Sundance is holding its final edition in Utah — with in-person screenings kicking off in Park City and Salt Lake City running from Thursday, January 22 until Sunday, February 1, 2026. It’s the festival’s first year without founder Robert Redford and its last before packing up and rebuilding in Boulder, Colorado. By the looks of theatrical ticketing, it seems like there’s no shortage of film lovers, industry insiders, and filmmakers making one final trek to say farewell to the crowded ski mountain resort town.

For my part, I’ll be on the ground scurrying around the frozen tundra trying to catch as much as I can in person for the festival’s opening weekend. There are also a host of activations, events, and panels running around town from official festival conversations celebrating the event’s history to partners/sponsors convening creative juxtapositions like Hyatt hosting meditation, cocktails, and bingo or Chase serving up small bites alongside filmmaker conversations.

Some buzzworthy titles at the top of my list:

• The History of Concrete – John “How To” Wilson attempts to use the conventions of a Hallmark movie to tell the story of a building material
• The Moment – Charli XCX through the looking glass with a mockumentary about her own tour
• I Want Your Sex – Gregg Araki, back after more than a decade since his last feature, with Cooper Hoffman “pushed to the edge” by Olivia Wilde
• Leviticus – In the midnights program, gay teens face a common nightmare, falling in lust and being haunted by your crush.
• Wicker – Olivia Colman faces an increasingly common predicament, falling in lust with an Alexander Skarsgard woven from natural fibers
• Nuisance Bear – a Canadian bear confronts the universal horror of having to share a planet with humans
• Knife: the Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie – Celebrated documentarian Alex Gibney turns his lens to an author’s stabbing
• The Gallerist – Natalie Portman in a satire that finds her hoodwinking an influencer into buying a dead body in Miami, a scheme that sounds downright quaint for Art Basel
• zi – One can hope that this marks a return from Kogonada’s big bold maximalist journey to a his more meditative and contemplative roots in the liminal space between sci-fi and supernatural
• [… and, I’m kicking myself that my time in the mountains won’t be long enough to see] Antiheroine – at long last, Courtney Love in her own words

Not able to make it to Utah? Never fear! Despite last year’s Twinless debacle, the festival is maintaining its online component with all competition films playing online during the closing weekend (and competition winners getting extra screenings). Like theatrical presentations, the virtual screenings can and do sell out, so browse the schedule now and start programming your own Couchdance (January 29–Sunday, February 1, 2026).

We’ll be covering throughout the festival; so keep an eye on this page (and on our blue skies — @josh-c and @thesunbreak) for news, reactions, and short reviews.