marie Tran), her daughter Gracie (Aria Kim) and their Nai Nai (Fiona Fu) as they move into a house built on the site of the 1885 Rock Springs massacre.

Music and heritage connect generations: Nai Nai’s erhu and Emily’s cello blend the past with the present. Benedict Wong brings authority as Ah Tseng, while Tran balances grief and control with grace.

Miao’s camera experiments boldly – bird’s-eye and ground-level shots, macro lenses, and even an upside-down car sequence – creating a disorienting sense of unease. Sparse jump scares and haunting whistling heighten the dread.

Though the Vancouver stand-in for Wyoming occasionally jars, Rock Springs is a confident, thoughtful debut. It’s a monster horror with a heart and a filmmaker’s voice worth following.

5. The Incomer (2026)

• 29th January at Sundance Online
• Read my full review of The Incomer on Filmotomy

Louis Paxton’s debut feature, The Incomer, is a windswept dark comedy that’s as warm as it is weird. Premiering in Sundance’s NEXT section, it follows siblings Isla (Gayle Rankin) and Sandy (Grant O’Rourke), who live in isolation on a remote Scottish island. That is, until Daniel (Domhnall Gleeson), an earnest civil servant, arrives to “relocate” them.

What follows is a hilarious, folkloric clash between islanders and outsiders, blending absurdity with tenderness. Paxton’s film recalls The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016) yet keeps its own eccentric rhythm through offbeat humour and emotional sincerity.

Gleeson gives one of his sharpest comic performances, while Rankin and O’Rourke ground the whimsy with warmth. With hand-drawn animation, sweeping landscapes and dialogue that drifts between poetic and ridiculous, The Incomer feels both timeless and unique. It’s a celebration of belonging, madness, and the beauty of life lived slightly askew.

6. Ha-chan, Shake Your Booty! (2026)

• 29th January at Sundance Online
• Read my full review of Ha-chan, Shake Your Booty! on Filmotomy

Josef Kubota Wladyka’s Ha-chan, Shake Your Booty! is a warm, timeless, and infectiously hopeful take on grief and rediscovery. Premiering in the US Dramatic Competition at Sundance 2026, it follows Haru (Rinko Kikuchi) – affectionately known as Ha-chan – who returns to the world of ballroom dancing after the sudden death of her husband, Luis (Damián Alcázar).

Shot with loose, intimate cinematography that dances alongside her, the film blurs fantasy and reality with surreal flourishes and dazzling choreography. Ha-chan’s punky style, the retro chapter cards and 1980s–1990s soundtrack add nostalgic charm.

A kawaii crow becomes a symbol of rebirth, and family support replaces romantic dependence. Kikuchi gives a luminous performance in a film that celebrates movement, resilience and the power of joy. Ha-chan, Shake Your Booty! is irresistible – a cinematic shimmy through heartbreak, humour, and the sheer pleasure of being alive.

7. Everybody to Kenmure Street (2026)

• 29th January at Sundance Online
• Read my full review of Everybody to Kenmure Street on Filmotomy

Felipe Bustos Sierra’s Everybody to Kenmure Street is a powerful, community-driven documentary about the spontaneous Glasgow protest on 13 May 2021, when residents surrounded a Home Office van to prevent the deportation of two men. Premiering in the US Documentary Competition at Sundance 2026, it captures an extraordinary act of solidarity through found footage, archival clips and dozens of interviews.

Bustos Sierra threads together Scotland’s history of activism. From the Glasgow rent strikes to the Glasgow Girls, he shows that resistance is woven into the city’s fabric. Emma Thompson and Kate Dickie lend voices to re-enacted moments, while small details – a bus station tuck shop, peaceful protestors and police – make it unmistakably Scottish.

Though the film is solely a community perspective, its partiality feels intentional. Everybody to Kenmure Street is both a local story and a universal call for empathy. It’s a moving reminder that collective action still matters, and still works.

That’s a Wrap!

I hope my experience at the Sundance Film Festival 2026 has inspired you to check out the first film festival in Boulder, Colorado, next year!

Or even better, the local film festival that you’ve been meaning to attend for years.

Want to chat with other cinephiles about the Sundance Film Festival or other film festivals?

Join the Filming Locations Fan Club Facebook Group!

Or, stay on Offscreen Tourist and read one of my related guides:

• 60+ Best Film Festivals in the World for Cinephiles to Attend
• The Ultimate Cannes Film Festival Guide
• A First Timer’s Guide to the Berlin Film Festival
• Glasgow Film Festival 2020 Highlights
• Edinburgh International Film Festival 2019 Highlights
• Hebden Bridge Film Festival 2019 Highlights
• Málaga Film Festival 2017 Highlights
• Cannes Film Festival 2027 Highlights