Sundance 2026 Review Roundup: The Best Films We Saw This Year, Ranked

A movie about a middle-school teacher and his students putting on an original play isn't normally the sort of project that would draw comparisons to film noir and David Fincher's Fight Club. Yet that's what happens when a movie is built around a protagonist like Doug (Will Brill). Doug, it's quickly established, is fueled entirely by spite, and the target of his ire is Principal Brady (Rob Lowe), who's now dating the art teacher (Gillian Jacobs) Doug had previously been seeing. The form Doug's sabotage takes is pretty diabolical: Working secretly with his students to stage The Heroes, an original retelling of the events of 9/11 designed to enrage parents and the public, and embarrass Brady.

The degree to which the viewer will find the actual musical amusing 100% depends on their own personal sensitivity to jokes of that nature — personally, I thought it was pretty funny to watch a young girl wearing a Rudy Giuliani bald cap ride around on a cardboard tank. The young cast is engaged and committed, and despite the inexplicable choice to do what sounds a bit like an RFK Jr. impression, Lowe makes for a worthy antagonist. The major issue which weighs down The Musical is the movie's complicated relationship with its own protagonist: It never feels like director Giselle Bonilla and writer Alexander Heller want us to think of Doug as a heroic figure, but he's an unlikeable enough presence that it's hard to be sure of their intentions, especially early into the film. The Musical ends strong, but its setup could be stronger.

Grade: B-

Sundance sure does love to select movies like Carousel: Quiet, star-driven movies about ordinary folks doing their best to find happiness. Here, we've got Chris Pine as Noah, a divorced family doctor struggling to connect with his neurotic teenage daughter Maya (Abby Ryder Fortson). Noah's life largely seems to revolve around work, Maya, and sports, though things change when his longtime high school crush Rebecca (Jenny Slate) returns home, and the two of them rekindle their romance — though both have a lot of issues to overcome.

Carousel was shot in writer/director Rachel Lambert's hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, making full use of its Midwestern quaintness to capture a true sense of place. The cinematography's warm lamp-lit hue also stands out, and Lambert proves to have a solid grasp of tone, building a quiet yet casual intimacy between Noah and Rebecca that leads to some of the film's best scenes.

Grade: B

Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! is a movie about dance that loves other dance movies, based on the nods to past classics like Shall We Dance?, Strictly Ballroom, and most especially Dirty Dancing. It's also a portrait of grief that mixes its main character's wallowing with a sense of playfulness, as amateur ballroom dancer Haru (Rinko Kikuchi) copes with the loss of her husband/dance partner Luis (Alejandro Edda) through moments of fantasy and deception.

Told in chapters, director Josef Kubota Wladyka bends the rules of reality frequently as Haru, nine months after Luis's passing, strikes up a relationship with her new dancing teacher Fedir (Alberto Guerra). Feeling quite literally haunted by Luis, Haru ends up telling Fedir that she and Luis are in an open relationship. That's actually not a bad metaphor for how it might feel to pursue a new relationship while the grief of a past one remains. It's still a lie that, when combined with others, ends up exploding in her face.

Kikuchi is remarkable at capturing all of Haru's complex emotions and bad decisions, and also dances beautifully with her scene partners; even in the movie's most deliberately (and often delightfully) strange moments, her performance remains grounded and heartbreaking. After some of her choices, the ending perhaps doesn't feel fully earned. But it's still a powerful reminder that no matter how messy life may get, it's still possible for the human spirit to prevail.

Grade: B

Director David Shadrack Smith's nostalgic look back at the rise and fall of public access television makes the bold choice to interview key figures from decades of New York City’s Manhattan Cable Television, but only use those interviews as voice-over. This means the entire movie is focused on the incredible archival footage at its center, an incredible time capsule of strangeness.

Opening with a dizzying montage paying tribute to the weirdest shit that used to be featured, Public Access is as unfiltered as the channel it pays tribute to (which amongst other things means way more male full frontal than I ever anticipated). Rather than take a chronological approach to exploring the era, the structure goes project by project, paying tribute to the Gay Cable Network (which explored issues the mainstream media wouldn't, especially during the darkest moments of the AIDS epidemic), underground media collective Paper Tiger Television, and shows that actively predicted the rise of MTV. The latter includes Squirt TV, hosted by then-14-year-old comedian and writer Jake Fogelnest, which MTV did attempt to adapt for paid cable (an experiment that didn't work out so well for the teenager).

Though the project-focused structure keeps the movie from having much pure momentum, Public Access is ultimately a lovely tribute to underground media and its importance to the 20th century for so many marginalized groups. Spoiler alert: It ends with an almost hopeful reminder that public access's influence may have waned, but there's this thing called social media which has more than taken its place. (For better and for worse.)

Grade: B

The addict's quest for sobriety has been explored more than a few times on screen over recent decades, especially as the opioid crisis increases in intensity. However, there's still something fresh about Union County, as it explores the intricate details of a very real adult recovery court. Will Poulter stars as Cody, a young man who's been an addict since the age of 17, and is now committing to this program in order to stay out of jail and maybe, just maybe, rebuild his life.

Poulter's been a wonderful addition to countless ensemble casts in recent years, including 2025's Warfare and Death of a Unicorn and his guest star appearances on The Bear. (He also played a major role in Dopesick, the Emmy-winning limited series about the opioid crisis, though he was playing a drug company employee and not an addict.) As a lead, he's more than capable, letting his character's quiet nature speak loudly about the point he's currently at in life, and the changes he's struggling to make.

Most of the supporting cast are played by real-life participants in the recovery program being depicted, and their victories are all small but important ones: Being able to drive themselves to the courthouse, or spend time with their children. It's a deeply empathic picture, powerful in its attention to detail, and still capable of real hope.

Grade: B+

Overachieving boarding school students Flic (Marni Duggan) and Minna (Galaxie Clear) are so close they're practically twins, but things between them get complicated thanks to their extracurricular summer project: falling in love. (Says one, "I want to be as good at love as I am at maths.") Being two of the school's top students, they apply their usual intellectual rigor to understanding the concept, and also set up a practical component, choosing their geography teacher (Alice Englert) to be the object of their affection almost at random. However, their friendship might not survive their efforts.

There are a lot of potential comparisons to make with director Molly Manners's bittersweet coming-of-age story, the most notable one being Wes Anderson's Rushmore. Yet the complicated female friendship at its center gives it a singular feel, as both girls hover at the cusp of innocence in a frank, funny way. Miriam Battye's script (adapting the short story by Rose Tremain) is packed with lines both simultaneously blunt and clever, as both girls discover what they're going to leave behind, in their rush to grow up. It's far from an epic tale, but its subtle charms are numerous.

Grade: B+

Hailing from UK-based Nigerian filmmaker Olive Nwosu, Lady stars Jessica Gabriel’s Ujah as the titular young woman, a spirited and friendly cab driver in Lagos saving up for a new life. Gas prices are rising dramatically, though, making that pretty tough. So when Lady's childhood best friend Pinky (Amanda Oruh) comes to her with an opportunity to make some extra money, she reluctantly agrees, becoming a driver for her friend and her fellow sex workers.

Ujah is a captivating performer, the kind of actor who inspires immediate sympathy on screen, even in her most raw and bleak moments. And Nwosu knows just how to showcase her star, the tight storytelling keeping the audience's pulse pumping, while the complicated bond between Lady and Pinky gives the movie its emotional core.

Notably, Lady manages two remarkable achievements at once: Delivering both a slice-of-life narrative, rich with cultural details, while at the same time telling a galvanizing, even inspiring story about a person finding her voice to demand real change.

Grade: B+

At the beginning of Josephine, its titular eight-year-old protagonist (Mason Reeves) is exercising in Golden Gate Park with her father Damien (Channing Tatum) when she bears witness to a man brutally assaulting and raping a young woman. Thanks to Damien and the police, the man is arrested that morning, but that's only the beginning of Josephine's journey, as writer/director Beth de Araújo explores the impact of the incident on her young mind.

From the audience's point of view, Josephine's resulting issues with anger and fear make so much sense — especially a newly discovered distrust of boys and men — but that's because the film is very much framed from its young lead's perspective, including numerous direct POV shots. Damien and partner Claire (Gemma Chan) don't seem to notice the early warning signs, though, or perhaps don't want to notice, in their hope that maybe she was too young to know what she saw. Unfortunately, what Josephine captures is the way that trauma can still be experienced even if a person doesn't fully understand what happened.

Tatum and Chan rise to the depth of the material, even in its less-subtle moments, like Damien bluntly informing Josephine of a cruel truth that all parents eventually have to explain: In this world, "fair's not a real thing." This is a movie with no easy answers but some capacity for catharsis, and its young lead rises to the challenge of capturing Josephine's darkest emotions without losing her childlike nature.

Grade: A-

While evacuating from Malibu during the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, filmmaker Tamra Davis (CB4, Billy Madison) came across some incredible buried treasure: A box of video tapes she'd shot in 1995 with a Sony camcorder, when she accompanied husband Mike D of the Beastie Boys on a tour of Australia and Southeast Asia with bands including Foo Fighters, Beck, Pavement, Sonic Youth, Rancid, The Amps, and Bikini Kill. She has now transformed those tapes into The Best Summer, an incredible portrait of these young rock stars — playing music, having fun, and legitimately having (as the title suggests) the best time.

Structured (quite wisely) as a chronological travelogue, Davis finds a nice balance between up-close footage of the bands in concert and unfiltered, off-the-cuff moments with Kathleen Hanna, Dave Grohl, Kim Gordon, and more. 1995-era Davis has a few specific questions she likes to ask everyone, including their favorite color, favorite food, their personal motto, and what book they're currently reading — and it's actually really fun to learn those answers. (Grohl struggles the most with the favorite food question, before eventually landing on "meat.")

For something shot with a handheld camcorder, The Best Summer looks and sounds pretty great. Yes, some shots get a little shaky, and there is one show where, in lieu of live performance, Davis creates a montage of footage because "the sound was so bad." Yet that adds to the verité feel, an intimate reminder that you are watching, in essence, home movies. The occasional appearances by toddler Coco Gordon Moore, Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore's daughter, enhance that a lot.

It's a nostalgia play in some ways, but also a loving scrapbook to youth and rock and friendship. Musically, the highlight is probably Grohl leaping onto a stage during a Beastie Boys set to help out with the screaming on "Sabotage." On a more human level, Davis and Hanna's friendship becomes a cornerstone of the movie (the end credits say "Starring Kathleen Hanna," with everyone else regulated to "Featuring" status).

Three minutes into the doc, Hanna complains to Davis about the lack of cute boys or girls on the tour; by the end of it, it's pretty clear that she and Ad-Rock have fallen in love. (They're still together today.) The Best Summer is a must-see for music fans — or anyone charmed by the bittersweet beauty of remembering the past.

Grade: A-

This documentary about a community rising up in protest of unfair immigration enforcement could not be timelier, even though the incident it depicts took place in May 2021. The story begins in a familiar way: Neighbors in a diverse Glasgow, Scotland community notice that immigration agents have taken two people into custody, and immediately sound the alarm via texts and social media. The ensuing flock of protestors quickly gather to keep the van carrying the detainees from leaving — becoming an international news story as thousands of people gathered.

Everybody to Kenmore Street relies largely on talking head interviews with the everyday folks who ended up taking action that day. A few key figures in the story were interviewed but are not seen on screen — instead, their recollections are performed by actors. This includes the person known only as Van Man, who dove under the van early into the protest and thus was able to prevent it from driving off. His reenactments are performed by the always-luminous Emma Thompson, narrating his words directly to the camera from her distinctly uncomfortable prone position.

Through their focus on this one specific event, director Felipe Bustos Sierra is able to highlight the universal nature of this story, and the ways in which protest and collective action do make real change possible. Told tightly and succinctly, it's an inspiring piece of work, enhanced by the diverse collection of voices assembled as first-hand witnesses. One of them reveals that after the events of that day, she went home and slept like a baby that night. "Maybe that's a good tip for people to sleep well," she says with a smile. "Go on protest and campaign on things that you believe in."

Grade: A