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By LINDSEY BAHR
Charli XCX is making a trip to the Sundance Film Festival in January. The pop singer-songwriter appears in three films premiering at the 2026 festival, including a mockumentary that she produced and stars in. Programmers on Wednesday unveiled a lineup of 90 feature films set for the festival’s last hurrah in Park City, Utah.
The slate includes documentaries on basketball great Brittney Griner, Nelson Mandela, Salman Rushdie, Courtney Love and Billie Jean King. There are starry features with the likes of Natalie Portman, Jenna Ortega, Seth Rogen, Channing Tatum, Danielle Brooks, Olivia Colman, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Alexander Skarsgård and Ethan Hawke. Olivia Wilde directs her first feature since “Don’t Worry Darling,” in “The Invite.” Judd Apatow chronicles comedian Maria Bamford’s mental health journey. And Gregg Araki will be back in Park City with a restoration of his 2004 coming-of-age drama “Mysterious Skin” and a new film as well.
“It’s a broad, eclectic and bold program,” Sundance public programming director Eugene Hernandez told The Associated Press. He said the lineup for the festival’s final year in Park City “really honors that well with this mixture of new, exciting voices paired with some really, really great familiar faces from Sundances past that I think will create a great alchemy for this really unique edition in Utah.”
Ever a festival of discovery, of the 90 features culled from 4,255 submissions, 40% are from first-time directors. The programmers laugh when they hear people say things like “that’s a Sundance movie,” as if it’s one, easily categorizable thing.
“I look at the films in this program and say, ‘You tell me what a Sundance film is’ because they’re so different,” said programmer John Nein.
Three Charli XCX movies
Charli XCX plays a rising pop star prepping for her first arena tour in the mockumentary “The Moment,” which Hernandez said is “like her version of ‘This is Spinal Tap’.” She also appears in Araki’s “I Want Your Sex,” in which Cooper Hoffman plays an intern who gets wrapped up in the world of an artist and provocateur (Wilde). And she’s among the ensemble of “The Gallerist.”
“There’s a sense of humor that she has about herself and her work, but also a creativity and a star quality that is apparent. I mean, she is magnetic on the screen,” Hernandez said. “It’s great to have someone who represents sort of a next generation of creativity embracing the world that we inhabit.”
Some great comedies
This year’s slate includes more than a few exciting comedies in unexpected places. Cathy Yan directed and co-wrote “The Gallerist,” a satirical look at the art world and attempting to sell a corpse at Art Basel Miami, with a large ensemble including Portman, Ortega, Sterling K. Brown and Zach Galifianakis. David Wain also has “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” about a woman out to even the score after her fiance uses the “free pass,” starring Zoey Deutch and Jon Hamm.
Programmer Kim Yutani said she thinks “Wicker,” about a woman who asks a basket maker to weave her a husband, starring Colman and Skarsgård, will be a big crowd pleaser.
Other standouts are Jay Duplass’s grief-themed “See You When I See You,” with Cooper Raiff and David Duchovny, “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” set inside Tokyo’s ballroom dance scene and Wilde’s “The Invite,” about a crumbling marriage in which she stars alongside Rogen.
“They are finding comedy in some of the toughest places,” Nein said.
In the Midnight section, there’s “Buddy,” from “Too Many Cooks” creator Casper Kelly, about a girl who has to escape a kids TV show. There are some quirky, humorous documentaries too, including “Joybubbles” and John Wilson’s “The History of Concrete.”
Timely documentaries at Sundance
Sundance has become famous for its documentary programming, many of which go on to be nominated for and win Oscars. This year is likely to be no different.
“Across the board, both in the U.S. and internationally, you have a program that deals with the world where it is right now,” Nein said. “These documentaries, they’re incredibly sophisticated, they’re very mindful of how complex world issues are, and they bring you into that process.”
One that might make waves is “When A Witness Recants,” in which author Ta-Nehisi Coates revisits the case of the 1983 murder of a boy in his Baltimore middle school and learns the truth. “American Doctor” follows three professionals trying to help in Gaza. “All About the Money” looks at heir-turned -communist Fergie Chambers. Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell take on artificial intelligence in “The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist” and “Sentient” is about animal testing.
“A lot of them are sort of optimistic in one sense, in that they’re about people power,” Nein said. “It’s about the power of community to affect change, the power of one person who you haven’t heard of necessarily.”
Those include “Jane Elliott Against the World,” about an Iowa schoolteacher who taught anti-discrimination in 1968, and “Seized,” about the police raid on the Marion County Record in Kansas.
Ones to watch at Sundance 2026
New talents often emerge from Sundance, like Eva Victor last year with “Sorry, Baby.” This year programmers noted several gems in the lineup, including Beth de Araújo’s “Josephine,” about an 8-year-old who witnesses a crime, with Tatum and Gemma Chan.
TV veteran Molly Manners’ “Extra Geography,” about boarding school friends in England, is one that Nein said is one of the funniest, most sophisticated debut features that he’s seen from the U.K. in years.
He also spotlighted “LADY,” a first feature from Nigerian filmmaker Olive Nwosu about a cab driver in Lagos, as well as the queer genre film “Leviticus.”
As in years past, the Sundance competition titles will also be available to watch online. Yutani said her go-to recommendation for the remote audience is the world dramatic competition title “Levitating,” from Indonesian director Wregas Bhanuteja.
“It’s set in this community where there’s these trance parties,” Yutani said. “It is a thrilling film.”
This year’s festival will also honor its late founderRobert Redford with legacy screenings and serve as a celebration of its 40+ years in Park City before it relocates to Boulder, Colorado in 2027.
The 2026 festival kicks off on Jan. 22 and runs through Feb. 1.
