8 Sundance Films You Need To Look Out For Later This Year

This year wasn’t a blockbuster one for Sundance. Even the film’s buzziest titles didn’t bring with them the bidding wars and jaw-dropping streaming deals we’re used to seeing from a fest that’s been a consistent temperature check of the film industry, predicting awards winners and heralding indie hits well before anyone else. But even a “quiet” showing at Sundance is a good one, and while plenty of the films that graced this latest installment might not dot the awards season landscape next year, they may just wind up sneaking onto your personal year end best of list anyway.

That’s because Sundance 2025 gave us a lineup chock-full of riveting, emotionally-compelling, small-scale indies, ones made by first-time directors and seasoned vets alike, all sporting magnetic performances and gripping storylines. They deserve to be seen, experienced, and enjoyed, which is why we rounded up our picks for the best showings at Sundance this year … so that you can keep an eye out for them in the months ahead.

Atropia

War, as it turns out, is just one big production. That’s the unsexy truth at the heart of Hailey Gates’ bizarre and bloody Bush-era satire. Based on the real-life military training camps that dot the California/Nevada deserts, Atropia is a sick, twisted mindfuck, skewering the fanatical patriotism and dangerously ignorant stereotypes that fueled some of our worst militaristic impulses post 9/11. Alia Shawkat is magnetic on-screen, playing an aspiring actress named Fayruz who’s committed to honing her craft during this simulation exercise. She plays mustard gas chemists and Iraqi roadside merchants with vengeful gusto, serving as a living practice dummy for newly-minted soldiers too unaware and inexperienced to understand they are the real enemy here. The whole point of “The Box” – the fictional town teeming with actors bringing this foreign city-under-siegie to life – is to prepare these boys for what they’ll encounter when they’re eventually shipped overseas. Fayruz is both ridiculously earnest about her role in this fake hellscape, and hopelessly naive about the bigger picture she’s now a part of. And when a newcomer – Callum Turner as a field-experienced soldier filling an insurgent role in this wild farce – disrupts her grand plans of fame, their strange, kinky romance derails the proceedings.

Gates’ story shows plenty of teeth, chewing up the performativeness of Hollywood (and the United States military), the myth of American exceptionalism, and more than a few rom-com tropes, but it lacks enough bite to fully deliver on its premise. That said, it remains the most interesting and unique film to premiere at Sundance this year with both Shawkat and Turner delivering some fantastic performances as doomed lovers finding momentary bliss via sponge baths and shit-stained porta-potties. — Jessica Toomer

Love, Brooklyn

A talky indie in the best way, Rachael Abigail Holder’s debut feature contemplates the soul of New York’s trendiest borough amidst a wave of gentrification and what it means for those who find meaning and identity in the cultural tapestry of Brooklyn. But those questions and that examination live largely at the margins, connecting to a story of change and choices led by a sublime André Holland, whose character, a writer, is wrestling with the state of his adopted hometown and whether he’s ready to take the next step in his personal life.

Love, Brooklyn is a cozily told comedy that feels incredibly relatable and relevant, speaking to the slightly less romantic second phase of adulthood, how we might cling to the past, fear the future, and risk missing the good that’s in front of us. — Jason Tabrys

Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)

The weight and urgency of adulthood come crashing down around Rico and Destiny’s ears in Joel Alfonso Vargas’ bitterly realistic story about the trap of young lust, innate toxic masculinity, and teen pregnancy. Largely set in the cramped apartment where this 19-year-old hustler with a good heart, big dreams, and bad judgment lives with his mother, little sister, and the 16-year-old he impregnated, Mad Bills To Pay is an arresting cautionary tale that sneaks into the upper echelon of Sundance 2025 entries thanks to it’s supernaturally gifted co-leads, Juan Collado and Destiny Checo, who deliver such naturalistic and ultimately heartbreaking performances. — Jason Tabrys

Omaha

Starring John Magaro as the father of two young kids who is out of moves, on the road, and barely managing to tamp down all signs of terror so as to not stain his kid’s memories of him, Cole Webley’s Omaha qualifies as one of Sundance’s hardest watches. Still, while it may traumatize, Omaha is well worth the watch, standing out for its meaningful commentary on economic heartache, hopelessness, and desperation without vilifying a desperate man in the midst of a slow rolling tragedy. — Jason Tabrys

Sorry Baby

If there’s only one film you’re desperate to see following Sundance, let it be Sorry, Baby. First-time director Eva Victor is so self-assured in the story she’s telling, so confident in her film’s calm, almost meandering pace, that, despite the trauma fueling its premise, Sorry Baby felt like the most refreshing entry of this year’s fest. Victor plays Agnes, an academic stuck in a kind-of social limbo following a sexual assault by her mentor and grad school teacher. She’s a ghost, haunting her own life, with Victor displaying the drudgery in quiet vignettes titled after babies and sandwiches and unanswerable questions. A lesser film might delight in showing the violence of Agnes’ experience but Victor draws the curtains on the terrible act, letting us do our worst imaginings. To hear how she experienced it instead of seeing it play out ourselves makes the whole thing even more horrifying and meaningful. And to journey with Agnes through the fallout – unsympathetic doctors and their probing questions, apathetic advisors desperate to place blame elsewhere – is to understand how such a seemingly brief moment in time can stretch over years, nearly half a decade in fact, impacting a person’s life in strange and subtle ways. It’s one of the more authentic and moving portrayals of sexual violence we’ve seen on screen, done with deft, observational humor and a sensitivity that suggests even bigger things to come from its creator. — Jessica Toomer

Touch Me

Not your typical alien sex comedy, dabbling in mind control, fuck boi dance meditation, tentacle-wrapped cross-species intercourse, codependent friendships, deep trauma, and being addicted to feeling good. Written and directed by Addison Heimann and starring Olivia Taylor Dudley and Jordan Gavaris as besties and Lou Taylor Pucci as the maybe nefarious alien sex God they’re obsessed with, Touch Me feels like an homage to the cheesy and steamy B movies of the ’90s run through an Edgar Wright filter. — Jason Tabrys

Train Dreams

Director Clint Bentley mines something extraordinary from the unremarkable life of his protagonist in Train Dreams. Billed as a turn-of-the-century introspective epic, the film follows Joel Edgerton’s Robert Granier as he navigates the triumphant and troubled waystations of his life. There’s a romantic haze to the film, not just when Robert – an orphan now settled in Idaho – falls for the confident and enigmatic Gladys (Felicity Jones), but whenever the camera lingers on a lush northeastern swath of pine or an intricately-erected railway bridging a natural chasm of granite and sandstone that’s stood for thousands of years. Bentley is aware of it all – the grand, immeasurable cycle of life and our own inconsequential, indelible part in it – and his characters are slowly wise to it too, men who destroy to build for a world that’s expanding even when their own lives seem to shrink and wither. There’s joy and tragedy, adventure and a bit of aimless wandering, reflections on tolerance and humanity’s interconnectivity. There’s even a whisper-quiet environmentalist war cry (courtesy of an almost unrecognizable William H. Macy) disguised as Americana-core nostalgia – a time when men actually built things with their bare hands, but then wondered at what they lost in the process. It’s gorgeous and quietly moving and likely too subtle to land with any blockbuster-sized audience but it deserves to be seen and appreciated anyway. — Jessica Toomer

Twinless

“A twink with a twin fetish does a very bad thing” feels like the kind of Letterboxd review you’d stumble upon when searching James Sweeney’s latest dry comedy, Twinless. It’s apt, if a bit surface level, and it does nothing to prepare you for the wildly outrageous twists the director/star has in store. We refused to spoil them in our chat with Sweeney about the film, and we won’t break that covenant here. You’ve no doubt been assaulted by the NSFW GIFs of a mustachioed Dylan O’Brien that are littering the timeline at the moment. Said GIFs should have peaked your interest enough to Google just what the hell this movie is about. But go no further! Do no more research! Experience the shock and outrage raw, be flabbergasted by the title credits reveal, gasp aloud in a darkened theater (or your own living room) and marvel at Sweeney’s knack for observational humor, wry, thoughtful storytelling, and his fearless instinct to fuck with his audience by promising a quirky bromance and delivering so much more. — Jessica Toomer