The 2026 Sundance Film Festival arrives with a slate that highlights Black creatives in cinema. This year’s lineup reflects a wide range of perspectives, many of them debuting on the world stage. Across Park City, Salt Lake City, and the Festival’s online platform, audiences will experience projects shaped by filmmakers yearning to tell important stories.
The Festival runs January 22 through February 1, 2026, with in-person screenings, panels, and events taking place in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah. An at-home program follows from January 29 through February 1, giving audiences nationwide access to a curated selection of films via festival.sundance.org. Tickets and passes are available through the Sundance Film Festival website, with options for individual screenings, online viewing, and full Festival access. Jury and audience awards will be presented January 30 at The Ray Theatre in Park City.
Among the most anticipated documentaries is The Brittney Griner Story, directed by Alexandria Stapleton, which traces the forces that led the basketball star to play overseas and the events surrounding her detention in Russia. Once Upon A Time In Harlem revisits a 1972 gathering organized by filmmaker William Greaves, capturing an intimate moment between cultural figures whose influence shaped Black artistic life in America.
Narrative films include If I Go Will They Miss Me, directed by Walter Thompson-Hernández, which centers a young boy grappling with family and loss as surreal visions blur the line between memory and imagination. Frank & Louis, starring Kingsley Ben-Adir and Rob Morgan, follows a man serving a life sentence whose prison job caring for elderly inmates leads to an unexpected connection.
As far as the International selections, LADY, set in Lagos, follows a cab driver drawn into the orbit of a tight-knit group of sex workers. Kikuyu Land examines land disputes in Kenya through journalism and family history, while Soul Patrol reunites the first Black special operations team from the Vietnam War. Troublemaker, directed by Antoine Fuqua, builds its portrait of Nelson Mandela through the leader’s own recorded words.
Below, these films underscore Sundance’s ongoing role as a platform for Black filmmakers telling stories on their own terms.
Explores the circumstances that led to Brittney Griner playing basketball outside the U.S. despite being one of the best players in the sport, including her harrowing detainment, unwavering determination to secure her freedom, and her advocacy for the release of other wrongful detainees. World Premiere. Documentary. (Director and Producer: Alexandria Stapleton, Producers: Stacy Scripter, Funmi Akinyode, Megan Goedewaagen, Carolyn Hepburn)
An outsider fueled by relentless determination works his way into the inner circle of the Wu-Tang Clan, where his ambition and creativity converge in the making of an album poised to ignite global controversy. World Premiere. Documentary. (Director and Producer: Joanna Natasegara, Producers: Abigail Anketell-Jones, Lauren Dark, Vanessa Kirby)
Frank, serving a life sentence, takes a prison job caring for aging inmates with Alzheimer’s and dementia. What begins as a self-interested bid for parole becomes a profound, transformative bond with fellow inmate Louis, offering Frank a glimpse of redemption in an unforgiving place. Cast: Kingsley Ben-Adir, Rob Morgan, René Pérez Joglar, Rosalind Eleazar, Indira Varma. World Premiere. Fiction. (Director and Screenwriter: Petra Biondina Volpe, Screenwriter: Esther Bernstorff, Producers: Reto Schaerli, Lukas Hobi)
Kid decides to go to his friend Play’s house party, but neither of them can predict what’s in store for them on what could be the wildest night of their lives. Cast: Tisha Campbell, Full Force, Robin Harris, A.J. Johnson, Martin Lawrence, Kid ‘N Play.
Twelve-year-old Lil Ant struggles to connect with his father when he begins to see surreal, almost spectral visions of boys drifting around his neighborhood. Their presence reveals a link between father and son, laying bare the threads that bind family, legacy, and place. Cast: Danielle Brooks, J. Alphonse Nicholson. World Premiere. Fiction. Available online for public. (Director and Screenwriter: Walter Thompson-Hernández, Producers: Josh Peters, Saba Zerehi, Ben Stillman)
Three storylines, spanning thousands of years, intersect and reflect on hope, connection, and the circle of life. Cast: Rashida Jones, Kate McKinnon, Daveed Diggs, Jorge Vargas, Tanaya Beatty. World Premiere. Fiction. 2026 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize Winner. (Director: Andrew Stanton, Screenwriter: Colby Day, Producer: Jared Ian Goldman)
As a Nairobi journalist probes a land battle entangling the local government and a powerful multinational corporation, covered wounds are revealed and family secrets are exposed. World Premiere. Available online for public. (Directors and Producers: Andrew H. Brown, Bea Wangondu, Producers: Moses Bwayo, Mike Morrisroe, Joseph Njenga)
In the sprawling African metropolis of Lagos, a fiercely independent young cab driver meets a band of radiantly reckless sex workers whose sisterhood pulls her into danger and joy, setting her on a journey toward her own transformation. Cast: Jessica Gabriel’s Ujah, Amanda Oruh, Tinuade Jemiseye, Binta Ayo Mogaji, Seun Kuti, Bucci Franklin. World Premiere. Available online for public. (Director and Screenwriter: Olive Nwosu, Producer: Alex Polunin)
A decade after his death, genre-defying filmmaker William Greaves has one last trick up his sleeve with what he considered the most important event he captured on film: a 1972 party he engineered with the living luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. World Premiere. Documentary. (Directors: William Greaves, David Greaves, Producers: Liani Greaves, Anne de Mare)
From deep behind enemy lines, a hidden chapter of American military history is uncovered, prompting the question of whether reckoning with the past can bring peace to those who lived it. The Vietnam War’s first Black special operations team reunites to tell their story. World Premiere. Available online for public. (Director and Producer: J.M. Harper, Producers: Sam Bisbee, Danielle Massie, Nasir Jones, Peter Bittenbender)
The struggle against apartheid is recounted through Nelson Mandela’s own voice, drawn from recordings he made while writing his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom. World Premiere. Documentary. (Director and Producer: Antoine Fuqua, Screenwriter: Michael Toomey Mann, Producers: Mac Maharaj, Arthur Landon, Kevin Mann, Mark Bauch, Thabang Lehobye)