Photo: Courtesy of Sundance Institute | Photo by The Outrun Film Ltd – Roy Imer.
The first major film festival of the year—Sundance, which takes over Utah’s Park City annually and, this time around, will run from January 18 to 28—often yields some of the best releases of the next 12 months. On the roster for the 2024 edition? A haunting mystery from Steven Soderbergh, a Saoirse Ronan-led addiction drama, and multiple new releases from Sundance regulars Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg. These are the 10 films you need to look out for.
Love Lies Bleeding
Rose Glass’s follow-up to the haunting Saint Maud? This electrifying drama, half a hair-raising thriller and half a rambunctious love story, which casts Kristen Stewart as a reclusive gym manager who falls for an ambitious bodybuilder (Katy O’Brian) before the former’s criminal family pulls the pair into their perilous orbit.
Exhibiting Forgiveness
The renowned artist and filmmaker Titus Kaphar makes his feature debut with this soulful tale of an art world star (André Holland) attempting to process his traumatic childhood through painting. His efforts are derailed, though, when his estranged father, a recovering addict, pays him an unexpected visit. Also lending support are Andra Day and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.
Presence
Lucy Liu and Julia Fox are among the eclectic ensemble taking center stage in this spine-chiller from Steven Soderbergh, which offers a fresh and invigorating take on a well-worn horror trope: the story of a family that moves into a new home and becomes convinced that they’re not alone.
Rob Peace
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, Jeff Hobbs’s heartbreaking biography of the titular Black man (Jay Will) who grew up impoverished in New Jersey, went on to study at Yale University on a scholarship, but perished at the age of 30 in a drug-related shooting, is vividly brought to life by Chiwetel Ejiofor. The director plays the promising young man’s mercurial father, too, alongside the likes of Mary J. Blige and Camila Cabello.
The Outrun
Saoirse Ronan and Paapa Essiedu lead Nora Fingscheidt’s moving addiction saga, an adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s eye-opening memoir, which follows a young woman who embarks on the road to recovery following a devastating downward spiral, leaving London behind for her childhood home: Scotland’s wild, windswept Orkney Islands.
A Real Pain
A delicate, melancholic buddy comedy starring Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg, and directed by the latter, this poignant drama tracks two cousins who reunite for a heritage tour through Poland, keen to discover more about their own family history, grapple with the legacy of World War II, and consider the impact of intergenerational trauma.
Sasquatch Sunset
Jesse Eisenberg also features in this zany gem, from David and Nathan Zellner, as a hairy, grunting Sasquatch—the mythical creature also known as Bigfoot—opposite the always excellent Riley Keough. Bold and inventive, this madcap romp is sure to be like nothing you’ve ever seen before.
Handling the Undead
If you loved The Worst Person in The World, don’t miss Thea Hvistendahl’s hallucinatory retelling of John Ajvide Lindqvist’s atmospheric page-turner, in which the former’s leads, the captivating Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie, team up once more. It opens in Oslo, on a hot summer day when the newly dead, with no explanation, suddenly begin to rise again.
Love Me
Another romance spearheaded by festival favorite Kristen Stewart—this time opposite Steven Yeun—Sam and Andy Zuchero’s futuristic yarn is unconventional, to say the least: the account of a buoy and an orbiting satellite which meet online and fall in love, long after the extinction of humanity, and take on different physical forms across their billion-year courtship. It doesn’t get more Sundance than that.
Freaky Tales
Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Mississippi Grind, Half Nelson) tell four interconnected stories set in 1987 Oakland—encompassing teen punks, NBA All-Stars, and an explosive rap duo—in this fitting tribute to the countercultural spirit of both the region and the era. Set to appear? Everyone from Pedro Pascal and Dominique Thorne to Ben Mendelsohn, Normani, and the late, great Angus Cloud.
This article was originally published on Vogue.com.
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