16 Movies On Our Sundance 2026 Watchlist
We’re excited to be covering the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, which features a great lineup of feature films, shorts, and documentaries from around the world. Here are the titles we’re most excited to see.
American Doctor
Dir. Poh Si Teng
When three American doctors — Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian — enter Gaza to save lives, they find themselves caught between medicine and politics, risking everything to expose the truth.
Big Girls Don’t Cry
Dir. Paloma Schneideman
Over one transformative summer in rural New Zealand in 2006, 14-year-old Sid Bookman discovers desire, identity, and the internet as she imitates the people she longs to be loved by
Burn
Dir. Makoto Nagahisa
When runaway teen Ju-Ju is embraced by a tribe of misfit youths in Kabukicho, she finds belonging for the first time — until betrayal and despair twist her haven into a prison, and she’s left with one way to take back control.
Extra Geography
Dir. Molly Manners
In an English girls boarding school, two teenage best friends grapple with the challenges of girlhood — friendship, boys, studies, and growing up — and embark on their school project, falling in love.
Ha-chan, Shake Your Booty!
Dir. Josef Kubota Wladyka
Haru and Luis love competing in Tokyo’s ballroom dance scene, but after tragedy strikes, Haru withdraws into isolation. When friends coax her back to the studio, she develops an infatuation with the new instructor. She must face what comes next as sparks fly.
If I Go Will They Miss Me
Dir. Walter Thompson-Hernández
Twelve-year-old Lil Ant struggles to connect with his father when he begins to see surreal, almost spectral visions of boys drifting around his neighborhood. Their presence reveals a link between father and son, laying bare the threads that bind family, legacy, and place.
Jaripeo
Dir. Efraín Mojica, Rebecca Zweig
A journey to Michoacán’s hypermasculine rodeos descends into the subconscious of memory, queer desire, and longing, leading to a reckoning with the wounds and beauty of a home left behind.
Lady
Dir. Olive Nwosu
In the sprawling African metropolis of Lagos, a fiercely independent young cab driver meets a band of radiantly reckless sex workers whose sisterhood pulls her into danger and joy, setting her on a journey toward her own transformation.
Night Nurse
Dir. Georgia Bernstein
As a series of perverse scam calls unsettles an idyllic retirement community, a starry-eyed nurse becomes entangled with her mysterious patient.
Rock Springs
Dir. Vera Miao
After the death of her father, a grieving young girl moves to an isolated house in a new town with her mother and grandmother, only to discover there is something monstrous hidden in the town’s history and the woods behind their new home.
Take Me Home
Dir. Liz Sargent
Anna, a 38-year-old Korean adoptee with a cognitive disability, cares for her aging parents in a fragile balance of meeting one another’s needs. When a Florida heat wave shatters their family and Anna’s routine, her future is uncertain until she creates a world where she can thrive.
The Best Summer
Dir. Tamra Davis
Immersive POV camera footage reveals electric performances, candid interviews, and intimate backstage life with Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Pavement, Rancid, Beck, The Amps, and Bikini Kill — an all-access view inside an era-defining moment in music.
The Friend’s House is Here
Dir. Hossein Keshavarz, Maryam Ataei
In Tehran’s underground art scene, two young women build a blissful world of freedom and sisterhood. But when their creative circle is exposed, they must fight to save each other.
The Huntress
Dir. Suzanne Andrews Correa
In the border city of Juárez, Mexico, where violence against women is perpetrated with impunity, an unlikely defender emerges with a desperate call for change. Inspired by true events.
The Oldest Person in the World
Dir. Sam Green
A decade-long global journey chronicles the ever-changing record holders of the title of oldest person alive. What begins as a portrait of longevity becomes a meditation on the passage of time, the randomness of fate, and the joy and profound human experience of being alive.
zi
Dir. Kogonada
In Hong Kong, a young woman haunted by visions of her future self meets a stranger who changes the course of her night — and possibly her life.