After two consecutive years of having Covid push their in-person film festival online, Sundance Film Festival is back with a full slate of in-person programming in the resort town of Park City with additional screenings in Salt Lake City. After watching from their couches, film lovers, journalists, and critics are flocking to the mountain ski area to kick the year off with a huge array of new feature films.

But never fear! The success of the last two years of bringing the festival online — one of the closest facsimiles of a “real festival experience” of the many many virtual formats — seems to have drastically shifted Sundance’s strategy. Almost everything at this year’s event will be available for ticketed online viewing a couple of days after its in-person premiere. Just like a theatrical showing, though, tickets are limited.

So even if you don’t have time to navigate chilly weather, flights, and lodging, the pandemic experience’s democratization of one of the biggest annual film events has made it so that anyone in the US can relatively easily get themselves online, see what looks good, grab a ticket, and experience the bustling world of independent film.  The whole program is online, sortable, and filterable by venue, competition/section, and online vs. in person. Finally, most passes are sold out, but individual tickets are still available for a lot of films (including some high profile premieres). They run $20 each online and $25 for in person and guarantee that you’ll have a “spot” at that film’s showing. 

Opening night is tonight in Utah with online feature films beginning on January 24th. I’m going to be doing a bit of each this year, leaving tomorrow with a suitcase full of sweaters and snow gear. At the moment, I have handful of picks from the premieres section at the top of my list:

• Magazine Dreams Elijah Bynum’s story of an amateur bodybuilder pushing beyond limits to find success
• Eileen, starring Thomasin McKenzie as a prison guard who becomes enchanted by an “intoxicating woman” (Anne Hathaway) newly hired at the institution
• Cat Person – Booksmart co-writer Susanna Fogel’s adaptation of the viral New Yorker story starring Emilia Jones and Nicholas “Cousin Greg” Braun from Succession.
• Shortcomings – Randall Park’s director debut is a comedy adapted by Adrian Tomine from his graphic novel of the same title centered on twenty somethings figuring themselves out 
• You Hurt My Feelings – Nicole Holofcener pairs with Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Sold. Oh, it’s about what happens when a novelist hears her ‘supportive’ husband’s honest opinion of her new memoir. Double sold.
• Passages – director Ira Sachs always quietly wows. Here he goes to Paris and dives into a rainbow of sexuality and emotional attractions and abuses among a vibrant queer arts scene with the likes of Franz Rogowsk, Adèle Exarchopoulos, and Ben Whishaw.
• Landscape with Invisible Hand, about teenagers trying to save the earth in the aftermath of an alien invasion, doesn’t sound exactly by speed, but it’s by Corey Finley whose first two features (Thoroughbreds and Bad Education) were right up my alley.
• All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt is the director debut of Raven Jackson, but it comes with the “Barry Jenkins as Producer” seal of approval that rockets it to prime consideration (it worked for Aftersun why not this expressionist journey and ode to connection?)
• Fairyland, an adaptation of Alysa Abbott’s 2013 memoir about growing up in San Francisco’s counter-cultural scene in the 1970s and 80s counts Sofia Coppola among its producers and Scoot McNairy and Emilia Jones among its primary cast. I’m in.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s also a special presentation of a Steph Curry doc and a hot-off-the-presses “secret” documentary about Bret “I Like Beer” Kavanaugh that was just announced. I’m sure the festival is packed with all sorts of surprises and discoveries. We’ll update as the festival unfolds with news and quick reviews, but please feel free to send tips (or party invites!).