The Tamesis
The 2026 Sundance Film Festival came to an end this weekend, but every screening felt melancholy. This is the final year for the festival, founded by the late Robert Redford, to be held in the Utah ski town that every year is packed with buyers wearing the chic festival-issued down jackets, media, movie stars, filmmakers and happy volunteers. By 2027, the entire project will move to Boulder, Colorado—a change of location that heralds an identity crisis.
The mood of farewell may have overshadowed the actual films in this year’s slate, and sales news has been relatively quiet. But my colleague Lisa Wong Macabasco and I managed to watch some good movies, as well as one or two that were really strong (a typical Sundance Film Festival hit rate). Here are our favorite titles that are either looking for release or will be available later this year. Put them on your watch list. ——Tyler Antrim
invitation letter
The laws of movie karma dictate that Olivia Wilde should make a comeback, and behold her third film, invitation letterThe film she co-directed and starred with Seth Rogen, Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton was a success at the Sundance Film Festival. (It sparked a bidding war that was eventually won by A24.) Set at a dinner party for two couples, this San Francisco-set comedy satirized marriage, bourgeois mores, and the sexual adventures of early middle age in a way that made me laugh in my ski jacket. The performances are all-out—Rogen is the highlight, an acerbic wonder—and the script by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack is witty, restrained, and dryly realistic. invitation letterplus another (smaller) comedy at the festival, i want your sex Directed by raucous filmmaker Greg Araki, in which Wilde plays an artist-dominatrix, it should reestablish Wilde’s comedic power in 2026. —TA
invitation letter It will be released in theaters later this year.
now
now“” starring Charli XCX will be released in theaters on January 30.
