Sundance 2026 has come and gone with a lot of word of mouth for many of the films screened during the festival. Their virtual short program is one of the best deals for anyone unable to attend the festival in person. This is my second year purchasing their short package and I’m once again very pleased with the experience. Around fifty short films–of the fifty-four Sundance put in their lineup–were available to be seen online.
Crisis Actor (Lily Platt) and Jazz Infernal (Will Niava) took home fiction prizes from the jury and both are solid films. Living with a Visionary (Stephen P. Neary) won the jury award for animation for its tender story of a man (voiced by James Cromwell) learning to live alongside his hallucinating wife. Fans of this year’s Academy Award-nominee Retirement Plan (John Kelly) will likely enjoy Visionary for its similar presentation and well-performed voice over. However, there were a lot of unrewarded films that also deserve some time in the spotlight.
Candy Bar (Nash Edgerton) is one of the shorter entries, but packs a wallop in its execution. Starring Damon Herriman, the film follows a man waiting in the concession line at a movie theater. In the span of just five minutes Herriman and an impressive Zumi Edgerton in her acting debut manage to effectively evoke multiple emotions. A lot of short films feel the need to rely heavily on a twist or punchline at the end to leave a lasting impression on an audience. And while Candy Bar sort of falls in that camp, it would be a strong film if it was played straight, as well.
Faux Bijoux (Jessy Moussalem) felt the most like a feature film of the bunch. There’s so much underlying drama and complexity to the characters, it would be easy to see this same story told over 90 minutes. Between the performances and dense screenplay, this exploration of social hardship as a young woman negotiates the value of her own body is one of the best shorts that screened in the program.
Gender Studies (Jamie Kiernan O’Brien) and Sauna Sickness (Malin Barr) both have a bit of a genre bend to their filmmaking. The former stars Jake Junkins as a trans college student trying to fit in with another woman in one of her classes that takes on the energy of a sexual thriller. The latter stars Thea Sofie Loch Næss and Adam Lundgren (Agnes and Dr. Esthétique in The Ugly Stepsister) as a couple on a relaxing vacation in a cabin in the woods who get locked out while enjoying the detached sauna. There’s a dark, comedic tone to the film that may not work perfectly in the second act, but absolutely pays itself off in the final minute or two.
With so many films to see, some were bound to fall short of their competition or reputation. Seniors (Adam Curley) and Radiant Frost (Hannah Schierbeek) both came across underexplored due to their running times. Curley’s film lacked resolution and ended feeling incomplete, despite a promising opening few minutes. Schierbeek’s film puts a lot of effort into setting a tone, which it does quite well, but the screenplay doesn’t get the attention it requires.
The Liars (Eduardo Braun Costa) received a significant amount of praise for its performances and Truffaut-esque qualities. Comparisons to Truffaut are apt as the film follows two boys who are caught trying to steal by mall security, but The Liars didn’t resonate effectively on an emotional level. The editing and story didn’t feel congruous.
Two other films with strong performances also landed flatter than they could have. Callback (Matthew Puccini) stars Michael Rosen and Justin H. Min as two aspiring thespians who get in a fight over which of them is the better actor. Albatross (Amandine Thomas) follows Georgina Saldaña Wonchee as a wife caring for her ailing husband. Both films have compelling premises that draw you in, but don’t provide enough context or dimension to make their characters easy to connect to.
Some of the shorts color so far outside the lines, it’s as if they’ve thrown out the book entirely. The unconventionally animated Homemade Gatorade (Carter Amelia Davis) unfolds like a joke being told to an unresponsive audience. Each turn the story takes is more bizarre and outlandish than the last.Once the shock of the animation style wears off, the journey of a woman selling an excessive amount of homemade Gatorade to an anonymous online buyer will captivate you in a way you might not fully be able to explain; the longer you think about it, the more mesmerizing it becomes.
In contrast, 1981 (Andy & Carolyn London) shows a birthday party for a fourteen-year-old boy that features a surprise appearance from a tasseled-stripper. The provocation, unfortunately, doesn’t rise to the promise of its Crimson & Clover needle drop. Similarly, The Worm (Tom Noakes) follows a talented Joe Bird as a young man who believes a telepathic worm living in the backyard is poisoning his mind. It’s an insane premise and Noakes straddles the line between something grounded and something elevated. Potentially leaning further in one of those directions would have made the film more powerful.
How Brief (Kelly McCormack) and The Bird’s Placebo (Rami Jarboui) are two more standouts in the fiction category. McCormack’s film unfolds over one night as a man’s sister (Tess Degenstein) shows up to the consternation of his wife (Tatiana Maslany). Filmed like a stageplay, How Brief hits its stride after the man (Gray Powell) retires to the bedroom. The latter half of the film commits to a dream-like intensity that Degenstein and Maslany are more than capable of matching. A dream-like quality is also found in Jarboui’s animated film, following a wheelchair-bound man who desires to cross the Mediterranean Sea. The lovely, swirling colors hypnotize with how they convey longing.
The Grand Jury Prize went to the documentary, The Baddest Speechwriter of All (Ben Proudfoot & Stephen Curry), whose buzz is already building for next year’s Academy Awards. The Jury Award for Non-Fiction was given to The Boys and the Bees (Arielle Knight). Both films deserve their flowers, shining light on the speechwriter behind Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and one of the most tender depictions of parent-children relationships, respectively.
Another strong non-fiction work in the program is La Tierra del Valor (Cristina Costantini), which follows Nezza, a Colombian-Dominican singer who makes the decision to sing the National Anthem at an LA Dodgers game in Spanish amidst the rising number of immigration raids in the city. More contemporary than either of the previous two shorts, certainly, but Costantini’s film is no less evocative.
Finally, two more animated films that don’t adhere to a strict narrative are Busy Bodies (Kate Renshaw-Lewis) and Sorrow Doesn’t Sleep at Night (Martín André & Josefina Montino Cabrera). The hand-drawn Busy Bodies is a Rube Goldberg-inspired production line. Tiny beings perform mundane tasks that feed into additional tasks and so on. Despite the lack of narrative, there’s an unmistakable commentary on industrialization. Sorrow’s animation is some of the most impressive shown in the shorts program. The quality of the stop-motion on display is on par with the feature films Laika has put out as ghosts of a man’s past torment him.
That’s not even half of the short films that were available to watch at this year’s Sundance Shorts Program. The wide array of styles and formats ensures there’s something for everyone.
