Editor’s Note: We are updating this piece yearly.
By Vanessa Zimmer
As the 98th annual Academy Awards approach, independent film fans are cheering for the representatives of the Sundance Film Festival — including Best Picture nominee Train Dreams.
The celebrated Clint Bentley film, from the 2025 Festival, is among 10 vying for the top prize at the March 15 ceremonies. But it is not the first Sundance Institute–supported film to be in this vaunted position. In the 2021 ceremonies, in fact, an amazing four titles (The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Minari, and Promising Young Woman) were among the nominees. And in 2022, Sian Heder’s CODA took home the top prize — a first for our nonprofit organization.
Accompany us down memory lane as we review the Sundance Institute–supported films that earned Best Picture nominations from the humble beginnings of the Festival and the Sundance Institute.
Mia Farrow, Barbara Hershey, and Dianne Wiest portrayed sisters in Hannah and Her Sisters.
59th Annual Academy Awards
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986 Sundance Film Festival) — Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, and Barbara Hershey play sisters with separate and related emotional and romantic baggage. The screenplay won an Oscar.
60th Annual Academy Awards
MOONSTRUCK (1988 Sundance Film Festival) — A widow (Cher), a member of an eccentric Italian-American family in Brooklyn, falls in love with her fiance’s brother (Nicolas Cage). Cher and Olympia Dukakis won Oscars for their performances.
67th Annual Academy Awards
FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL (1994 Sundance Film Festival) — Charles (Hugh Grant) and Carrie (Andie MacDowell) meet at a wedding and then dance around their mutual attraction and interest through four more social occasions.
74th Annual Academy Awards
IN THE BEDROOM (2001 Sundance Film Festival) — An upper-middle-class family (Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson) in New England deal with the roller coaster of life and tragedy in their small town.
Alan Arkin (far left) earned an Oscar for his part in Little Miss Sunshine.
79th Annual Academy Awards
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (2006 Sundance Film Festival) — A dysfunctional extended family crams into a VW bus to take quirky 7-year-old Olive on a madcap cross-country trip to a beauty pageant. Alan Arkin won an Oscar for his supporting role as the eccentric grandfather, and Michael Arndt won for the screenplay.
Gabourey Sidibe starred in Precious.
82nd Annual Academy Awards
AN EDUCATION (2009 Sundance Film Festival) — Carey Mulligan plays a teenager in 1960s London whose academic life has been built on getting into Oxford. Will her new relationship with a much older man jeopardize that future?
PRECIOUS: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire (2009 Sundance Film Festival) — Teenage Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) is illiterate, abused, and pregnant with her father’s child (her second). But she is determined to turn her life around. Mo’Nique won an Oscar for her role as Precious’ mother, as did Geoffrey Fletcher for the adapted screenplay.
Jennifer Lawrence made her breakout performance in Winter’s Bone.
83rd Annual Academy Awards
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (2010 Sundance Film Festival) — The teen children of a lesbian couple (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) track down their biological father (Mark Ruffalo), setting up a family reunion.
WINTER’S BONE (2010 Sundance Film Festival) — Jennifer Lawrence emerged to the public eye when she played the role of Ree, a teen who tracks her meth-dealing, bail-jumping father in an attempt to save the family home in the Ozark Mountains.
Quvenzhané Wallis played Hushpuppy in Beasts of the Southern Wild.
85th Annual Academy Awards
BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (2012 Sundance Film Festival) — Deep in the Delta, tough and precocious 6-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) lives with her father, whose health is fading.
J.K. Simmons turned in an Oscar-winning performance in Whiplash.
87th Annual Academy Awards
BOYHOOD (2014 Sundance Film Festival) — Director Richard Linklater filmed this movie over a 12-year-span with the same cast, including a child actor who grows up on screen. Patricia Arquette won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
WHIPLASH (2014 Sundance Film Festival) — Andrew (Miles Teller) wants to be a great drummer and enrolls in a Manhattan conservatory, where a demanding teacher (J.K. Simmons) pushes him to succeed at any cost. Simmons won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. The film was developed from a short shown the previous year at the Festival.
Saoirse Ronan was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Brooklyn.
88th Annual Academy Awards
BROOKLYN (2015 Sundance Film Festival) — A young Irish immigrant (Saoirse Ronan) lands in 1950s Brooklyn, falls in love, and becomes a woman caught between two countries in this story based on the acclaimed Colm Toibin novel.
89th Annual Academy Awards
MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (2016 Sundance Film Festival) — A struggling laborer (Casey Affleck) assumes the care of his newly deceased brother’s 16-year-old son. Affleck won the Best Actor Oscar, and writer-director Kenneth Lonergan took the prize for original screenplay.
90th Annual Academy Awards
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (2017 Sundance Film Festival) — In 1980s Italy, 17-year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) is attracted to the man his father hires as a summer intern (Armie Hammer). James Ivory won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
GET OUT (2017 Sundance Film Festival) — Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) goes home with his girlfriend to meet her parents. As the male half of the interracial couple, he faces the weekend with anxiety. That may be the least of his worries in this horror story. Writer-director Jordan Peele won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.
Judas and the Black Messiah starred Daniel Kaluuya and LaKeith Stanfield (foreground).
93rd Annual Academy Awards
THE FATHER (2020 Sundance Film Festival) — Celebrated actors Anthony Hopkins, who won the Best Actor statue, and Olivia Colman play father and daughter in this film about aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and family responsibility. Christopher Hampton and Florian Zeller won an Oscar for their adapted screenplay.
JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH (2021 Sundance Film Festival) — Daniel Kaluuya portrays Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, whose fiery style prompted the FBI to plant an informant, William O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), a petty criminal offered the job as part of a deal to avoid jail. But O’Neal finds himself with conflicting loyalties. Kaluuya earned an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
MINARI (2020 Sundance Film Festival) — Jacob (Steven Yeun) moves his Korean family from the West Coast to a mobile home in rural 1980s Arkansas to establish a farm and realize the American Dream. Yuh-jung Youn won an Oscar for best supporting actress in her role as the grandmother.
PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN (2020 Sundance Film Festival) — A promising young woman (Carey Mulligan) drops out of med school and seeks revenge on predatory men after a trauma involving her best friend. Writer-director Emerald Fennell won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
94th Annual Academy Awards
CODA (2021 Sundance Film Festival) — Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur, and Emilia Jones lead an unbelievable cast through the sweet and touching coming-of-age story of a hearing child (Jones) within a deaf family. The film won every Oscar it was nominated for — a rare feat — including Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay.
96th Annual Academy Awards
PAST LIVES (2023 Sundance Film Festival) — Celine Song’s staggering semi-autobiographical debut feature tells the story of young love, immigration, the power of memories, and choosing your path in life. It was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.
98th Annual Academy Awards
TRAIN DREAMS (2025 Sundance Film Festival) — For his follow-up to 2021’s Jockey, writer-director Clint Bentley returned to the 2025 Sundance Film Festival with Train Dreams — a gorgeous and thoughtful adaptation of Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella of the same name. The life of Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) is one of beginnings and endings without much fanfare. The film is up for four Oscars this year: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Song.
