Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake)’ Review: A Quartet of Subtle but Stunning Coming-of-Age Stories | Sundance 2025

Kinds of Kindness. The French Dispatch. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. Anthology films are having something of a moment right now. Whether the vignettes are connected thematically, by location, or both, it can be challenging — even for established auteurs — to do successfully without feeling like they’ve simply crammed a few half-baked shorts together. Luckily, writer-director Sierra Falconer mostly avoids this in her debut feature, Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake). I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest fan of anthology films, as I think they’re quite difficult to pull off in a way that makes each section feel satisfying and necessary. I often find myself drawn to one particular vignette and wishing it took up the entire feature or feeling that the short runtimes keep all of the sections from feeling as fleshed out and effective as possible.