Sundance

This page is home to our coverage of the Sundance Film Festival.

The Sundance Film Festival is the largest independent film festival in the United States, taking place every year in January in Park City, Utah. It was founded in 1978 as the Utah/US Film Festival and re-named the Sundance Film Festival in 1991, after Robert Redford’s character from the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Film School Reject has had the honor of covering Sundance since 2008, two years after our site was founded. Over the years, we’ve discovered a number of amazing films in Park City — from our first review of 2008’s In Bruges to our listing of the 25 Best Sundance Movies of All-Time in 2015 to our 2019 list of the 50 Best Sundance Horror Movie Premieres to our discoveries of Swiss Army Man and Hunt for the Wilderpeople and The Witch at Sundance 2016 — we’ve spent over a decade reviewing hundreds of wonderful independent films.

We have also covered (on numerous occasions) what it’s like to cover Sundance for those who aren’t lucky enough to make the trip. And for those interested in filling their yearly watchlists, we’ve also recapped our favorites with a festival-closing list (in almost every year). Check out our archive of Sundance favorites via the links below:

Explore the entire archives of our annual Sundance Film Festival coverage below:

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Sundance 2012: The Essential Packing List of a Cold Intolerant Workaholic

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2012 Sundance Film Festival: First Wave of Programming Announced, 26 Films In Competition

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Sundance 2011: We’re There and It’s Cold

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New Posters: The Kids Are Buried But All Right

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Exclusive: Rupert Wyatt on ‘The Escapist’

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In an exclusive interview FSR chats with Rupert Wyatt, director and co-writer of the prison escape drama The Escapist, now playing in limited release and on IFC Films On Demand.

This Week in Counter Programming: Sunshine Cleaning

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Amy Adams and Emily Blunt star as two loser sisters who pull it together by cleaning up other people’s suicides.

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The 13 Best Films of Sundance 2009

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Before I made my trip to Park City, Utah for the 2009 Sundance Film Festival I gave you a list of the 13 films I was most interested in seeing. And now that I’ve come and gone, surviving another year in the hustle and bustle of America’s great festival, it is my duty to bookend my coverage with a list of the best films of this year’s fest.

Sundance Review: Push: Based on a novel by Sapphire

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My last film screened at this year’s Sundance film festival, Push: Based on a novel by Sapphire, was certainly one of the best. A tragic and touching story crafted beautifully and bravely by director Lee Daniels, Push is more than deserving of that acclaim that it garnered throughout this year’s festival run.

Sundance Reviews: The Yes Men Fix the World, No Impact Man, We Live in Public

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One of the biggest secrets about the Sundance Film Festival is the quality of its documentaries — and though Robert Redford and crew try hard to highlight the exquisite non-fiction section of their yearly independent library, the doc categories are often overshadowed by the bigger, more accessible mainstream releases. But if you think about it, Sundance is the place for docs.