Broken English
(2025 | United Kingdom | Jane Pollard & Iain Forsyth | 99 minutes)

To interrogate the breadth and depth of more than a half century of recording artist and pop celebrity Marianne Faithfull’s time in the public eye, Broken English re-imagines the music documentary’s tired form as a retro-futuristic “Department of Not Forgetting” (which is emphatically different from “remembering”). Presided over by Tilda Swinton in a control room on an enigmatic soundstage, the film/production creates a series of fragmented theatrical indulgences like cuts to a podcast-style debate table and a studio where admirers ranging from Beth Orton to Courtney Love and Thurston Moore perform cover versions. The apparatus of artifice is an odd yet admirable choice that doesn’t entirely cohere, even as it allows a tour through the breadth of her life and prolific career beyond the narrow frame of her relationship with Mick Jagger, sex, and drugs. However, its existence is validated by allowing us to watch a still clever-witted Marianne Faithful in her last days on earth reacting to clips George Mackay shows her on an old-timey television. It’s an effect that recalls Jordan and that iPad in the Last Dance, except this one also ends with her final recorded performance, alongside Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. It’s a moving and appropriately unconventional coda to an exceptional public life.

Rather than a Q&A, the screening ended with a surprise concert from Rufus Wainwright and Nora Jones, a fittingly magical end to my various visits to the Eccles theater as Sundance bids farewell to Park City.

Broken English played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the Spotlight program.

Closure
(2026 | Poland | Michał Marczak | 108 min)

With striking immediacy and spellbinding cinematography, captures the enormity of a Polish father’s grief in the wake of a teenage son’s disappearance and the vast impossibility of his yearslong steadfast search of the Vistula riverbanks for him. A major documentary achievement; looks and feels like a narrative thanks to Michał Marczak’s facility as director and camera operator.

Closure played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition. It is available for online viewing from January 29-February 1.

Filipiñana
(2026 | Singapore, UK, Philippines, France, Netherlands | Rafael Manuel | 100 minutes)

An oppressively hot day on a purgatorial golf course in the Philippines plays out with the languid half-lobotomized pacing of a waking dream. The course is sparsely populated, primarily by Chinese tourists and throughout the day groundskeeping crews toil to remove and replace the constantly dying pine trees that bring prestige but are poorly suited to the ecosystem.

Amid the somnambulant cinematography, we follow two women at opposite ends of a power spectrum who nevertheless convene on similar revelations. A smartly-dressed junior caddy (Jorrybell Agoto) plucked from the drudgery of setting golf balls on driving range tees is tasked with an errand to return a lost golf club to the golf club’s president. Elsewhere, a twenty something niece has returned from abroad to play the links with her uncle who uses the outing to recruit her to remain and work for his company. As each woman traverses their day, an unspecified sinister quality pervades the artificiality of the setting. The camerawork and pacing are very effective at conveying a dissociative and uncanny mood, but the film’s resistance to plot in favor of creepy observations drains much of the power from the final scenes. Rather than being shocked awake by the images, I was more relieved that the nightmare had reached its end.

Filipiñana played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. It is available online from January 29 to February 1.

The Friend’s House is Here
(2026 | US, Iran | Hossein Keshavarz & Maryam Ataei | 97 minutes)

Filmed under-the-radar with the immediacy occasioned by its requisite verite-style cinematography of long interrupted takes, a rare portrait of contemporary life in Iran. Refreshingly, rather than a strife or trauma narrative, Keshavarz and Ataei’s drama is weighted toward a mostly a carefree immersion into the vibrant lives of two young independent female artists doing creative work in the city (Mahshad Bahram and Mana Hana, both excellent). One is a struggling theater director producing plays in which non-conforming artists are disappeared; the other is a dancer whose covert performances in front of important landmarks have garnered social media fame and the possibility to emigrate.

We’re embedded in textures of their lives — boring jobs at galleries, flourishing romances, lively dinner parties — to the extent that it’s easy to forget about the government’s looming power. Aside from a rare intrusion like a stranger chiding them for showing their hair, their daily life could be anywhere. Eventually, though, life imitates their underground art, bringing the levity to a screeching halt, the real world into sharper focus, and imposing a facile bit of schematic dramatic tension over the final act. The diversion doesn’t entirely dampen the mood, instead showing the richness of the tapestry beyond their urban enclave, the stakes of following one’s passions, and the necessity of building a resilient and thriving community despite the circumstances of power.

The Friend’s House is Here played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the US Dramatic Competition. It is available online from January 29 to February 1.

The Gallerist
(2025 | USA | Cathy Yan | 88 minutes)

Executes about as well as possible on the extremely on-the-nose premise of skewering art influencers by commodifying a corpse, mutating and amplifying the central joke without ever overstaying its welcome. Amid the metamorphosis from panic to opportunity that ensues when a slip-and-fall goes horribly awry, is a very funny Natalie Portman, clad in a modernized Warholian getup and spinning plates as the instigator at the center of it all.

The Gallerist played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

Ghost in the Machine
(2026 | USA | Valerie Veatch | 110 minutes)

Over eight sober chapters populated by clips and academics interviewed via high-resolution Zoom, Valerie Veatch’s crisply assembled documentary exposes the most pernicious lies at the core of the Artificial Intelligence movement. Opening with a flashback to a previous decade’s experiment with an chatbot gone rogue on the service then known as Twitter (Microsoft had the decency to unplug the violent racist and sexist bot within a day; simpler times), the film flashes back to the earliest foundations of what would become a dangerous obfuscating catchall marketing term.

Unsurprisingly given where it went, much of the fundamentals are grounded in statistics that were motivated by eugenics and their narrow racist conceptions of intelligence to support self-serving notions of euro-centric male superiority. From the facile framework of cognition as quantifiable and optimizable came the conception of the brain as a machine that could be replicated and surpassed by circuitry. What ultimately emerges is a picture of a techno-fascist cult of belief, a race to spend vast sums of money to fuel growth, and a covert reliance on the global poor to wrangle the technology forward. But the most depressing part is that nowhere in the array of clips from tech company leaders touting the impending emergence of “artificial general intelligence” do any of these acolytes ever bother to say why we should want this, let alone how it possibly justifies the environmental or societal consequences, beyond a scheme to make money and concentrate power.

Very depressing stuff with little occasion for hope!

Ghost in the Machine played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the NEXT section. It is available online from January 29 to February 1.

Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!
(2026 | USA | Josef Kubota Wladyka | 122 minutes)

When an amateur ballroom dancer’s husband dies unexpectedly at a competition in Tokyo, it takes quite a journey for her to get her groove back. Aside from the shock of his demise, different cultural traditions between her Japanese heritage and his Mexican family surrounding death further complicates the grieving process. The film approaches this complex, harrowing, and confusing period of letting go with wild swings from grounded observations of real life (new Latin lovers, the concept of open marriages) to breaks of extreme whimsy (giant death birds, spontaneous breaks into fantastical dance sequences).

Broken into chapters spanning a year in her life as a newly widowed middle-aged woman, the portrait of healing is surprisingly light on its feet. Surrounded by good friends who encourage her to return to ballroom dancing and kept there by infatuation with a handsome new instructor, the film immerses us into a vivacious and intriguing world. With a winning central performance from Rinko Kikuchi in the title role and an entertaining ensemble of friends, these juxtapositions are mostly successful even if the smidge overlong running time threatens to overstay its welcome.

Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the US Dramatic Competition. It is available online from January 29 to February 1.

Hanging by a Wire
(2026 | US, UK, Pakistan | Mohammed Ali Naqvi | 77 min)

It takes a village of personalities to rescue eight passengers dangling nearly thousand perilous feet above a remote Pakistani valley in a cable car, and one action-styled documentary to make you question whether to ever set foot in a gondola again.

Hanging by a Wire played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Documentary Competition. It is available for online viewing from January 29-February 1.

The History of Concrete
(2026 | USA | John Wilson | 101 min)

John Wilson’s first feature-length documentary could have been titled How To Make A Movie With John Wilson. Adrift and uncertain about what to do after closing the book on making multiple seasons of television for HBO (and seeing the royalty checks dwindle to single digits), he finds himself looking at the world around him in search of his next project.

The History of Concrete played as an official selection of the Premieres Section at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

To Hold A Mountain
(2026 | Serbia, France, Montenegro, Slovenia, Croatia | Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić | 105 minutes)

Wolves & bears might threaten her flocks, but a government proposal to develop a NATO military training ground in the mountains where they graze each summer imperils a pastoral way of life and the sanctity of mountain itself. Although the documentary was motivated by the eco-protest movement and defiance of the redevelopment plan led by an inspirational Gara Jovanović, Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić’s intimate documentary finds itself drawn to the rhythms of daily life between mother and daughter (Nada Stanišić) as they nestle into the high Montenegrin pastures each spring alongside cows, sheep, and oh so many adorable kittens. There, the story of environmental disruption parallels a personal story of families disrupted by misogynistic violence and healed by maternal strength. A stirring and poetic portrait of a resilient woman’s yearslong pursuit to preserve the bonds of family, nature, and a connection to a traditional life.

To Hold a Mountain played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. It will be available to view online from January 29-February 1.

I Want Your Sex
(2025 | USA | Gregg Araki | 90 min)

Maybe the most transgressive outcome for a new Gregg Araki movie set in the avant garde art world with Olivia Wilde as a dom artist/gallery boss to Cooper Hoffman’s naive sub/low-level assistant is for it to be extremely dull and cliche with almost nothing at all original to say? Hoffman manages to find something approximating a real person in his character, but he’s trapped in an oddly tedious slog alongside an ensemble of plastic caricatures spouting tired opinions on intergenerational conflicts and sexual politics. Hard to tell whether Araki’s missed a beat or doing third-order satire of straight culture, but either way, it’s rough sledding that’s not helped by being framed as a series of flashbacks in a deadly dull interrogation.

I Want Your Sex played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

The Incomer
(2026 | United Kingdom | Louis Paxton | 103 min)

Mythology and modernity collide when a mainland bureaucrat played by Domhnall Gleeson is tasked with evicting a pair of isolated adult siblings from the island where they’ve survived their entire lives. There are twinges of darkness, but a sweet blend of Scottish folklore collide with inherent humor of out-of-touch isolation. Excellent bird costumes, strong performances, and a core sweetness make for a crowd-pleasing modern storybook comedy.

The Incomer played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. It is available for online viewing from January 29-February 1.

Josephine
(2026 | USA | Beth de Araújo | 120 min)

After a young girl witnesses a violent assault in Golden Gate Park, her parents, school, and society seem uniquely unprepared to foster her healing as the ghost of the crime lingers. With an incredible debut performance from Mason Reeves (who holds her own against the likes of Gemma Chan and Channing Tatum as her parents), immersive cinematography, and sure-handed direction, the film is a potent, unique, and often infuriating portrayal of trauma from a child’s eye perspective.

Josephine played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. It will be available to view online from January 29-February 1.

Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie
(2025 | USA | Alex Gibney | 107 minutes)

Benefiting from the author’s wry, insightful prose from his memoir and his wife’s intimate cinematography filmed in the aftermath of the savage attack, Alex Gibney stitches a potent biography of the exceptional life and remarkable recovery of one of our greatest writers. Describing himself as controversial for the wrong reasons, the film sets up the brutal assassination attempt in the context of the long-ago controversy surrounding the publication of The Satanic Verses, the author’s years under government protection, and his eventual return to public life. A highly cinephilic documentary, a library of startlingly relevant classic film clips accompanies Rushdie’s recollections of his life before and after it was savagely divided by a would-be assassin’s blade. Gibney strategically saves the most stunning footage for last, depicting the Chautauqua attack in a breathtaking finale that speaks to the best and worst of humanity and makes a potent argument for the necessity of free expression.

Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

The Last First: Winter K2
(2026 | USA / United Kingdom | Amir Bar-Lev | 98 min)

“No amount of clear-eyed filmmaking and breathtaking footage of the world’s most dangerous mountain could ever explain to me the madness that poisons the human mind to so desperately covet being the first* to reach a summit.” — me, a person who traveled to the mountains and found himself dismissing the venal aspirations of alpine athletes while also sprinting along a chilly sidewalk to be among the first thousand people to watch a Charli xcx mockumentary.

The Last First: K2 Winter played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

Leviticus
(2026 | Australia | Adrian Chiarella | 88 min)

the metaphors run hot and heavy in this down under horror story about the trauma of gay awakenings. Still, small abandoned conservative towns, spooky religion, and the overwhelming potency of teenage lust remain creepily effective tools when deployed this stylishly.

The Moment played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the Midnight program.

The Moment
(2025 | USA | Aidan Zamiri | 103 min)

In which the only rational response to sudden intense fame is to fictionalize a version even more absurd to find some glancing approximation of the honest truth. An actually funny mockumentary that captures the horrors of fame, indulgence of ego, & capitulation to capitalism.

The Moment played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

Nuisance Bear
(2026 | USA/Canada | Gabriela Osio Vanden & Jack Weisman | 90 minutes)

Once majestic emperors of the ice, these regal charismatic animals now find themselves dumpster diving scavengers and photographic subjects for phalanxes of tourists in the long stretches without a frozen sea. Magnificently filmed with a score by Cristobal Tapia de Veer, narration from an Inuit elder, the story of one adolescent bear’s journey between Manitoba and Nunavut paints a story of colonialism, relocation, and the growing schism between conservation and tradition that’s mirrored in both the human and animal worlds.

Nuisance Bear played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Documentary Competition. It will be available to view online from January 29-February 1.

The Only Living Pickpocket in New York
(2025 | USA | Noah Segan | 88 minutes)

John Turturro amiably ambles his way through the streets and subways of New York City in this tactile character study of a dirtbag who likes to think of himself as having a heart of gold despite making his meager living by taking valuables from others. During a couple days in the life of a petty criminal, we follow a man left behind by technology from the Bronx to Chinatown as he goes about his trade. I only wish that the film had enough faith in its great supporting cast (Steve Buscemi, Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, and Will Price) to tell a smaller scale story and trusting the audience to understand complex characters without heavy-handed signifiers. Like its titular character, though, it stumbles by making too many swings to raise the dramatic stakes instead of contenting itself in more comfortable territory.

The Only Living Pickpocket in New York played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

The Weight
(2026 | Germany/USA | Padraic McKinley | 112 minutes)

At every turn, this Depression-era caper about prisoners tasked with moving a bunch of gold through Oregon before FDR reclaims it all, finds new and absurd ways to complicate itself. From over-dramatic child acting, callous evictions, draconian punishments, wily wardens, crumbling infrastructure, deep woods bandits, logging hazards, and pernicious greed, Padraic McKinley’s rip-roaring caper introduces new and often outlandish obstacles for Ethan Hawke’s clever father to solve through brains and brawn to get himself out of jail in time to save his daughter from the scourge of adoption.

Accompanied by an able cast that makes some welcome stretches to incorporate diverse casting, McKinley’s sure handed direction and Hawke’s committed performance in “the kind of movie they don’t make anymore” combine for a sort of alchemy that elevates this pulpy material into the rare wire of Extremely Dumb Yet Incredibly Satisfying. The programmer who introduced the film described it as a “Sundance Movie”, but I’d argue that it’s way too straightforwardly enjoyable and assuredly large scale to fall into that too-often derisive description. A very fun throwback.

The Weight played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the Premieres section.

zi
(2025 | USA | Kogonada | 99 minutes)

Kogonada is at his best when exploring vast urban spaces, the place of people within, and ephemeral gossamer strands connecting them. Less so when grafting a cryptic mystery atop it. Undoubtedly, there is incredible beauty in this sometimes frustrating collage which finds Michelle Mao as a prodigious violinist wandering the streets of Hong Kong as she seemingly experiences unsettling visions of her future self and fading memories of the past. Filmed last autumn as a hasty experimentation in the aftermath of a poorly-received big bold Hollywood production, the plot, however is some version of either withholding or unformed. Or perhaps, being untethered from reality is simply a natural reaction to being relentlessly followed around a city by a bewigged Haley Lu Richardson on the precipice of a dire neurological diagnosis?

zi played as an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the NEXT program. It will be available to view online from January 29-February 1.