One of the best parts about putting on the Sundance Film Festival every year is being able to introduce a new feature filmmaker to their audience. You can feel the excitement in their voices as they talk about their art for the first time publicly. The lobby of the theaters buzzing after seeing a fresh take on the world.
This year we’re honored to have 33 new voices joining the Sundance Festival family in our feature film program across eight of our categories. These feature debuts run the gamut from historical documentaries to twisted body horrors.
Read about all the films by our first-time feature directors below and get prepped on the next wave of indie cinema. Single Film Tickets for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival go on sale next month, so make sure to add these films to your schedule now to be ahead of the curve.
Pro tip: Become a Sundance Institute member to support the journey of these filmmakers and more. You’ll also get early access to ticket selection for the 2025 Festival, discounts on merch, and more!
Director: Tony Benna
Section: U.S. Documentary Competition
Available to watch in person and online
Andre, a brilliant idiot, is dying because he didn’t get a colonoscopy. His sobering diagnosis, complete irreverence, and insatiable curiosity, send him on an unexpected journey learning how to die happily and ridiculously without losing his sense of humor.
Director: Hailey Gates
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
When an aspiring actress in a military role-playing facility falls in love with a soldier cast as an insurgent, their unsimulated emotions threaten to derail the performance.
BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions
Director: Kahlil Joseph
Section: NEXT
Available to watch in person and online
Preeminent West African curator and scholar Funmilayo Akechukwu’s magnum opus, The Resonance Field, leads her to the heart of the Atlantic Ocean, drawing a journalist into a journey that shatters her understanding of consciousness and time.
Brides
Director: Nadia Fall
Section: World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
Two teenage girls in search of freedom, friendship, and belonging run away from their troubled lives with a misguided plan of traveling to Syria.
Bunnylovr
Director: Katarina Zhu
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
A drifting Chinese American cam girl struggles to navigate an increasingly toxic relationship with one of her clients while rekindling her relationship with her dying estranged father.
Cutting Through Rocks (اوزاک یوللار)
Directors: Sara Khaki (with Mohammadreza Eyni)
Section: World Cinema Documentary Competition
2020 Sundance Documentary Fund
Available to watch in person and online
As the first elected councilwoman of her Iranian village, Sara Shahverdi aims to break long-held patriarchal traditions by training teenage girls to ride motorcycles and stopping child marriages. When accusations arise questioning Sara’s intentions to empower the girls, her identity is put in turmoil.
Director: Nyle DiMarco (with Davis Guggenheim)
Section: Premieres
Available to watch in person and online
During eight tumultuous days in 1988 at the world’s only Deaf university, four students must find a way to lead an angry mob — and change the course of history.
Director: Georgi M. Unkovski
Section: World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
Ahmet, a 15-year-old boy from a remote Yuruk village in North Macedonia, finds refuge in music while navigating his father’s expectations, a conservative community, and his first experience with love — a girl already promised to someone else.
Director: Kate Beecroft
Section: NEXT
Available to watch in person and online
After the death of her husband, Tabatha — a young, tattooed, rebellious horse trainer — wrestles with financial insecurity and unresolved grief while providing refuge for a group of wayward teenagers on her broken-down ranch in the Badlands.
Director: Peter Scriver (with Seth Scriver)
Section: World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
Exploring the complex bond between two half brothers — one Indigenous, one white — traveling from the present in isolated Shamattawa to bustling 1980s Toronto.
Directors: Timeea Ahmed, Rawia Alhag, Anas Saeed (with Ibrahim Snoopy Ahmad and Phil Cox)
Section: World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
Forced to leave Sudan for East Africa following the outbreak of war, five citizens of Khartoum — a civil servant, a tea lady, a resistance committee volunteer, and two young bottle collectors — reenact their stories of survival and freedom through dreams, revolution, and civil war.
Director: Isiah Saxon
Section: Family Matinee
2018 June Screenwriters Lab
Available to watch in person
In a remote village on the island of Carpathia, a farm girl named Yuri is raised to fear an animal species known as Ochi. But when Yuri discovers a wounded baby Ochi has been left behind, she escapes on an adventure to bring him home.
Love, Brooklyn
Director: Rachael Holder
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
Three longtime Brooklynites navigate careers, love, loss, and friendship against the rapidly changing landscape of their beloved city.
Lurker
Director: Alex Russell
Section: Premieres
Available to watch in person
A retail employee infiltrates the inner circle of an artist on the verge of stardom. As he gets closer to the budding music star, access and proximity become a matter of life and death.
Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo)
Director: Joel Alfonso Vargas
Section: NEXT
Available to watch in person and online
Rico’s summer is a wild mix of chasing girls and hustling homemade cocktails out of a cooler on Orchard Beach, the Bronx. But when Destiny, his teenage girlfriend, crashes at his place with his family, it’s only a matter of time before his rowdy, carefree days come spiraling down.
Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore
Director: Shoshannah Stern
Section: U.S. Documentary Competition
Available to watch in person and online
In 1987, Marlee Matlin became the first Deaf actor to win an Academy Award and was thrust into the spotlight at 21 years old. Reflecting on her life in her primary language of American Sign Language, Marlee explores the complexities of what it means to be a trailblazer.
Director: Cole Webley
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
After a family tragedy, siblings Ella and Charlie are unexpectedly woken up by their dad and taken on a journey across the country, experiencing a world they’ve never seen before. As their adventure unfolds, Ella begins to understand that things might not be what they seem.
Opus
Director: Mark Anthony Green
Section: Midnight
Available to watch in person
A young writer is invited to the remote compound of a legendary pop star who mysteriously disappeared 30 years ago. Surrounded by the star’s cult of sycophants and intoxicated journalists, she finds herself in the middle of his twisted plan.
Plainclothes
Director: Carmen Emmi
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
A promising undercover officer assigned to lure and arrest gay men defies orders when he falls in love with a target.
Rabbit Trap
Director: Bryn Chainey
Section: Midnight
Available to watch in person
When a musician and her husband move to a remote house in Wales, the music they make disturbs local ancient folk magic, bringing a nameless child to their door who is intent on infiltrating their lives.
Rains Over Babel
Director: Gala del Sol
Section: NEXT
Available to watch in person and online
A group of misfits converges at Babel, a legendary dive bar that doubles as purgatory, where La Flaca — the city’s Grim Reaper — presides. Here, souls gamble years of their lives with her, daring to outwit Death herself.
Ricky
Director: Rashad Frett
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
2023 Directors, Screenwriters, and Producers Labs, 2023 Project Advancement and Completion Fund, 2023 Sundance Film Festival (short film)
Available to watch in person and online
Newly released after being locked up in his teens, 30-year-old Ricky navigates the challenging realities of life post-incarceration, and the complexity of gaining independence for the first time as an adult.
Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears)
Director: Rohan Parashuram Kanawade
Section: World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
Anand, a 30-something city dweller compelled to spend a 10-day mourning period for his father in the rugged countryside of western India, tenderly bonds with a local farmer struggling to stay unmarried. As the mourning ends, forcing his return, Anand must decide the fate of his relationship born under duress.
Sauna
Director: Mathias Broe
Section: World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
Johan thrives as a gay man in Copenhagen, enjoying endless bars, parties, and casual flings. Everything changes when he meets William, a transgender man, and falls into a deep love that defies societal norms around gender, identity, and relationships.
Seeds
Director: Brittany Shyne
Section: U.S. Documentary Competition
2019 Sundance Documentary Development Fund
Available to watch in person and online
An exploration of Black generational farmers in the American South reveals the fragility of legacy and the significance of owning land.
Serious People
Director: Pasqual Gutierrez (with Ben Mullinkosson)
Section: NEXT
Available to watch in person and online
A successful music video director and expectant father pushes his work-life balance to the extreme as he hires a doppelgänger to work in his stead.
Sorry, Baby
Director: Eva Victor
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
Something bad happened to Agnes. But life goes on… for everyone around her, at least.
Sunfish (& Other Stories On Green Lake)
Director: Sierra Falconer
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
Lives intertwine around Green Lake as a girl learns to sail, a boy fights for first chair, two sisters operate a bed-and-breakfast, and a fisherman is after the catch of his life.
Together
Director: Michael Shanks
Section: Midnight
Available to watch in person
With a move to the countryside already testing the limits of a couple’s relationship, a supernatural encounter begins an extreme transformation of their love, their lives, and their flesh.
The Ugly Stepsister
Director: Emilie Blichfeldt Section: Midnight
Available to watch in person
In a fairy-tale kingdom where beauty is a brutal business, Elvira battles to compete with her incredibly beautiful stepsister, and she will go to any length to catch the prince’s eye.
Where the Wind Comes From
Director: Amel Guellaty
Section: World Cinema Dramatic Competition
Available to watch in person and online
Alyssa, a rebellious 19-year-old girl, and her friend Mehdi, an introverted 23-year-old man, use their imagination to escape their unpromising reality. When they discover a contest in the south of Tunisia that may allow them to flee, they undertake a road trip regardless of the obstacles in their way.
