Entertainment
Sundance 2026 Movies Sold So Far (Updating List)
Of the 90-plus films and episodic series premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in 2026, only about a dozen arrived at the festival with distribution in hand. Many will be looking for homes, but if this year is anything like last year, it may take some time for those sales to close. We’ll be tracking all of them as they come in.
“The Friend’s House Is Here”
Section: U.S. Dramatic
Distributor: Greenwich Entertainment
Director: Maryam Ataei and Hossein Keshavarz
Date Acquired: April 28
Buzz: Notable for being shot in secret in Tehran before being smuggled out of Iran, “The Friend’s House Is Here” so far has won universal acclaim with a 100 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and also won the Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast in the U.S. Dramatic competition. The film follows two young women who carve out a vibrant world of freedom, creativity, and sisterhood within Tehran’s underground art scene. But when their community is exposed, they are forced to fight to protect one another and the fragile life they have built. Our critic said it combines the daring, rebellious spirit of Jafar Panahi with the charm of “Frances Ha.” Greenwich is planning a theatrical release this fall.
“American Doctor”
Section: U.S. Documentary
Distributor: Watermelon Pictures
Director: Poh Si Teng
Date Acquired: April 23
Buzz: Watermelon Pictures has had some success with Palestinian-centered stories like “Palestine ’36” and the Oscar-nominated “The Voice of Hind Rajab.” The distributor picked up another that shines a light on the Palestinian story, with the film following three physicians, one Palestinian, one Jewish, and one Zoroastrian, who enter Gaza with the mission to save lives and find themselves caught up in the mix between medicine and politics. The vérité documentary after premiering at Sundance has played at festivals like True/False Film Fest, CPH:DOX, Hot Docs, and SXSW and won several awards. Watermelon is planning a U.S. and Canadian release this summer.
“Buddy”
Section: Midnight
Distributor: Roadside Attractions and Saban Films
Director: Casper Kelly
Date Acquired: April 23 Release Date: September 4
Buzz: The latest in the trickle of Sundance sales is one that we predicted could be buzzy and that IndieWire called the “first great midnight movie” of 2026. “Buddy” is “Too Many Cooks” director Casper Kelly’s murderous riff on “Barney,” a genre-bending horror film that stars Cristin Milioti, Delaney Quinn, Topher Grace, Keegan-Michael Key, Michael Shannon, and Patton Oswalt. The film, which is Kelly’s feature debut after the viral Adult Swim short, imagines a children’s show complete with catchy jingles and tropes about friendship before taking a sharp descent into madness. The distributors plan to release it in theaters over Labor Day weekend.
“Union County”
Section: U.S. Dramatic
Distributor: Oscilloscope Laboratories
Director: Adam Meeks
Date Acquired: April 20
Buzz: The (very) slow roll of Sundance sales trickled into April with Oscilloscope picking up writer-director Adam Meeks’ addiction drama “Union County” that stars two rising actors in Will Poulter and Noah Centineo. The arthouse distributor plans to release the film theatrically this summer or fall. More a recovery drama than an “addiction” drama, the film follows two brothers living in rural Ohio who are attending a court-sponsored rehabilitation program for people impacted by the opioid crisis. The film features non-actors participating in the real-life program alongside the strong performances by Poulter and Centineo. The film is the directorial debut for Meeks and is based on his 2020 short film of the same name.
“Hot Water”
Section: U.S. Dramatic
Distributor: Rich Spirit
Director: Ramzi Bashour
Date Acquired: March 30
Buzz: This debut feature has been described as an unconventional road movie, a dramedy between a Lebanese mother and her American son who are driving from Indiana to California for the son to live with his estranged father after he was expelled from school. The director Bashour told IndieWire at the festival that he wanted to make a convincing and rewarding road trip first and a movie second, and the film explores family and cultural diaspora through a humorous lens. The film stars Lubna Azabal and “Lurker” star Daniel Zolghadri, as well as a supporting part from Dale Dickey as one of the eccentrics the family meets on their road trip. Rich Spirit picked up North American rights and is planning a theatrical release this year after an April screening at the Museum of the Moving Image festival First Look.
“The History of Concrete”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Magnolia
Director: John Wilson
Date Acquired: March 25
Buzz: Though we might’ve guessed it was ticketed for HBO after the success of “How To with John Wilson,” Magnolia saw some commercial appeal in the film from the New York City documentarian’s feature “The History of Concrete” about the seemingly drabbest of subjects. The distributor is planning a theatrical release of the film later this year.
Our critic called it a “moving and hilarious meditation on death” that mixes together “DMX, Hallmark movies, Kim Kardashian, public diarrhea, a trailblazing Asian American judge, the world’s first 3D-printed Starbucks, and a 3,100-mile footrace that honors a dead Brooklyn cult leader” in order to find a debut feature that’s sturdy and solid, not unlike concrete itself.
“Cookie Queens”
Section: Family Matinee
Distributor: Roadside Attractions
Director: Alysa Nahmias
Date Acquired: March 12
Buzz: It’s currently Girl Scout Cookie season, and Roadside Attractions with their box of Thin Mints also bought the U.S. rights to “Cookie Queens,” Alysa Nahmias’ charming documentary about the Girl Scouts ahead of it again playing at SXSW. The film is executive produced by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, as well as produced by “The Truffle Hunters” filmmakers Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw of their banner Beautiful Stories. IndieWire’s review said that while the film is indeed charming, it takes a skeptical eye to the “Big Cookie” industry that these “too-cute-for-words” girls manage to facilitate every year. Roadside is planning a summer 2026 theatrical release for “Cookie Queens.”
“If I Go Will They Miss Me”
Section: NEXT
Distributor: Rich Spirit
Director: Walter Thompson-Hernandez
Date Acquired: March 3
Buzz: Rich Spirit, which is the upstart distributor behind Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice” and Khalil Joseph’s “BLKNWS: Terms and Conditions,” has acquired the U.S. rights (along with other international territories) to the coming-of-age drama from writer-director Walter Thompson-Hernandez. The film stars Danielle Brooks, J. Alphonse Nicholson, and Bodhi Dell and also has Jon Batiste, who recorded a cover of the song “This Bitter Earth” for the film, as an executive producer. This would be just Rich Spirit’s third release, and the distributor is aiming for a theatrical release this fall. “If I Go Will They Miss Me” is based on Thompson-Hernandez’s Sundance-winning short film of the same name and follows a 12-year-old boy who struggles to connect with his distant father as he begins sensing mysterious visions that seem to follow him through his everyday world. IndieWire’s review called it a formally ambitious portrait of Black life in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, praising Thompson-Hernandez for his elliptical narrative and “painter’s eye.”
“Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Director: David Wain
Date Acquired: Feb. 27 Release Date: July 10
Buzz: That’s four now! Sony Pictures Classics is clearly finding some deals a month removed from the festival (Deadline reported that at least seven other bids were on the table for the film), as again picked up global rights to another buzzy, starry title, this time David Wain’s return to the big screen with “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass.” Zoey Deutch stars as a bride-to-be who discovers that her fiancé cashed in on a hall pass to sleep with a celebrity, inspiring her to do the same with her hall pass celeb, Jon Hamm playing himself. It’s a reunion between Wain and writer Ken Marino, and also Hamm and John Slattery from “Mad Men.” IndieWire called it one of Wain’s funniest films of his career.
“The Incomer”
Section: NEXT
Distributor: Sumerian Pictures
Director: Louis Paxton
Date Acquired: Feb. 26
Buzz: Remember when we said a distributor you’ve never heard of would make the biggest splash at Sundance? Though we thought it could be Row K, turns out it’s record-label-turned-film-distributor Sumerian Pictures, which IndieWire has learned has now bought its second award winner after the buzzy “Josephine.” “The Incomer” from director Louis Paxton picked up the NEXT Innovator Award, and the offbeat comedy and fantasy film stars Domhnall Gleeson and Gayle Rankin. Rankin and Grant O’Rourke play two siblings on the Isles of Northern Scotland who hunt birds for survival and protect their home from mythical “incomers,” only to have an awkward council worker (Gleeson) show up, one who hopes to uproot and relocate them on behalf of the government. “The Incomer” and Paxton landed on IndieWire’s critics poll of the best movies out of Sundance, and Sumerian is planning a theatrical release for later this year.
“The Shitheads”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: IFC
Director: Macon Blair
Date Acquired: Feb. 26 Release Date: August 28
Buzz: Macon Blair’s third feature as a director stars Dave Franco and O’Shea Jackson Jr. as two unqualified screw-ups who are hired to bring a rich teen to rehab, only for mayhem to ensue along the way. Blair told IndieWire he and story writer Alex Orr have been trying to make the film as far back as 2017, with Franco attached from the very beginning. The film also stars Mason Thames as the teen, along with Kiernan Shipka, Nicholas Braun, and Peter Dinklage. “The Shitheads” had some solid if mixed reviews, as IndieWire’s called it “uneven” in its blend of films as unalike as “The Last Detail” and “Midnight Run.” IFC is planning to release the film theatrically this summer.
“The Only Living Pickpocket in New York”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Director: Noah Segan
Date Acquired: Feb. 24
Buzz: Sony Pictures Classics had an appetite. In what is the distributor’s third buy out of Sundance, the distributor landed the global rights to “The Only Living Pickpocket in New York” starring John Turturro and is planning a theatrical release for the film this fall. The film was hailed as a true love letter to New York City, one that follows an aging pickpocket who is struggling to still get by when everyone has stopped carrying cash and gone digital and what happens when he steals a USB drive and faces the wrath of a crime family. The film also stars Giancarlo Esposito, Will Price, Tatiana Maslany, Victoria Moroles, and Steve Buscemi, and Segan is reuniting with T-Street producer Rian Johnson after originally starring in Johnson’s debut feature “Brick.”
“Wicker”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Black Bear
Director: Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer
Date Acquired: Feb. 17
Buzz: Some Sundance movies don’t work beyond their kooky, twee premise, and some do and are destined to break out. “Wicker” was the latter, as IndieWire said the performances from Olivia Colman and Alexander Skarsgård, a husband whom Colman’s character manages to craft out of Wicker, were “irresistibly weird and wonderful.” This is a notable, competitive win for Black Bear, which did not finance “Wicker” but instead comes from Tango and Topic Studios, the latter of which has had a string of recent Sundance favorites like “A Real Pain.” The distributor is planning a North American release of the film for this year and is also handling international sales. Peter Dinklage, Elizabeth Debicki, Marli Siu, and Nabhaan Rizwan also star in the film.
“Josephine”
Section: U.S. Dramatic
Distributor: Sumerian Pictures
Director: Beth de Araújo
Date Acquired: Feb. 14
Buzz: Widely acclaimed and easily the most celebrated movie out of Sundance 2026, director Beth de Araújo’s “Josephine” was bound to find a home sooner or later, but it’s a surprise that it ended up with Sumerian Pictures, a relative newcomer to the space that has been widely known as a record label but is now getting into film. They made a splash by still scooping it up in a 7-figure deal and a competitive situation. It will get a theatrical release and an awards campaign. Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan, and Phillip Ettinger star in the drama alongside breakout young actress Mason Lily Reeves, who plays an 8-year-old girl who witnesses a sexual assault in Golden Gate Park and has to grapple with what she saw, with her parents struggling to help her cope. After winning the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Prize out of Sundance, “Josephine” is again competing in competition at Berlin.
“The Baddest Speechwriter of All”
Section: Shorts
Distributor: Netflix
Director: Ben Proudfoot and Stephen Curry
Date Acquired: Feb. 12
Buzz: Though it missed out on “The Invite,” Netflix is not coming out of Sundance empty handed. The streamer’s first purchase was surprisingly a documentary short, one that figures to be an awards player down the road. It acquired “The Baddest Speechwriter of All,” which along with Ben Proudfoot is the directorial debut of NBA great Stephen Curry. The 29-minute short film won the Grand Jury Prize for short films out of the festival. The film follows Dr. Clarence B. Jones, now 93, who was a lawyer and speechwriter — the baddest of them all — for Martin Luther King Jr. The film reflects on the personal cost and surprising truths of making history, offering an intimate insider’s view of the Civil Rights Movement. But it also stood out thanks to more than 3,000 entirely hand-painted watercolor animation sequences from artist Daniel Bruson. Elizabeth Goodstein and Gigi Pritzker produced for Madison Wells, as did Peter Rotter and Jane Solomon.
“Filipiñana”
Section: World Dramatic
Distributor: Kino Lorber
Director: Rafael Manuel
Date Acquired: Feb. 12
Buzz: As if Michael Haneke directed “The White Lotus,” “Filipiñana” was a dazzling critical darling out of Sundance, with the New Yorker calling it a “masterwork” and Vulture noting how “the angle of a golf club can evoke suspense” or “a piece of fruit on the ground can feel like a tragedy.” Kino Lorber CEO Richard Lorber said in a statement too that the film is a “cinematic miracle” and he “can’t find enough adjectives to praise it.”
We were tracking the film early, having shared a striking teaser for the movie from director Rafael Manuel, who based his debut feature on his own short, one that won the Silver Bear at Venice and you can currently stream on The Criterion Channel. The film is a class critique set at a posh golf club in the Philippines that is hiding something violent and sinister beneath the immaculate facade and dutiful servants. Jia Zhangke is an executive producer on “Filipiñana,” and Kino Lorber picked up the North American rights just prior to the film making its European premiere at Berlin on Feb. 15. Kino Lorber will plan a theatrical release later this year.
“I Want Your Sex”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Magnolia
Director: Gregg Araki
Date Acquired: Feb. 10 Release Date: July 31
Buzz: Gregg Araki wants sex to come back to the big screens and get Gen Z horny again, and Magnolia is helping him do it. The buzzy film starring Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman sold in a competitive situation to Magnolia for a 7-figure deal. IndieWire had a lot of fun with the picture, and Magnolia is thinking so will audiences. The distributor is planning a theatrical release later this year. Mason Gooding, Chase Sui Wonders, Johnny Knoxville, Margaret Cho, Roxane Mesquida, Charli XCX, and Daveed Diggs all co-star in the film.
“The Last First: Winter K2”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Apple
Director: Amir Bar-Lev
Date Acquired: Feb. 5
Buzz: In terms of pure visceral thrills, it’s hard to beat a good mountain climbing documentary. That’s the bet Apple made when it acquired “The Last First: Winter K2,” which also explores the corrosive affect that influencer culture has had on the world of mountain climbing. Bar-Lev has an extensive track record of delivering documentary hits about a wide range of topics, so the tech giant is likely hoping that it has the next “Free Solo” on its hands.
“Once Upon a Time in Harlem”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Neon
Directors: William and David Greaves
Date Acquired: Feb. 5
Buzz: Few nonfiction films at Sundance generated more buzz than “Once Upon a Time in Harlem,” William Greaves’ posthumous collection of conversations from a 1974 cocktail party of Harlem Renaissance luminaries that was assembled by his son David. The film is a vital historical artifact, and the fact that it hails from a legendary documentarian only adds to its prestige. We’re hearing it generated offers from Netflix and MUBI and others and already has invites to some other major upcoming festivals. Watch out for this one come Oscar season.
“Bedford Park”
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Director: Stephanie Ahn
Date Acquired: Jan. 30 Release Date: September 22
Buzz: In its second acquisition in two days, Sony Pictures Classics picked up another set of worldwide rights to yet another U.S. Dramatic Competition title. “Bedford Park” is also the directorial debut of Ahn, and it’s a drama about a woman (Moon Choi) struggling between her loyalty to her Korean immigrant family and her own American identity, as a child raised in New Jersey. When her mother gets into a car accident, it leads to a fateful meeting with Eli (Son Sukku), an ex-wrestler battling his own fractured past.
In addition to Sukku being the host of IndieWire’s final Chili Party in Park City, IndieWire’s review praised the film for being rich in detail rather than sacrificing specificity for a simple love story.
“Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!”
Section: U.S. Dramatic Competition
Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics
Director: Josef Kubota Wladyka
Date Acquired: Jan. 29
Buzz: One of the buzzier competition titles at Sundance not because of its star power but because of its playful title and crowd pleasing sentiment, one that earned a standing ovation for director Josef Kubota Wladyka and his mother on whom the film is based, the real Ha-Chan. Shot in Japan, Rinko Kikuchi stars in “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” as a woman who leaves the Japanese ballroom dance scene after tragedy strikes, only to be lured back onto the dance floor after developing an infatuation for a new instructor. SPC picked up the worldwide rights to the film. It also stars Alberto Guerra, Alejandro Edda, Yoh Yoshida, and Damián Alcázar.
“The Invite”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: A24
Director: Olivia Wilde
Date Acquired: Jan. 27 Release Date: June 26
Buzz: This was a true, old-fashioned, late night bidding war between multiple interested buyers that ended up being a 72-hour, marathon competition. IndieWire hears that Neon, Black Bear, Netflix, Searchlight, and Focus Features — and even Warner Bros. at the 11th hour — were all in the mix for what was Olivia Wilde’s third feature as a director. We’re also hearing that the final bidding got into the 8-figure range. Others may have bid more, but Wilde was determined to get a theatrical deal. And it’s fitting too, because this was one of the starrier movies at the festival with Wilde, Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, and Penélope Cruz all leading the ensemble cast. “The Invite” quite simply is about the dinner party from hell when a couple whose marriage is on the brink have dinner with another couple that’s polyamorous, but the crowds that saw it say there’s a lot more layers to this one than just that. Will McCormack and Rashida Jones wrote the screenplay based on a 2019 Spanish film called “Sentimental.” UTA Independent Film Group and FilmNation co-repped the sale, and the film hails from Megan Ellison and Annapurna, who also previously produced Wilde’s debut film “Booksmart.”
“Leviticus”
Section: Midnight
Distributor: Neon
Director: Adrian Chiarella
Date Acquired: Jan. 27 Release Date: June 19
Buzz: A queer, coming-of-age horror movie? “Leviticus” is about two teenage boys who have to fight off a violent entity capable of taking the form of the other. The film plays on the real-life horrors of conversion therapy and stars Joe Bird, Stacy Clausen, Jeremy Blewitt, Ewen Leslie, Davida McKenzie, Nicholas Hope, Zahra Newman, and Mia Wasikowska. The film’s unique genre premise from writer/director Adrian Chiarella, his feature debut, was good enough for Neon to jump on worldwide rights in a seven-figure deal, as well as the first sale of the festival, an otherwise slow affair thus far, though one that has sparked an early bidding war for at least one other title. “Leviticus” will be released later this year and is actually Neon’s second deal for a horror movie out of the festival, as the distributor also over the weekend joined the next film from “It Ends” director Alex Ullom.
Films Arriving at Sundance with Distribution
“The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Focus Features
Directors: Daniel Roher and Charlie Tyrell
Buzz: The “Navalny” director teams up with producer Daniel Kwan (“Everything Everywhere All At Once”) on a film that goes deep into the perils and promise of artificial intelligence, all through the lens of Roher debating whether this is a good moment to bring a child into the world.
“The Brittany Griner Story”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: ESPN
Director: Alexandria Stapleton
Buzz: The director of “Sean Combs: The Reckoning” sits down with Brittany Griner, the basketball star who was famously detained and became the subject of a media and political frenzy as she hoped to secure her freedom.
“Give Me the Ball!”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: ESPN
Directors: Liz Garbus and Elizabeth Wolff
Buzz: More than a sports doc, this portrait of Billie Jean King looks at the tennis icon’s compulsion to hide her sexual orientation and eating disorders.
“In the Blink of an Eye”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Searchlight Pictures
Director: Andrew Stanton
Buzz: Though he’s directed plenty on TV, Pixar vet Andrew Stanton is returning to a live-action feature for the first time since “John Carter” dropped way back in 2012. “In the Blink of an Eye” is a triptych set in ancient times, modern day, and in the distant future, exploring how those three eras are connected by hope and the circle of life.
“The Moment”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: A24
Director: Aidan Zamiri Streaming Date: May 29 on HBO Max
Buzz: One of three films starring Charli XCX at the festival, the “brat” pop star plays a version of herself in an exaggerated mockumentary that comments on the idea of modern celebrity.
“One in a Million”
Section: World Documentary
Distributor: PBS/Frontline
Directors: Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes
Buzz: This documentary was filmed over 10 years and follows a Syrian refugee girl who travels to Germany and then back to Syria with her family.
“Queen of Chess”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Netflix
Director: Rory Kennedy
Buzz: Perhaps a documentary for “The Queen’s Gambit” fans, this film follows a girl from Hungary who is a chess prodigy trying to break into a male-dominated competition circuit.
“Saccharine”
Section: Midnight
Distributor: Shudder
Director: Natalie Erika James
Buzz: Shudder picked up this body horror film from the “Relic” director just before the festival. It stars Midori Francis as a woman who takes part in a bizarre weight loss craze that involves eating human ashes, only to become possessed by demonic forces in the process.
“TheyDream”
Section: NEXT
Distributor: Latino Public Broadcasting and ITVS
Director: William D. Caballero
Buzz: This animated film that combines a variety of styles, including 2D, 3D, and live-action, is a deeply personal autobiographical documentary from mixed media filmmaker Caballero, who looks back on his career and examines grief through the lens of his Puerto Rican family in North Carolina. Theatrical rights are still available.
“Time and Water”
Section: Premieres
Distributor: Nat Geo
Director: Sara Dosa
Buzz: Like her Sundance breakout “Fire of Love” before it, “Time and Water” is a more elevated nature documentary and follows an Icelandic writer eulogizing both a glacier and his grandparents.
“Undertone”
Section: Midnight
Distributor: A24
Director: Ian Tuason
Buzz: A micro-budget horror movie in the vein of “Paranormal Activity” that first played at Fantasia Fest, the actual producers of “Paranormal Activity” helped give the film a new cut and are hoping for another horror hit.
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What can’t Julianne Moore do?
The U.S. actress accepted Zurich Film Festival‘s lifetime achievement honor, the Golden Icon Award, in perfect German on Friday night.
She was joined at the ceremony by Jesse Eisenberg, who directs her in his latest feature The Debut, a musical-comedy co-starring Paul Giamatti, which is screening at the 22nd edition in Switzerland this week.
Moore called upon her own childhood growing up in Europe while making her acceptance speech. “Thank you for this wonderful honor,” said a translated version of her words. “I know that I am in Switzerland right now, but as a teenager, I lived in Germany. And my teacher there told me that I could become an actress. Had I not moved to Europe with my parents, I would not have had this wonderful life. And I wouldn’t be here with you tonight to speak my bad German to you.”
On the carpet ahead of the presentation, the Oscar-winning actress beamed and said she was feeling “pretty good” about the prospect of receiving the prestigious Golden Icon. “And it’s really wonderful to be here with Jesse Eisenberg, who’s such a tremendous talent and has been an unbelievably wonderful creative partner,” she added. “He’s such a genius, so I’m just happy to be sharing this experience with him, and to be here with our movie. Every day was phenomenal. It really was. There’s actually a shot of me that Jesse said was so, so funny because I was making so many dumb faces. But I said, ‘That was just my dumb face!’ I was enjoying it so much.”
Eisenberg’s third directorial feature follows Mona Friedman (Moore), who is cast in a bit part at a small community theater and transforms from a shy, unassuming housewife into a zealous method actor willing to do anything to protect the artistic integrity of her marginal role — even if it means waging war against the show’s domineering director (Giamatti).
The filmmaker-actor-writer told reporters on the Zurich carpet on Friday: “Mona is me. When I was seven years old in New Jersey in 1990, I was a sad little kid, and then I joined a community theater and I found a home.” On the brilliance of Moore, who starred in Eisenberg’s directorial debut When You Finish Saving the World (2022), he said: “When I started writing it, it was only her, and if she did not want to do it, the movie would have not been made. There’s no one else on the planet, alive or dead or yet to be born, who could play [the role] as good as she [does].”
Among Moore’s best-known performances are Still Alice, for which she won the Academy Award, as well as The Hours and The Kids Are All Right. Recent credits include Apple TV’s Echo Valley, Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door and Netflix limited series Sirens. Next year, she will return to the stage to star in the title role of the Off-Broadway play Faydra.
Also on Friday night in Zurich, In Bruges and The Banshees of Inisherin filmmaker Martin McDonagh was given the fest’s A Tribute To… Award. The honor was in celebration of his most recent film, Wild Horse Nine, which is currently making its way around the festival circuit and already generating Oscar buzz, particularly for lead actor John Malkovich.
Set shortly before the 1973 military coup in Chile, Wild Horse Nine stars Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as Chris and Lee, longtime CIA partners stationed in Santiago who are dispatched to Easter Island by their bureau chief, MJ (Buscemi) to assist in the U.S.’s covert campaign to undermine the democratically elected Chilean government. Against the surreal backdrop of the island’s monumental Moai statues, the pair begin reckoning with their murky shared past.
“I love coming to Zurich, and it’s a tremendous honor,” said the British-Irish creative on the carpet ahead of his ceremony. “I’m excited. I know it’s a great, very cine-literate audience, so I hope they’ll like [Wild Horse Nine] as much as the other ones.”
He said about travelling to Easter Island: “I visited maybe 15 years ago, and was just struck by the beauty of the place, [and] also the mystery of the Moai heads, and I thought it could be almost a character in a film, and it’s turned out to be that way. I’d worked with Sam Rockwell obviously a bunch of times before, so that’s always a joy. But John Malkovich was new to me, and he’s just perfect for the part. He’s funny and he’s dangerous. And Steve Buscemi and Parker Posey were fantastic too.”
These aren’t the only awards Zurich is dishing out. Tom Hiddleston received the Golden Eye on Thursday night as the fest opened with his Everest drama, Tenzing, and John Turturro will also be given the same honor for his starring role in this year’s The Only Living Pickpocket in New York.
The 22nd Zurich Film Festival runs Sept. 24-Oct. 4.
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On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark honors fringe cinema in the streaming age with midnight movies from any moment in film history.
First, the BAIT: a weird genre pick, and why we’re exploring its specific niche right now. Then, the BITE: a spoiler-filled answer to the all-important question, “Is this old cult film actually worth recommending?”
The Bait: At Least Adult Swim Gave Me My Backstroke
I spend a lot of time hunched over my laptop. In fact, in the indie film world, my posture problem is so common it’s sometimes affectionately called a “programmer’s hunch.”
That’s the catchall term for the shape your spine gradually assumes when your every waking moment revolves around random screening links and unanswered emails. Of course, way before I was old enough to give myself such a genuinely stupid workplace injury, I developed a different back issue — equally rooted in my love for discovering strange media.
As an underage Adult Swim fan, I spent much of my 2000s childhood sneaking downstairs to watch the late-night Cartoon Network programming block hours after I’d been sent to bed. To avoid waking my parents and older sister, I kept the volume low and got as close to the TV set as possible.
Belly-down on the carpet with my back arched like “The Little Mermaid,” I was totally engrossed in what I was watching and physically incapable of relaxing for fear of being caught. Instead, adopting a kind of stress position that produced the s-curve that still impacts my structural integrity today, I felt every second of my most formative Adult Swim memories.
Naturally, being a sick freak, I totally loved it: finding joy and even identity in witnessing stuff I wasn’t “supposed” to see. The discomfort was part of the fun and, in its own way, made the risk worth it.
Earlier this month, my colleague Christian Zilko brought that feeling flooding back for me with his oral history of the cult platform. For Adult Swim’s 25th anniversary, IndieWire traced the scrappy and subversive sensibility that turned a ballsy experiment into one of TV’s most influential brands and, for folks like me, a meaningful ritual. It’s a rollicking good read and one of the rare times Hollywood execs sound sincerely cool. But the lineup’s iconic “Infomercials” do warrant a special After Dark side quest.
Kicked off in 2009, when I was then a teenager and actually allowed to enjoy myself after midnight, the “Infomercials” premise was extraordinarily simple. At 4 a.m., network viewers who were already accustomed to seeing lengthy advertisements for so-called miracle products and questionable self-help programs on TV were greeted with “paid” Adult Swim presentations that felt real but weren’t.
Innovative filmmakers, like Alan Resnick and Casper Kelly, used the bait-and-switch exhibition premise as an excuse to explore their arthouse ambitions and get very, very weird on broadcast.
You probably know “Too Many Cooks,” which begins as an innocuous sitcom opening but keeps adding credits, characters, and eventually a murderer. But here’s also “Unedited Footage of a Bear,” which sees a pharmaceutical ad curdle into a nightmare. And my personal favorite is still, “This House Has People in It,” which turns security footage into a sprawling suburban horror mystery.
Despite my newfound adolescent freedom in the early 2010s, I still remember watching these bizarre segments the same way I did as a child — laying down on the carpet, close enough to the TV to hear every nonsensical word. Thank God most of the “Informercials” shorts only run about 10 to 12 minutes.
There’s actually a wonderfully mundane reason for that breezy length. Adult Swim’s “Infomercials” were designed to fit just a quarter-hour television slot with room left over for commercials. Contextually, that’s just enough time to establish what you think you’re watching and then make you regret settling in.
Some “Infomercials” are funnier than others, and plenty show little interest in being funny at all. What they share, however, is the uncanny ability to make the machinery of TV feel existentially unstable. So, in honor of Adult Swim turning 25, I’m recommending you end Cartoon Network’s month-long celebration with an “Infomercials” marathon, sure to be both nostalgic and upsetting!
Watch a few you’ve never heard of (on YouTube or the official Adult Swim site), and resist the urge to read the descriptions first. If your back can take it, get close to the screen, too. I’ll do the same. Probably. —Alison Foreman
The Bite: May the Kids Never Get Back in the Pool
I’ve spent a lot of September thinking about Adult Swim. It’s the 25th anniversary of an entertainment brand that means more to me than almost any other and, as Ali was gracious enough to plug, I wrote a few articles trying to capture what it’s all meant to the people who made it.
There’s so much to discuss — the unique shows, the talent it platformed, the fanbase that it cultivated — but to me it all comes down to a simple question: what is Adult Swim? And there’s no better way to answer it than by watching some Infomercials.
Adult Swim isn’t just a programming block, even if it’s been a great one that eventually surpassed that children’s programming it was designed to supplement. It isn’t just a tight-knit group of people, even if many of them continue to closely collaborate after 25 years of making cartoons in Atlanta together.
It’s not just a style of comedy, even if terms like “Adult Swim humor” are universally recognized pieces of our pop culture vocabulary, even when they’re used to describe shows made by other companies. And it feels like a cop out to say that Adult Swim is a vibe, even if that feels like the fairest answer I could give.
More than anything, Adult Swim is a celebration of the element of surprise. It shocked viewers who kept the Cartoon Network on too late and were ushered into maturity by the “Family Guy” reruns they saw at too young of an age. It shocked older animation enthusiasts who never thought they’d see Shaggy and Scooby on trial for marijuana possession or Space Ghost hosting his own talk show. And it shocked many of us who spent countless hour watching cable in the middle of the night, never being quite sure what weirdness would air next.
That’s the beauty of the Infomercials, and it’s why Adult Swim was the perfect platform for geniuses like Alan Resnick and Casper Kelly. Watching a cheesy sitcom opening turn into a bloody field day for a time-traveling serial killer or unedited footage of a bear turn into a pharmaceutical nightmare is the ultimate expression of that unapologetic commitment to keeping us on our toes.
For such a small programming block, Adult Swim had a massive, outsized influence on creating the shared language that we’ve come to recognize as “internet humor.” The surrealism, pastiches of existing media, and willingness to put dark spins on familiar pieces of nostalgia are immediately recognizable to anyone chronically online, even if you never watched “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” late at night. It’s also why I wonder if Adult Swim inadvertently helped create a future that it won’t have much of a part in.
So much of its brilliance was the advantage that it had over the viewer, being able to show you anything it wanted while you sat there captive. I’m not sure that it’s possible to recreate that feeling in this age of endless content. Maybe that’s not even a bad thing — maybe we need a few less surprises while we catch our breath — but it’s absolutely cause to take an evening to celebrate the incredible artistic accomplishment that the first quarter century of Adult Swim represents. And no matter what the next iteration looks like, I’ll be watching. —Christian Zilko
Read more installments of After Dark, IndieWire’s midnight movie club:
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Former To Catch a Predator host Chris Hansen was interviewed on his podcast Friday to give his unfiltered reaction to A24‘s unauthorized, dramatized film about parts of his life, Primetime, which he called overly dramatic, detached from reality, and a “fever dream” — while giving Robert Pattinson‘s performance a “D” grade.
Primetime, which opens Friday in the U.S., is set in 2006 and follows Pattinson’s fictionalized version of Hansen as the popular To Catch a Predator segment on NBC’s Dateline grows into its own primetime block on the network. On the show, Hansen blurred journalistic lines by working with law enforcement and the watchdog group Perverted Justice to intercept adult men as they arrived, unbeknownst to them, at a sting house to meet a minor they’d met online for sex. The men were typically arrested as a result. The series drew mixed reactions, with concerns about potential entrapment-law violations at the forefront of the criticism.
In a brief segment produced for his video podcast, Have a Seat with Chris Hansen, the former NBC News journalist is seen exiting a Times Square AMC after viewing the film for the first time at a Thursday night screening — his first look at the indie drama since its theatrical release. He’s then asked for his first reaction to the Lance Oppenheim-directed film.
“It’s hard for me to — obviously, I’m not a judge, because the character is based on me,” he said. “I think because the character is so detached from reality, from anything I’ve ever experienced then or now doing the investigations — I’m not sure what the point of it was.”
The rest of the podcast episode has Hansen discussing the film, its director and Pattinson’s portrayal of him with Fox News’ Jesse Watters. Hansen railed against the movie throughout.
Oppenheim has said he conceived Primetime after receiving a personalized Cameo video from the To Catch a Predator host. Hansen said on his podcast that he spoke to a mutual friend before seeing the film, and that Oppenheim told the friend it was “something to the effect of, ‘a love letter to Chris Hansen, and it gets a little weird in the storytelling.’”
Hansen also flagged inaccuracies in the fictionalized version of his life — including scenes involving Jeff Zucker and Stone Phillips that he insists never happened — and said absolutely nothing in the film was close to reality. He assured viewers he’s not the ratings-obsessed figure the script conjures. His biggest gripe, he said, is that the film portrays him as an aloof parent, which he says is far from how he relates to his kids. As for Pattinson’s take on Hansen circa 2006, Hansen had few kind words.
“He’s got work to do. I’m kind of the only guy that counts for this, right?” he said.
Days before seeing the movie, Hansen spoke with The Hollywood Reporter‘s Seth Abramovich about what he knew of the film. A24 hadn’t reached out to him or the production to explain the premise or ask for his input, he said.
“Based upon what I’ve seen in the trailer and my understanding of what’s been written about the film, they wanted to create something much darker and way more dramatic,” he said. “I think it’s an insult to the thousands of men and women who work hard every day to protect children from predators. They’ve turned something that is very positive, very challenging and not without risk into what is essentially a horror film.”
On Friday, after viewing Primetime, he doubled down with a direct swipe at Oppenheim.
“You have to question the motives of not coming forward and talking to me or anybody I’ve worked closely with over the years,” he said. “They didn’t want to hear that Chris Hansen is a good guy. They didn’t want to hear that this work is important. This director had a dark image of what he wanted to do. He wanted to create a horror-like film with interesting photography, and didn’t want to hear anything else.”
Hansen continues identifying and capturing potential child predators on Takedown with Chris Hansen. Earlier on Friday, Hansen’s TruBlu streaming network dropped the trailer for I’m Chris Hansen, a documentary centered around the host.
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