Latest in Sundance

The 2021 Sundance Film Festival awards went off at a very fast clip tonight, in an hour’s time. Host Patton Oswalt — or as he billed himself, “Discount Giamatti” — kept the jokes flowing. Siân Heder’s Coda, which we first told you was swooped up by Apple with a rich $25 million bid, came up big. It won both the U.S…

The kind of story Sam Peckinpah might have been partial to in his quieter, Junior Bonner mode, Jockey is a little gem about an aging rider whose days on the racing circuit are nearing an end just as a youngster shows up who claims to be his son. The kind of timeless tale that could take place anywhere but is bolstered…

The following podcast contains spoilers about Warner Bros.’ Judas and the Black Messiah One of the features making it into the 2020-21 awards season thanks to the extended qualification period during the pandemic is Warner Bros.’ Judas and the Black Messiah about the FBI’s takedown of Fred Hampton, Chairman of the…

MetFilms has announced a series of distribution deals for the Holocaust documentary Misha and the Wolves which made its world premiere in the Sundance World Documentary competition on Sunday. The film, directed by Sam Hobkinson, follows a woman whose Holocaust memoir takes the world by storm. However, a fallout with…

In the half-century since the "adult" film industry emerged as an above-boards legal activity, precious few legit feature films set in that world have emerged that a wider public has found edifying; the great Boogie Nights and not much else. The new Swedish drama Pleasure, a first film from young Swedish director Ninja…

EXCLUSIVE: Sundance Film Festival comedy Together Together is heading to Canada via LevelFILM, which has struck a deal with the film’s North American distributor Bleecker Street. Written and directed by Nikole Beckwith, the film stars Ed Helms, Patti Harrison, Fred Melamed and Tig Notaro. Together Together follows…

Robin Wright takes on directorial and starring roles in Focus Features’ Land, which had its world premiere in the Premieres section of the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday. Wright is no stranger to being behind the camera having directed 10 episodes, including the series finale, of House of Cards, but for her feature…

NEON has made its second acquisition of the Sundance Film Festival with Jamila Wignot's Ailey, about dance legend Alvin Ailey. The film debuted at the festival yesterday in the U.S. Documentary Competition section. The documentary explores Ailey’s life and his connection to the present dance company that bears his…

The gripping Sundance documentary Misha and the Wolves, premiering at the festival today, possesses a fairy tale-like quality, beginning with its title. Those four words evoke ancient stories of children deep in the woods, threatened by menacing animals, as in Little Red Riding Hood. The similarities go further. The…

The presumed dead-and-buried practice of racial passing by light-skinned blacks in the United States decades ago is returned to center-stage in Passing, a delicate, sensitive, intentionally claustrophobic and not entirely limber directorial debut from the protean British stage performer Rebecca Hall. Based on the…

Officially a production of the Covid era—the end credits include such novel crew positions as "Covid compliance officer" and "Covid p.a."—On the Count of Three plays like a despairing, vaguely comedic twist on more than half-century-old race relations films such as The Defiant Ones and In the Heat of the Night, in…

Edgar Wright, the British director behind Shaun of the Dead and Baby Driver, is a big fan of Sparks, the enigmatic pop band known for hits such as This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us and When Do I Get To Sing 'My Way'. It's clear that The Sparks Brothers, the documentary that premieres today at the Sundance Film…