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Sundance Film Festival · 2025

Sundance Film Festival 2025

US Dramatic Competition

Programme

10 films · 5 reviews

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Atropia

Review preview for Atropia

While Gates has found an intriguing setting for her war satire, it’s less clear what she wants to say with it.

Jeremy Mathews · 2.5 out of 5
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.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Hailey Gates; Writer: Hailey Gates; Stars: Alia Shawkat, Callum Turner, Chloë Sevigny, Tim Heidecker, Jane Levy)

Full review

Bubble & Squeak

Accused of smuggling cabbages into a nation where cabbages are banned, Declan and Delores must confront the fragility of their new marriage while on the run for their lives.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Evan Twohy; Writer: Evan Twohy; Stars: Himesh Patel, Sarah Goldberg, Steven Yeun, Dave Franco, Matt Berry)

Bunnylovr

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.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Katarina Zhu; Writer: Katarina Zhu; Stars: Katarina Zhu, Rachel Sennott, Austin Amelio, Perry Yung, Jack Kilmer)

Love, Brooklyn

Three longtime Brooklynites navigate careers, love, loss, and friendship against the rapidly changing landscape of their beloved city.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Rachael Abigail Holder; Writer: Paul Zimmerman; Stars: André Holland, Nicole Beharie, DeWanda Wise, Roy Wood Jr., Cassandra Freeman, Cadence Reese)

Omaha

Review preview for Omaha

There may be a rumbling of trouble in the background, but Machoian and Webley capture the way that this doesn’t impinge on the feeling of joy that can come in a moment.

Amber Wilkinson · 4 out of 5
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.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Cole Webley; Writer: Robert Machoian; Stars: John Magaro, Molly Belle Wright, Wyatt Solis, Talia Balsam)

Full review See: Cole Webley and John Magaro on poignant road trip Omaha

Plainclothes

Review preview for Plainclothes

Blyth and Tovey have chemistry to burn and Emmi generates pressure cooker tension as the past and many faces of the present prove to be just a synapse away in the kaleidoscope of Lucas’ mind.

Amber Wilkinson · 3 out of 5
A promising undercover officer assigned to lure and arrest gay men defies orders when he falls in love with a target.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Carmen Emmi; Writer: Carmen Emmi; Stars: Tom Blyth, Russell Tovey, Maria Dizzia, Christian Cooke, Gabe Fazio, Amy Forsyth)

Full review

Ricky

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.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Rashad Frett; Writer: Lin Que Ayoung; Stars: Stephan James, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Titus Welliver, Maliq Johnson, Imani Lewis, Andrene Ward-Hammond)

Sorry, Baby

Review preview for Sorry, Baby

Writer/director/star Eva Victor has created a poem about the pain and absurdity of entering and continuing adulthood, even when things feel heavy and hopeless.

Jeremy Mathews · 4.5 out of 5
Something bad happened to Agnes. But life goes on… for everyone around her, at least.

(Country: US, Spain, France; Year: 2025; Director: Eva Victor; Writer: Eva Victor; Stars: Eva Victor, Naomi Ackie, Lucas Hedges, John Carroll Lynch, Louis Cancelmi, Kelly McCormack)

Full review

Sunfish (& Other Stories On Green Lake)

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.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: Sierra Falconer; Writer: Sierra Falconer; Stars: Maren Heary, Jim Kaplan, Karsen Liotta, Dominic Bogart, Tenley Kellogg, Emily Hall)

Twinless

Review preview for Twinless

Perhaps what makes Twinless so memorable is its ability to generate empathy for characters even as they set themselves up for disaster.

Jeremy Mathews · 4 out of 5
Two young men meet in a twin bereavement support group and form an unlikely bromance.

(Country: US; Year: 2024; Director: James Sweeney; Writer: James Sweeney; Stars: Dylan O'Brien, James Sweeney, Lauren Graham, Aisling Franciosi, Tasha Smith, Chris Perfetti)

Full review