2026 is a landmark year for the Sundance Film Festival.
Not only is it the last year the festival will be held in Park City, Utah – its home for over 40 years – before moving to Boulder, Colorado in 2027. But it will also be the first festival since founder Robert Redford passed away in September.
Eugene Hernandez, director of the Sundance Film Festival and head of Public Programming, says Redford created a space where queer independent films could thrive and reach new audiences. He's been going to the festival since 1993 and says Redford's work in creating the institute and the festival helped give him access to the work of Todd Haynes, Jennie Livingston, and the New Queer Cinema movement.
"I didn't know what a festival was, but I felt this open invitation, right? To be connected to this place," he says.
This year, Hernandez hopes the festival can celebrate and honor that legacy "and create that continuity even though the festival will be in a different place in 2027."
"The mission and the focus and the vision of what it is intended to do doesn't change," he says.
Some of the film festival attendees will be able to bond over legacy screenings of classic Sundance titles such as Little Miss Sunshine, House Party, Saw, and a restoration of Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin.
"Wouldn't be a Sundance without a Gregg Araki presence," Director of Programming Kim Yutani says. "I mean, just his influence on queer cinema is so significant. And I think one of the things that I have found so beautiful and heartening about a younger generation is that they have discovered his work."
While younger audiences have discovered his classic films from the 90s and 2000s, Yutani is also excited for them to see Araki's new movie, I Want Your Sex.
Cooper Hoffman and Olivia Wilde appear in I Want Your Sex by Gregg Araki, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | Photo by LaceyTerrell
I Want Your Sex stars Philip Seymour Hoffman's son Cooper Hoffman as Elliot, who lands a job as a sexual muse for renowned and provocative artist Erika Tracy (Olivia Wilde). It also stars buzzy actors, including Daveed Diggs, Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, and Charli XCX.
"I think this new film of his is, it's such a great way for us all – this new generation and his stalwart fans – to experience new work at the same time, and I think that's really an exciting thing for us to be able to premiere this year," Yutani says.
John Nein, senior programmer and director of Strategic Initiatives, says that featuring classic Araki alongside his new, "really funny and smart look at the art gallery world" is one way of "bridging this looking backwards while looking forward" in the festival's final year in Utah.
The team is also excited about many of the queer documentaries premiering at this year's festival, including one that Nein says also contributes to reflection on the festival's legacy while looking toward its future.
Nein mentions Byrdie O'Connor's film Barbara Forever, about legendary lesbian director Barbara Hammer. "Barbara had two films at Sundance, Nitrate Kisses (1993) and Tender Fictions (1996), and it's a really incredible film, and also one that is structured and stylized in a way that I think is really sort of in keeping with its subject matter."
Sundance has also historically been home to many sports documentaries that stand the test of time, from boxing doc When We Were Kings, to Hoop Dreams, to O.J.: Made in America, to steroid exposé Icarus. This year, two films about lesbian sport legends, The Brittney Griner Story and Give Me the Ball! (about trailblazing tennis star Billie Jean King) seek to join that lineage.
Billie Jean King appears in Give Me the Ball! by Liz Garbus and Elizabeth Wolff, an official selection of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival Courtesy of Sundance Institute
Yutani says that "you don't have to be a fan" of sports to enjoy Give Me the Ball! "Seeing and hearing Billie Jean King tell her own story in such an honest and open way" is a "revelation," she says.
"And then, with The Brittney Griner Story, I think that this is such a deep dive into what happened to BG, and the complete story around her," she says. "I think it is explored so beautifully in this documentary. It's directed by Alex Stapleton, who has had several films at the festival in the past. I just love those two films as kind of our main sports documentaries in the festival this year."
Another doc, Jaripeo, explores the queer subculture in the sport of rodeo in Michoacán, Mexico. "It's just such a beautifully shot impressionistic look, and really revealing exploration, but also an invitation into a community," Hernandez says.
The Sundance community will come together to explore these films and others from January 22, 2026, until February 1 in Park City, Utah. Learn more at sundance.org.
