Pedro Pascal appears in Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s “Freaky Tales,” which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.
By Lucy Spicer
If variety is the spice of life, this month’s list of new releases is a well-seasoned cinematic feast. Film lovers have nine new Sundance Institute–supported titles to choose from this April — eight on the big screen and one they can enjoy from the comfort of home. And no two movies here are alike.
The selection for fiction fans runs the gamut: on one end of the spectrum we have a family-friendly adventure about a girl returning a mythical creature to its to kind, and on the other end is a gruesome take on the Cinderella story whose many body horror sequences are not for the faint of heart (or stomach). If nonfiction is more your style, this month’s new crop of docs includes a trans gamer’s quest to set a speedrunning record, an immersive look at John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s time in Greenwich Village, and a Taiwanese American filmmaker’s journey to understand her family history.
Read on to discover all of April’s new releases. There’s something here for just about any mood, whether you feel like laughing, crying, thinking, or even covering your eyes in terror.
Freaky Tales — Featuring an ensemble cast that includes Pedro Pascal, Angus Cloud, Normani Kordei Hamilton, Jay Ellis, Ji-young Yoo, Ben Mendelsohn, Dominique Thorne, and more, Freaky Tales defies genre to bring together four different underdog tales that collectively create an ode to Oakland in the 1980s. The film’s frenetic action includes a rap battle, a henchman’s last job, a turf war between punks and Nazis, and bloody retribution at the hands of an NBA All-Star — just another day in the Bay, right? Written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, Freaky Tales premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Coming to theaters April 4.
Break the Game — Ten years ago, Narcissa Wright was widely known and admired in the gaming sphere for speedrunning achievements — completing video games in record time, much faster than the games’ creators intended. When Wright came out as a transgender woman, she lost the support of a huge percentage of her fans — and her community. Directed by Jane M. Wagner, Break the Game follows Wright as she shares how her life and goals have changed since coming out, all while she attempts to set a speedrunning record for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Supported by Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program, Break the Game premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Festival. Making its broadcast premiere on PBS “POV” April 7.
One to One: John & Yoko — Filmmaker Kevin Macdonald chronicles the 18 months John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent living in Greenwich Village, and in doing so stitches together a portrait of New York City in the early 1970s, culminating in footage of the pair’s One to One charity concert benefiting disabled children — the only full-length performance by Lennon recorded after the dissolution of The Beatles. With co-director Sam Rice-Edwards, Macdonald compiles a wealth of personal archival footage that faithfully represents Lennon and Ono as they observe life around them, including the evolution of television and growing anti-war sentiment. One to One: John & Yoko screened in the Spotlight section of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival after premiering at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival. Coming to theaters April 11.
Light of the Setting Sun — In her feature debut, filmmaker Vicky Du examines her own Taiwanese American identity by combining archival materials with insightful personal interviews to fill the holes in her family’s history since the 1949 Chinese Communist Revolution. Light of the Setting Sun was supported by Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film Program and won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2024 San Diego Asian Film Festival. Coming to select theaters April 18.
The Ugly Stepsister — Writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt takes the grim details from the Brothers Grimm version of the Cinderella tale and turns up the volume in her feature debut, which premiered in the Midnight section of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. This stylish Norwegian horror story centers not the Cinderella figure but one of her new stepsisters, Elvira (Lea Myren), as she undergoes increasingly grotesque procedures with the goal of catching the prince’s eye at an upcoming ball so she can secure a royal marriage and alleviate her family’s financial woes. In this fairy-tale kingdom, beauty isn’t just pain — it’s agony, and it comes at high price. Coming to select theaters April 18.
The Wedding Banquet — Director Andrew Ahn teamed up with James Schamus, one of the co-writers on Ang Lee’s 1993 film The Wedding Banquet, to write a new, reimagined version of Lee’s beloved rom-com. Min (Han Gi-chan) needs a green card to stay in the U.S., but his boyfriend, Chris (Bowen Yang), won’t commit to a marriage. Min’s solution: Get his friend Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) to agree to a green card marriage in exchange for funding expensive in vitro fertilization treatments for her partner, Lee (Lily Gladstone). One stumbling block? Min’s grandmother (Youn Yuh-jung), who doesn’t know he’s gay and insists on an elaborate Korean wedding banquet when she finds out about the marriage. Ahn’s heartwarming comedy premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where Joe Pirro, one of the film’s producers, won the Sundance Institute | Amazon MGM Studios Producers Award for Fiction. Coming to theaters April 18.
April — Writer-director Dea Kulumbegashvili’s lyrical drama stars Ia Sukhitashvili as Nina, an obstetrician in Eastern Georgia who secretly moonlights as a provider of unsanctioned abortions. When an infant dies at the maternity hospital after a difficult birth, Nina faces an inquiry that places her under a microscope, putting her after-hours health care practices at risk in a society where women’s bodies are controlled by others. April screened in the Spotlight section of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival after premiering at the 2024 Venice International Film Festival, where it was awarded the Special Jury Prize. Coming to select theaters April 25.
The Legend of Ochi — On the fictional island of Carpathia, residents of a small village have been taught to fear and hunt a species they call the Ochi. But when teenage Yuri (Helena Zengel) discovers an injured baby Ochi alone in the wild, she embarks on an adventure to return the creature to its family, even as her Ochi-hating father (Willem Dafoe) is in dogged pursuit after mistakenly concluding that his daughter has been kidnapped. Supported by Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program, The Legend of Ochi is writer-director Isaiah Saxon’s feature debut and premiered in the Family Matinee section at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Coming to theaters April 25.
Magic Farm — Writer-director Amalia Ulman continually breaks the filmmaking molds in her sophomore feature, having previously made her feature directorial debut at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival with El Planeta. In Magic Farm, which premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, Ulman uses fish-eye lenses, cameras attached to dogs, and other outside-the-box techniques to lend a distinct style to her film about an inept media company film crew who end up in the wrong country when they travel to profile a musician. Set against an Argentine backdrop, this surreal satire features a cast that includes Chloë Sevigny, Joe Apollonio, Alex Wolff, Simon Rex, and Camila del Campo. Coming to select theaters April 25.
