It’s only been a few days since the 2025 Sundance Film Festival finished up, but we’re still thinking about all our friends and films from the 11 day bash.
Bold features across 11 categories, touching short films within eight programs, and six innovative episodic projects filled our days and nights while we were at the Festival. Thankfully we were already familiar with the slate and artists thanks to our Backstory interviews and jam-packed watchlists.
We also laughed and learned at this year’s Beyond Film conversations at Cinema Café, The Big Conversation, Power of Story, and more.
Read on to see our complete coverage of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Below are our first impressions of premieres that electrified us, events that engaged us, and the stories that are going to keep us captivated all year long.
Day 1
What better way to start a Festival than with a warm welcome from Amanda Kelso, our Acting CEO, and Eugene Hernandez, our Festival Director? After that cheery hello (and a fun night before!), we jumped right into action with our Day One premieres.
Day 2
The first Festival Friday saw the iconic Olivia Colman and Steven Yeun chatting in Filmmaker Lodge, world premieres of fresh films all over the town, and a touching tribute to Michelle Satter and the power of the Sundance Institute at our Festival gala. Celebrating Sundance Institute presented by Google TV brought together influential alumni and friends to celebrate our special award winners including James Mangold, Cynthia Erivo, Sean Wang, and Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie.
Day 3
Sundance Saturday kicked off with the warm hug of community togetherness from Native Forum as well as an incredibly inspirational conversation between The Right Honourable Dame Jacinda Ardern and Marlee Matlin. Then we jumped right back into the exciting churn of world premieres.
Day 4
The end of the first 2025 Festival weekend featured a hilarious chat between Lily Gladstone and Alia Shawkat, which got our energy up. Plus we unveiled the winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize!
“Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears)” Takes a Tender View on Queer Relationships
A Little Fantasy Will Not Fail in Bill Condon’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman”
Day 5
With the start of week two came a much-needed conversation — The Big Conversation, in fact — about breaking barriers within the entertainment industry. Then we hopped back out into the elements for more inspirational and innovative premieres.
Day 6
To dive deeper into how to measure progress and achievements within the film and entertainment space, we packed ourselves into The Egyptian Theatre to hear Daniel Kaluuya, Mstyslav Chernov, Chloë Sevigny, and Celine Song, talk about the Power of Success. Then we made sure to hit our From the Collection offerings, listen to this year’s Fresh Faces at Cinema Café, and walk down Main Street along with more premieres.
Day 7
There was no better way to push us through the middle of the Festival week than to celebrate our incredible volunteers. We also got to know our Gayle Stevens Volunteer Award winner better!
Day 8
As the online portion of the Festival got started, expanding Sundance Institute’s mission to indie film lovers everywhere, we made sure we were caught up on all the competition films before awards were announced!
Day 9
We started our day at The Ray with our 2025 Sundance Film Festival awards ceremony and laughed, cried, and celebrated all the works from this year’s slate. Then we hopped online to rewatch all the award winners.
Days 10 and 11
Closing out the Fest with a deep dive into our short film programs is one of our favorite things to do. It’s hard to believe that the 2025 Sundance Film Festival is already just a bunch of amazing memories. We could not be prouder of all the projects that premiered and the artists who have put their faith in us. Thank you for joining along with us!
