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Festival coverage

Sundance Film Festival

20 January – 30 January 2022

Sundance Film Festival has moved online for a second year as a result of the pandemic. The festival will open on January 20 with 11 Day One films and a short film showcase and close on January 30.

Other years (21)

Box office and information

Latest reviews

  • The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future
    Review preview for The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future

    The Cow Who Sang A Song Into The Future emerges as part of a growing body of work which is striving to address desperation with imagination, to find new ways to be.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    Cecilia and her children travel to her ageing father’s dairy farm after he has a heart attack. Back in her childhood home, Cecilia is met by her mother, a woman dead for many years, whose presence brings to life a painful past chorused by the natural world around them.
  • A House Made Of Splinters
    Review preview for A House Made Of Splinters

    There’s a rare intimacy about it.

    Jennie Kermode · 5 out of 5
    In eastern Ukraine, follow the daily life of children and staff in a special kind of home: an institution for children who have been removed from their homes while awaiting court custody decisions. Staff do their best to make the time children have there safe and supportive.
  • Emily The Criminal
    Review preview for Emily The Criminal

    It’s Plaza’s magnetic performance which really makes it special.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    Down on her luck and saddled with debt, Emily gets involved in a credit card scam that pulls her into the criminal underworld of Los Angeles, ultimately leading to deadly consequences.
  • Calendar Girls
    Review preview for Calendar Girls

    Without the soft focus common in representations of female subjects, we get to see their faces in all their lived-in three dimensionality.

    Jennie Kermode · 3 out of 5
    A coming-of-golden-age look at Florida's most dedicated dance team for women over 60, shaking up the outdated image of "the little old lady," and calling for everyone to dance their hearts out, while they still can.
  • Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power
    Review preview for Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power

    Densely packed as this film is, only so much can be squeezed into an hour and 47 minutes. Menkes succeeds, however, in delivering a pretty thorough primer.

    Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
    Based on Nina Menkes' acclaimed talk "Sex & Power: The Visual Language of Cinema", a mesmerising journey into how shot design intersects with the twin epidemics of sexual abuse/assault and employment discrimination against women.
  • You Won't Be Alone
    Review preview for You Won't Be Alone

    It presents a radically different cinematic language, childlike, initially amoral, lyrical.

    Jennie Kermode · 4.5 out of 5
    In an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, a young feral witch accidentally kills a peasant. She assumes the peasant's shape to see what life is like in her skin, igniting a deep-seated curiosity to experience life inside the bodies of others.
  • Meet Me In The Bathroom
    Review preview for Meet Me In The Bathroom

    Southern and Lovelace stick to a fashionable, tastefully minimalist aesthetic, but they play it too safe – this is a film that deserves maximalist energy.

    Sunil Chauhan · 3 out of 5
    An immersive journey through the New York music scene of the early 2000s. Set against the backdrop of 9/11, the film tells the story of how a new generation kickstarted a musical rebirth for New York City that reverberated around the world. Inspired by the book by Lizzy Goodman
  • I Didn't See You There
    Review preview for I Didn't See You There

    An important film.

    Jennie Kermode · 3 out of 5
    Spurred by the spectacle of a circus tent that goes up outside his Oakland apartment, a disabled filmmaker launches into a meditative journey exploring the history of freakdom, vision, and (in)visibility.
  • Framing Agnes
    Review preview for Framing Agnes

    For such a studiously artificial work...it is profoundly moving.

    Jennie Kermode · 4 out of 5
    After discovering case files from a 1950s gender clinic, a cast of transgender actors turn a talk show inside out to confront the legacy of a young trans woman forced to choose between honesty and access.
  • After Yang
    Review preview for After Yang

    Kogonada is the directorial equivalent of a careful tea maker himself, he knows how to infuse his films with complex ideas without getting preachy or overtechnical about it.

    Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
    In a near future, a family reckons with questions of love, connection, and loss after its A.I. helper unexpectedly breaks down.

A–Z of Sundance Film Festival 2022 reviews

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