Many of the year’s most talked-about films premiere in the mountains of Utah in late January at the Sundance Film Festival. The festival is also a fantastic place for discovering new voices and emerging storytellers, as well as catching up with those who made a huge impact at the festival previously. Some of the films we’re anticipating most this year are from filmmakers whose debut features premiered at Sundance, and they are now returning with something brand new.
If you’re looking to get a feel for the films we’re anticipating the most as the 34th Sundance Film Festival gets underway, here are a few to put on your radar:
Bad Hair (pictured above)
Who: Justin Simien (Director), Lena Waithe, Vanessa Williams, Michelle Hurd
What You Should Know: One of the more memorable Sundance premieres in recent years that was Justin Simien’s Dear White People. The 2014 social satire featured the debut of Tessa Thompson, and it also went on to inspire a successful TV show. Now, Simien is back at Sundance with his follow-up feature, a genre film called Bad Hair, about a woman in the late-‘80s who gets a new weave to help further her career in music television only to learn that the weave may have a mind of its own.
Wendy
Who: Behn Zeitlin (Director)
What You Should Know: When it comes to memorable Sundance premieres, not many top the debut of 2012’s Beasts of the Southern Wild. That film, about the relationship an ailing father has with his daughter as their Bayou community begins to disappear, was met with a raucous reception, thanks to its startling original storytelling and impactful music. It’s been a minute, but Beasts director Benh Zeitlin is making his triumphant return to the festival this year with his follow-up to his 2012 Oscar contender, Wendy. Very much in line visually and tonally with Beasts, Wendy presents a unique spin on the Peter Pan story by focusing on Wendy, not Pan, and the journey she goes on upon becoming stuck on a mysterious island where people do not age. Additionally, like Beasts, its cast of unknown actors will only help deepen the story’s authenticity.
Wendy is out February 28 in limited release.
Possessor
Who: Brandon Cronenberg (Director), Jennifer Jason Leigh, Andrea Riseborough, Sean Bean
What You Should Know: With his 2012 film Antiviral, Brandon Cronenberg – son of David Cronenberg – more than proved that gnarly genre filmmaking most certainly runs in the family. Cronenberg visits Sundance for the first time with his feature follow-up to Antiviral, Possessor, which sounds very rad. It’s about an organization that uses brain-implant technology to inhabit someone’s mind and force them to commit murders. Things take a turn for the even weirder when one of the agents tasked with infiltrating brains begins to lose herself in the minds of others.
McMillion$
Who: James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte (Directors)
What You Should Know: Remember the McDonald’s Monopoly game? It was a fast-food competition for the ages, and a game that took the country by storm. It was also a game that a group of people managed to use to defraud McDonald’s out of millions of dollars by skillfully gaming the game within a game. As one of the most anticipated documentaries premiering at Sundance this year (especially for the folks who remember the game well and played it back in the late-90s), McMillion$ is sure to present another fascinating, often amusing but unfortunate story about the consequences of gaming the system.
Zola
Who: Janicza Bravo (Director), Riley Keough, Colman Domingo, Nicholas Braun
What You Should Know: Based on an epic tweet thread (yes, a 148-tweet thread, to be exact), Zola follows a stripper named Zola who meets a woman in a Hooters and proceeds to go on insane road trip that involves sex, murder and all kinds of other nefarious activities. Early buzz is very strong for what looks to be a wildly unique story featuring characters so brazenly over-the-top, you can’t believe it all really happened.
40-Year-Old Version
Who: Radha Blank (Director, Star)
What You Should Know: While its title is similar to that of the Judd Apatow-directed comedy classic, this story is very different from that one. In 40-Year-Old Version, a down-on-her-luck New York playwright looks to reinvent her creative career by becoming a rapper at 40 years old. What we love about this story is that it is written, directed, produced by and starring Radha Blank, offering a bold, singular take from an emerging artist who can do it all.
Promising Young Woman
Who: Emerald Fennell (Director), Carey Mulligan, Bo Burnham, Laverne Cox
What You Should Know: As one of several #MeToo-inspired films screening at this year’s festival, Promising Young Woman stars Carey Mulligan as a woman who uses a past traumatizing event as a means to exact bloody revenge upon seedy men who approach her with less than honorable intentions.
Promising Young Woman is out April 17 in limited relase.
Nine Days
Who: Edson Oda (Director), Winston Duke, Zazie Beetz, Tony Hale, Benedict Wong
What You Should Know: Featuring the feature directorial debut of Edson Oda, Nine Days teases a fascinating story about a man not of this world who interviews prospective souls for an opportunity to be born into our world. We love a story that takes narrative risks like this one, and it’ll also be a nice chance to see more from emerging actors like Winston Duke (Black Panther, Us) and Zazie Beetz (Deadpool 2, Joker).
Kajillionaire
Who: Miranda July (Director), Evan Rachel Wood, Debra Winger, Gina Rodriguez
What You Should Know: It’s been several years since Miranda July debuted a new feature film at Sundance, and she is back this year with what may be her most accessible film yet. Starring Evan Rachel Wood, Debra Winger and Gina Rodriguez, the film follows a family of con artists planning a heist who find their lives interrupted when a newcomer is brought in on the scheme.
Four Good Days
Who: Rodrigo Garcia (Director), Glenn Close, Mila Kunis
What You Should Know: Glenn Close looks to make a return to the awards conversation with her portrayal as a mother tasked with helping her opioid-addicted daughter (Mila Kunis) get through four crucial days of recovery. Many feel Close was robbed of an Oscar for her performance in The Wife – could another tricky family drama put her back in the race in search of her first Oscar win?
Jumbo
Who: Zoé Wittock (Director), Noémie Merlant
What You Should Know: In one of the more freakishly amusing stories featured in a film at this year's festival, Jumbo follows a woman searching for love who finds it in a very unlikely place: a Tilt-A-Whirl ride. Yes, this is very much a film about a girl who falls head over heels for an amusement park ride, and how can we not anticipate a story as bizarre as this one? We're also all-in because it stars Noémie Merlant from Portrait of a Lady on Fire and features the directorial debut of Zoé Wittock, who no doubt deserves kudos for finding humor and heart in such an odd subject matter.
The Nest
Who: Sean Durkin (Director), Jude Law, Carrie Coon
What You Should Know: The last time director Sean Durkin had a feature film at Sundance, it was his debut hit, 2011’s Martha Marcy May Marlene. That film earned Durkin a directing award at the festival, and now he is returning with his next feature: The Nest. Set in the 1980s, the film follows a married couple (Jude Law and Carrie Coon) whose move to an isolated manor in England seemingly gives the family everything they want… until, that is, they no longer know what they want. Considering Durkin’s previous film featured a masterclass in the slow burn, we expect a similar, nuanced style in his latest drama.
Downhill
Who: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (Directors), Will Ferrell, Julia Louis-Dreyfus
What You Should Know: One of the more high-profile films premiering at Sundance this year is Downhill, the English-language remake of the popular 2014 foreign-language film, Force Majeure. Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus star as a married couple vacationing in the Alps with their family. When a devastating avalanche hits, controversy strikes the family when the husband is accused of saving himself before his loved ones. That one event creates a downward spiral the family may never recover from.
Downhill is out February 14 in limited release.
The 2020 Sundance Film Festival runs through the beginning of February. We will be back throughout the fest with updates on the films. Continue to follow Fandango on social media for more.
