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    Sundance Film Festival 2025: Standout Movies, Moments and Performances

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    The movies and performances most likely to make an impact in the year ahead, including an ode to 1970s New York and Josh O’Connor going full cowboy.Just as the Sundance Film Festival is in flux, likely soon to leave its longtime home of Park City, Utah, so too is the state of film — and indie film in particular. Yet the industry and its most ardent fans still came to the mountains for America’s most important event in independent cinema to schmooze, ski and see lots of movies, hoping to find this year’s “A Real Pain,” the breakout hit from last year’s slate. Sometimes it can feel like you’re wading through too much muddy snow to find the bright spots, and the 2025 festival, which ended on Sunday, definitely felt less shiny than in years past. But below are some standout moments that might influence the year ahead in culture.Eva Victor in “Sorry, Baby.”Mia Cioffi Henry/Courtesy of Sundance Institute1. One new name to know: Eva VictorThere’s a particular kind of Sundance movie that centers on a young woman who perseveres with wry humor and grit despite something terrible happening to her. Often, it takes place on a college campus. This year’s exemplar was “Sorry, Baby,” which was among the funniest, saddest and most exciting films of the week. Victor, 30, first found success in the Brooklyn comedy scene, but this is her feature directorial debut. She also wrote and stars in the tender project (alongside Naomi Ackie and Lucas Hedges).Rebecca Hall and Ben Whishaw in “Peter Hujar’s Day.”Courtesy of Ira Sachs2. Queer cinema is still ascendant (but still very male)Indie film has always been a genre through which teenagers who feel like outsiders learn to discover themselves, but this year’s roster felt especially crowded with L.G.T.B.Q. projects. Although the three with the most buzz were — for better or, mostly, for worse — about handsome white men: “Twinless,” in which two guys (one straight, one gay) meet in a bereavement group for people who’ve lost their siblings; “Plainclothes,” featuring Tom Blythe and Russell Tovey as a duo (one a closeted cop, one his target) grappling with temptation and intimacy; and “Peter Hujar’s Day,” Ira Sachs’s ode to 1970s-era New York, following the titular photographer (Ben Whishaw) as he narrates his quotidian schedule to his friend the writer Linda Rosencrantz (Rebecca Hall), based on Rosencrantz’s 2022 book of the same name.Josh O’Connor and Lily LaTorre in ”Rebuilding.”Jesse Hope/Courtesy of Sundance InstituteWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Sundance Film Festival Unveils a Lineup Heavy on Politics

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      The annual event also makes room for a remake of the musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman” and the return of Justin Lin.There is a point during every Sundance Film Festival, usually as movie fans are trudging through the cold, slushy snow in Park City, Utah, when they wonder, why do they hold this in January? And yet, so often current events — most often of the political nature — are reflected not only in the films being screened on the mountain but also in the happenings around town.In January 2009, huge crowds gathered to watch Barack Obama’s inauguration. In January 2017, 4,000 festivalgoers, including Charlize Theron, Kristen Stewart and Chelsea Handler, marched down Main Street the day after President Donald J. Trump’s inauguration. The following year, amid a considerable snowstorm, Jane Fonda, Gloria Allred and Tessa Thompson gathered protesters with fiery speeches to coincide with the one-year anniversary of his presidency.The 2025 edition of Sundance will debut on Jan. 23, three days after Trump is inaugurated a second time, and the Sundance lineup suggests politics are on the mind of this year’s filmmakers.In the five-part documentary series “Bucks County, USA,” Barry Levinson and Robert May take a close look at two 14-year-old girls, best friends despite their opposing political beliefs, living at the epicenter of the nation’s political divide.The documentarian Sam Feder was shooting in Washington as recently as last week for “Heightened Scrutiny,” about the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Chase Strangio and his battle before the Supreme Court for transgender rights.“The Librarians,” from Kim A. Snyder, tracks the efforts of workers in Texas, Florida and other states to protect democracy amid a wave of book bans, while “2000 Meters to Andriivka,” from Mstyslav Chernov (“20 Days in Mariupol”) follows a Ukrainian platoon on a mission to liberate a strategic village.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      William Hurt, Oscar-Winning Leading Man of the 1980s, Dies at 71

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      A four-time Academy Award nominee, he starred in such films as “Body Heat,” “The Big Chill,” “Children of a Lesser God” and “Broadcast News.”William Hurt, who burst into stardom as the hapless lawyer Ned Racine in “Body Heat” and won an Oscar for best actor for “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” portraying a gay man sharing a Brazilian prison cell with a revolutionary, died at his home in Portland, Ore., on Sunday. He was 71.A son, Alexander Hurt, said the cause was complications of prostate cancer.Mr. Hurt, tall, blond and speaking in a measured cadence that lent a cerebral quality to his characters, was a leading man in some of the most popular films of the 1980s, including “The Big Chill” (1983), “Children of a Lesser God” (1986), “Broadcast News” (1987) and “The Accidental Tourist” (1988).In later years, Mr. Hurt transitioned from leading man to supporting roles, and was nominated for an Academy Award a fourth time for “A History of Violence” (2005).Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times in 1985 of the “brilliant achievement” of Mr. Hurt and his co-star, Raul Julia, in “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”“Mr. Hurt won a well-deserved best actor award at the Cannes Film Festival for a performance that is crafty at first, carefully nurtured and finally stirring in profound, unanticipated ways,” she wrote. “What starts out as a campy, facetious catalog of Hollywood trivia becomes an extraordinarily moving film about manhood, heroism and love.”Despite his successes as a leading man in Hollywood, he told The Times in 1990 that “theater is a language I speak better or am more tuned into than English.”“Even one moment onstage is a glacier of comprehension,” he added. “That’s where the work is. And it’s as fascinating to study as any other science.”In a 2009 interview with The Times, he explained: “I don’t have to be the star, physically. My greatest offering is my concept. It isn’t my face.”His approach, he said, was to “basically try to make my body as much a matter of Silly Putty as I can, and in some sense sculpt that to be perfectly appropriate to themes and the metaphors that are in the play at hand.”A full obituary is being prepared.Christine Chung More