I began coming to the Sundance Movie Pageant in 1987 (earlier than it adopted its closing identify) and returned yearly that an outlet was prepared to ship me. Again in my LA Weekly days, I used to be chronicling the rise of the impartial movie motion launched by Steven Soderbergh’s “Intercourse, Lies, and Videotape” in 1989. I interviewed Robert Redford sufficient that he’d acknowledge me on the pageant. He knew I used to be carrying his message.
Sundance has been very important to the well being of the general movie trade for 40 years. And it’ll proceed to be when it reinvents itself in Boulder, Colorado.
Within the final days of the 2026 pageant, numerous legacy applications celebrated the good movies of the previous, from “Half Nelson” and “Little Miss Sunshine” to “Mysterious Pores and skin,” whose filmmaker Gregg Araki was again on the pageant with new movie “I Need Your Intercourse.”
And it’s not day by day you get requested to hitch a favourite filmmaker to do operating commentary on their most up-to-date movie, on this case Richard Linklater’s “New wave,” which simply landed 10 nominations at France’s César awards. That was a pleasure.
The ultimate fruits occasion occurred Friday afternoon, organized by pageant director Eugene Hernandez and senior programmer John Nein, the place pageant veterans from documentarian Daybreak Porter and producer Effie Brown to filmmakers Jared Hess and more moderen Sundance breakout Celine Music (“Previous Lives”) shared their tales. I additionally went up on stage, sporting my Pendleton hat.
“We’re all in a wistful temper this 12 months,” stated Linklater, who introduced many movies to Sundance, together with “Slacker,” “Earlier than Dawn,” and “Boyhood.” “Bob’s (Redford) not with us any longer. The pageant is transferring to Colorado, however our trade is predicated on transformation… We’re a hermit crab trade. Clearly, you go the place you may flourish and survive, and we’ve at all times completed this. The movie trade moved largely from New Jersey to Southern California. Why? As a result of there was extra sunshine. The movie shares again then required a number of publicity. You want a number of mild. They had been gradual. And so it’s at all times sensible concerns. We’ve to be pragmatic to outlive.”
He added, “So I need us to suppose optimistically, that’s definitely how Bob would strategy it. For all his film star standing, Bob was an outsider. He held Hollywood at arm’s size. He was an impartial spirit. Clearly, he gave a lot. There’s not one different particular person within the historical past of our medium that has completed extra for extra individuals.”
Within the early years of Sundance, no person knew something concerning the films upfront past what was in this system. There was nothing to lookup. I keep in mind fortunately sitting at the back of the Vacation Village Cinemas with my favourite pageant buddy, the late nice distributor Bingham Ray. We inhaled 4 or 5 films a day, starting from terrible to implausible. It was about discovering that diamond within the tough. He was monitoring the films to purchase, and I used to be monitoring all of the information. Sundance has at all times been about discovery.
That’s what I keep in mind most vividly: the moments when a pageant viewers knew that somebody was on their approach to nice issues.
Tilda Swinton in Sally Potter’s “Orlando” and Sam Rockwell in Alexandre Rockwell’s “Within the Soup” in 1992. Ashley Judd in Victor Nunez’s “Ruby in Paradise” in 1993. Someway, each New York Occasions critic Janet Maslin and I talked our means into sitting on the ground of the Vacation for Nicole Holofcener’s debut movie “Strolling and Speaking” in 1996. Kerry Washington broke out in DeMane Davis’ “The Raise” in 2001. Jennifer Lawrence launched her profession at age 19 in Debra Granik’s “Winter’s Bone” in 2010, which earned 4 Oscar nominations, together with Greatest Image and Actress. And Benh Zeitlin got here out of New Orleans to blow individuals’s gaskets with “Beasts of the Southern Wild” in 2012, winding up with 4 Oscar nods, together with Greatest Image, Director, and Main Actress (Quvenzhané Wallis).
In 2001, Todd Discipline’s debut characteristic, household drama “Within the Bed room,” starring Sissy Spacek and Tom Wilkinson, took Sundance by storm. I noticed Discipline strolling down Primary Road and requested him to sit down down with me then and there. We ducked right into a restaurant sales space. It was his first-ever press interview. One of many nice boons of Sundance was having the ability to establish individuals, uncover who they’re, earlier than all of the yes-people have turned their heads.
The previous actor turned out to be a kind of individuals who put on their feelings on their sleeves. He cried quite a bit, thanking his mentor Stanley Kubrick. Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax picked up the movie. Discipline knew Tom Cruise and requested him methods to deal with Harvey Scissorhands. Cruise advised him to let the mogul minimize the movie after which ask to check each cuts. Inevitably, Discipline’s would prevail. And so it did. His minimize yielded 5 Oscar nominations, greater than any movie to premiere at Sundance till “Treasured” in 2009. It was the primary Sundance movie to be nominated for Greatest Image. It grossed $42 million worldwide.
Notably, after all, Bay Space filmmaker Ryan Coogler emerged from the Sundance labs with “Fruitvale Station” (2013), starring Michael B. Jordan. Each are nominated for Oscars this 12 months for “Sinners.” There, Coogler met this 12 months’s Oscar nominee Chloé Zhao (“Hamnet”), who was workshopping her debut movie “Songs My Brothers Taught Me.” They’ve been shut buddies ever since.
Additionally nominated this 12 months is Paul Thomas Anderson (“One Battle After One other”), whom Michelle Satter lured to the labs after seeing one in all his shorts. There, he workshopped his debut characteristic “Exhausting Eight” (1996). (One observe: whereas the pageant is transferring to Boulder, Colorado, for the 2027 iteration, the labs will keep in Utah.)
All these individuals went on to storied careers. From the beginning, Sundance has fed the movie trade, together with Hollywood. That’s why all of the brokers, managers, producers, executives, and casting brokers present up, not simply to discover a spot at John Sloss’ Monday evening Cinetic celebration, however to feed and nourish their cinephile souls and discover expertise.
Using the impartial wave was a heady expertise. (Right here’s IndieWire’s checklist of the high 30 Sundance films.) Inevitably, the ’80s become the ’90s and the aughts and introduced the rise of swag suites, clogged Primary Road site visitors, and an excessive amount of branding. The market grew to become the driving force of the pageant. What was going to promote, and for the way a lot? (Listed below are a number of the largest gross sales ever.)
In 2021, Apple acquired eventual Greatest Image Oscar-winner “CODA” for over $25 million, breaking the $17.5 million document paid by Neon/Hulu for “Palm Springs” in 2020 and Searchlight for “The Start of a Nation” in 2016, which was derailed on the field workplace by director Nate Parker’s resurfaced sexual assault allegations.
Inevitably, Sundance peaked with the indie market after which, hobbled by the pandemic, declined in affect because the market slowed means down.
In 2025, just one Sundance-premiered movie grossed greater than $2.5 million within the U.S./Canada. That stated, all 5 Oscar-nominated documentaries debuted at Sundance final 12 months, as did nominated narratives “Prepare Goals” and “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” (See our 12 picks for Oscar contenders this 12 months.) Amongst this 12 months’s discoveries: Dramatic viewers and jury prize winner “Josephine,” from breakout auteur Beth de Araújo, introducing Mason Reeves, and “The Historical past of Concrete” rookie characteristic director John Wilson. Sundance 2026 notched one old style bidding battle, for Olivia Wilde’s intercourse comedy “The Invite,” which A24 landed for greater than $10 million.
I felt pangs as I stated farewell to Park Metropolis, taking the town bus previous many locations the place I’d stayed, the Park Metropolis ski resort, the Library, the 7-11, the Yarrow, the Vacation, and The Ray. It was bizarre to do back-to-back screenings on the Eccles and take the shortcut again to the Sheraton, figuring out it was my final time. However I stay up for Boulder, the place we’ll all proceed to find the good skills who feed our trade.
Sundance will construct one thing new and completely different, however primarily the identical — as a result of that’s what Hollywood must survive.