The best movies we saw at Sundance Film Festival, ranked (including 'Pee-wee')

USA Today

27-01-2025

Hoping to see the next "Clerks," "Reservoir Dogs" or "Get Out" before anyone else? Then you need to go Sundancing.
The Sundance Film Festival is underway (through Sunday) in Park City, Utah, for those who enjoy all things indie cinema. For more than 40 years, the annual event has gifted movie fans with a deep bench of great films, from "Sex, Lies and Videotape" and "Hoop Dreams" to "Napoleon Dynamite" and "Hereditary." Sundance has also been a launch pad for Oscar films: "CODA" bowed during the 2021 festival and won best picture a year later, while the best of 2024's entries, "A Real Pain," is nominated for best original screenplay and supporting actor (for Kieran Culkin) at the upcoming 97th Academy Awards.
We're keeping a running roundup of every movie we see this year at Sundance, and here are the best, ranked. (And if you want to have your own Sundance at home, some festival films will be available online beginning Thursday.)
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4. 'Luz'
Hong Kong gallerist Ren (Sandrine Pinna) travels to France to visit her sick stepmom (Isabelle Huppert). Chinese ex-con Wei (Xiao Dong Guo) is desperate to know his estranged influencer daughter (En Xi Deng) who thinks he's dead. But Ren and Wei's journeys intersect in a virtual-reality game where each have gone searching for something, and a chance meeting leads to both helping the other find what they need – and also a mythical deer. While director Flora Lau's drama is filled with subplots that muddy the emotional narrative, it does offer an immerse, neon-drenched digital world nicely fleshed out with relatable humanity.
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3. 'Folktales'
This often-moving documentary is hard not to love just for the sheer amount of adorable sled dogs. For their latest film, "Jesus Camp" directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady follow teenagers from around the world who attend a Norwegian folk high school near the Russian border, an arctic locale where they get lessons in survival and being an adult while also learning the in and outs of dog sledding with a pack of sturdy canines. Some kids come needing to get over family trauma, some are seeking the right career path, while others are socially introverted and need the pooches to help them come out of their shell.
2. 'The Ugly Stepsister'
Cross "Cinderella" with "The Substance" and you've got Emilie Blichfeldt's clever, comedic and proudly unsettling body horror twist on a familiar fairy tale. Elvira (Lea Myren) yearns to marry the charming poet prince of her kingdom but among the competition to be the belle of the upcoming ball is Elvira's attractive new stepsister Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss). Elvira's mom (Ane Dahl Torp) champions Elvira going to extreme lengths in the "beautification" process, which includes a nasty bit of old-school rhinoplasty and the use of tapeworms for weight loss (not recommended, by the way) in some seriously stomach-churning scenes.
1. 'Pee-wee as Himself'
Pee-wee Herman was a beloved, bowtie-clad pop-culture icon. Paul Reubens wasn't. And therein lies one of the most intriguing aspects of this revealing (and fascinating, especially for '80s kids) documentary. Reubens, who died in 2023 after a private battle with cancer, gets real about the huge successes and psychological complications of becoming Pee-wee, why he was a closeted gay man for much of his career, and the emotional consequences of his later legal troubles and being labeled a pedophile. However, he balances those personal complexities with humor and honesty that posthumously show the ultra-private Reubens to be as affable and mercurial as his alter ego.