“Appropriate Behavior” filmmaker Desiree Akhavan finally returns to the festival that first introduced her prodigious chops and delightfully off-kilter humor to the world, thanks to her long-gestating adaptation of the Emily M. Danforth novel of the same name. Starring Chloe Grace Moretz as the eponymous Cameron, the film tracks the teenager’s first tenuous steps into understanding her sexuality.
Rapper Boots Riley makes his filmmaking debut with an off-kilter comedy set in his hometown of Oakland, California. Lakieth Stanfield stars as a telemarketer who finds success at work when he adopts a white-sounding voice.
The story of a father (Ben Foster) and his teenage daughter (Thomasin McKenzie) who happily live off-the-grid on the edge of Portland, Oregon, until their cover is blown and they are forced to journey into the wilderness. The last time Debra Granik found a teenage actress to anchor her film it was Jennifer Lawrence, and early word is that New Zealand-born McKenzie could be yet another breakout.
Reinaldo Marcus Green has been steadily making a name for himself on the festival circuit with powerful short films like “Stop,” which played at Sundance in 2015. His feature-length debut revolves around a Brooklyn street hustler who captures an illegal act of police violence on his cell phone and contends with a chain of events that ensue as a result.
Danish director Isabella Eklof’s feature-length debut stands out in Sundance’s international narrative competition for its seductive premise — the story of a drug lord’s girlfriend, and an ensuing love triage set against the backdrop of a port side along the Turkish Riviera.
The ever-reliable documentary production company Kartemquin Films is behind this promising entry in Sundance’s U.S. documentary competition. The first feature from 24-year-old director Bing Liu, it follows the lives of three men escaping challenging upbringing in the Rust Belt, finding a mutual source of solace in skateboarding.
Chloë Sevigny has wanted to play maybe-murderess Lizzie Borden for years: in 2011, she was attached to the role in an ultimately-scrapped HBO miniseries from Tom Hanks’ production company (the three parties were already collaborating on “Big Love”). She finally got the chance, and the results – from director Craig William Macneill, who replaced Pieter Van Hees (“Waste Land”) – will debut at Sundance, competing for dramatic honors.
Robert Pickering Burnham – aka Bo Burnham, a prolific creator whose resume includes a 2016 Netflix stand-up special (“Make Happy”), and 216 million YouTube views – is going to have a much more relaxed Sundance than most filmmakers. His first feature as writer-director, “Eighth Grade,” already locked down distribution from a little shop called A24.
It’s been five long years since brothers David and Nathan Zellner were at Sundance with the brilliant and beguiling “Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter,” but now the filmmaking duo is finally back at the festival with another unexpected twist on a classic American genre. Sure to be as delirious as their previous work, “Damsel” is a bonafide Western, albeit it one with that turns a drunken mess of familiar tropes upside down.
Paul Dano has been at Sundance before with movies like “Swiss Army Man” and “Little Miss Sunshine,” but what he really wants to do is direct. He does just that in “Wildlife,” his behind-the-camera debut, an adaptation of Richard Ford’s novel of the same name.
Buzz is that this one is a scrappy film that has the potential to inject the festival with a jolt of energy. After 16-year-olds Angela (Maia Mitchell) and Jessie (Cami Morrone) lose their job at the local pancake house and, in an attempt to get rent money and avoid eviction, they embark on a day of adventure that includes “dudes, drugs, booze and an ill-advised heist.”
Nicolas Pesce delivered the major discovery of the 2016 Sundance Film Festival with his chilling black-and-white horror film “The Eyes of My Mother,” and now he’s back two years later with a bigger budget, a starrier cast, and hopefully the same level of grisly intensity. “Piercing” stars Mia Wasikowska and Christopher Abbott and is based on the 1994 novel by Ryu Murakami.
Tackling his most hot button issue yet, “TYREL” tells the story of a boys’ weekend trip that spins out of control once Tyler (Jason Mitchell) realizes he’s the only black person amongst a group of bros. With obvious echoes of “Get Out” (helped by the presence of Caleb Landry Jones) and Silva’s propensity for dark turns, “TYREL” will be a stylish addition to the burgeoning genre of contemporary social horror.
Robert Greene’s chimeric documentaries — whatever you do, don’t call them hybrids — have been getting progressively more ambitious with each new effort, a trend we hope to see continue with “Bisbee ‘17.” He returns to Park City with a look at Bisbee, Arizona, an old mining town near both Tombstone and the Mexican border that’s (in)famous for a violent deportation.
Before Reed Morano was named the Emmy Award-winning director of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” she impressed the festival circuit with her feature directorial debut “Meadowland.” Morano’s latest, “I Think We’re Alone Now,” is a more-than-overdue Sundance debut that stars Peter Dinklage and Elle Fanning as two people who discover they’re the only humans left in the country and maybe even the world.
Movies based on Nick Hornby novels tend to be pretty good — see “About a Boy,” “High Fidelity,” and “Fever Pitch.” Adapted from his 2009 novel about fandom and the power of the internet, “Juliet, Naked” stars Rose Byrne as Annie, whose boyfriend Duncan (Chris O’ Dowd) is obsessed with aging ex-rocker Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke), who has released his first CD in over two decades.
It’s been a decade since writer-director Tamara Jenkins (“Slums of Beverly Hills”) scored an Oscar nomination for her poignant and hilarious screenplay for “The Savages.” She’s back with Netflix’s “Private Life,” about a woman (Kathryn Hahn) trying so many fertility therapies to get pregnant that her husband (Paul Giamatti) is suffering.