The 2026 Sundance Film Festival is underway, in person and online. And as with every edition of the Festival, the lineup includes the premieres of a whole new batch of projects brought to you in part by the year-round initiatives of the Sundance Institute.
This year, you can watch 14 projects backed by the Institute’s artist programs, labs, grants, and fellowships. The selections include format-defying documentaries, affecting dramas from the United States and abroad, daring visions from emerging filmmakers, and one heartwarming chronicle of pint-sized baked-goods peddlers.
To learn more about the programs that made these and so many other projects possible, click here. Read on for more info about the Institute-supported projects at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, and remember: Single Film Tickets are still available!
Play your own part in the future of independent storytelling by becoming a Sundance Institute member. You’ll also get early access to ticket selection for the 2027 Festival, discounts on merch, and more!
Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild]
Directors: Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil
Section: NEXT
2024 Documentary Film Program, Indigenous Program, Apple Post-Production Grant, Humanities Sustainability Fellowship
Available to watch in person and online
Trapped in museum archives, Ancestors bend time and space to find their way home. History, spirituality, and the law collide as tribal repatriation specialists fight to return and rebury Indigenous human remains, offering a revealing look at the still-pervasive worldviews that justified collecting them in the first place.
Director: Alysa Nahmias
Section: Family Matinee
Documentary Film Program Free Spirit Fund Grant, 2023 Catalyst
Available to watch in person only
It’s Girl Scout Cookie season, and four tenacious girls strive to be a top-selling “Cookie Queen,” navigating an $800 million business in which childhood and ambition collide.
Director: Josef Kubota Wladyka
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
2026 Dolby Creator Lab Grant
Available to watch in person and online
Haru and Luis love competing in Tokyo’s ballroom dance scene, but after tragedy strikes, Haru withdraws into isolation. When friends coax her back to the studio, she develops an infatuation with the new instructor. She must face what comes next as sparks fly.
Director: Ramzi Bashour
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
2022 Screenwriters Intensive, 2024 Screenwriters and Directors Labs, 2023 Catalyst Forum, 2024 Project Advancement and Completion Fund
Available to watch in person and online
After he’s kicked out of his Indiana high school, an American kid and his Lebanese mom hit the road west.
Director: Suzanne Andrews Correa
Section: World Cinema: Dramatic Competition
2018 Screenwriters and Directors Labs, 2018 Feature Film Program Latinx Fellowship
Available to watch in person and online
In the border city of Juárez, Mexico, where violence against women is perpetrated with impunity, an unlikely defender emerges with a desperate call for change. Inspired by true events.
Director: Walter Thompson-Hernández
Section: NEXT
2023 Screenwriters Lab, 2023 Directors Lab, 2023 Latine Fellowship, 2023 Catalyst, 2023 The Project Advancement and Completion Fund, 2025 Filmmakers Fund Sponsored by Chase Sapphire Reserve
Available to watch in person and online
Twelve-year-old Lil Ant struggles to connect with his father when he begins to see surreal, almost spectral visions of boys drifting around his neighborhood. Their presence reveals a link between father and son, laying bare the threads that bind family, legacy, and place.
Directors: Efraín Mojica and Rebecca Zweig
Section: NEXT
Documentary Film Program Grant, Sony Music Vision Initiative, Documentary Edit Residency, 2025 Filmmakers Fund Sponsored by Chase Sapphire Reserve
Available to watch in person and online
A journey to Michoacán’s hypermasculine rodeos descends into the subconscious of memory, queer desire, and longing, leading to a reckoning with the wounds and beauty of a home left behind.
Director: Beth de Araújo
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
2018 Screenwriters and Directors Labs, Feature Film Program Grants, 2018 Asian American Feature Film Fellowship, 2024 Project Advancement Fund
Available to watch in person and online
After 8-year-old Josephine accidentally witnesses a crime in Golden Gate Park, she acts out in search of a way to regain control of her safety while adults are helpless to console her.
Director: Abby Ellis
Section: U.S. Documentary Competition
Sandbox Grant
Available to watch in person and online
An environmental nuclear bomb looms in Utah. Two intrepid scientists and a political insider race the clock to save their home from unprecedented catastrophe.
Director: Olive Nwosu
Section: World Cinema: Dramatic Competition
2023 Screenwriters Lab, 2022 Swedlin/Cort Grant, 2024 NHK Award, 2024 United Airlines Artist Fellowship
Available to watch in person and online
In the sprawling African metropolis of Lagos, a fiercely independent young cab driver meets a band of radiantly reckless sex workers whose sisterhood pulls her into danger and joy, setting her on a journey toward her own transformation.
The Oldest Person in the World
Director: Sam Green
Section: Premieres
2017 Catalyst Forum
Available to watch in person only
A decade-long global journey chronicles the ever-changing record holders of the title of oldest person alive. What begins as a portrait of longevity becomes a meditation on the passage of time, the randomness of fate, and the joy and profound human experience of being alive.
Director: Liz Sargent
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
2025 Project Advancement and Completion Fund
Available to watch in person and online
Anna, a 38-year-old Korean adoptee with a cognitive disability, cares for her aging parents in a fragile balance of meeting one another’s needs. When a Florida heat wave shatters their family and Anna’s routine, her future is uncertain until she creates a world where she can thrive.
Director: William David Caballero
Section: NEXT
Humanities Sustainability Fellowship
Available to watch in person and online
After 20 years of chronicling his Puerto Rican family, a director and his mother face devastating losses. Through tears and laughter, they craft animations that bring their loved ones back to life, discovering that every act of creation is also an act of letting go.
Directors: Jason Osder and William Lafi Youmans
Section: U.S. Documentary Competition
Documentary Film Program Development Grant
Available to watch in person and online
The assassination of a beloved Palestinian American activist in Southern California ignites a 40-year quest for justice, revealing the roots of a dangerous political movement that thrives today.
