Number of Films Accepted
Number of Documentary Features Submitted
Number of Dramatic Features Submitted
Number of Short Films Submitted
Total Number of Films Accepted
Documentary Features Accepted
Dramatic Features Accepted
Shorts Accepted
Dramatic Features Submitted
Documentary Features Submitted
Dramatic Features Accepted
Documentary Features Accepted
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
*Average dramatic feature budget is $1 million. Average documentary feature budget is $400,000. Budget figures based on interviews with producers and sales agents.
(Hover over images for film info)
Dope
Director: Rick Famuyiwa
Key Cast: Shameik Moore, Tony Revolori, Kiersey Clemons
Description: Life changes for Malcolm, a geek who's surviving life in a tough neighborhood, after a chance invitation to an underground party leads him and his f riends into a Los Angeles adventure.
Whiplash
Director: Damien Chazelle
Key Cast: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Melissa Benoist
Description: A promising young drummer enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.
BOYHOOD
Director: Richard Linklater
Key Cast: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke
Description: The life of Mason, from early childhood to his arrival at college
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Key Cast: Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, Olivia Cooke
Description: High schooler Greg, who spends most of his time making parodies of classic movies with his co-worker Earl, finds his outlook forever altered after befriending a classmate who has just been diagnosed with cancer.
Dear White People
Director: : Justin Simien
Key Cast: Tyler James Williams, Tessa Thompson, Kyle Gallner
Description: The lives of four black students at an
Ivy League college.
Strangerland
Director: Kim Farrant
Key Cast: Nicole Kidman, Joseph Fiennes, Hugo Weaving
Description: FA family finds their dull life in a rural outback town rocked after their two teenage children disappear into the desert, sparking disturbing rumors of their past.
The Skeleton Twins
Director: Craig Johnson
Key Cast: Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Luke Wilson
Description: Having both coincidentally cheated death on the same day, estranged twins reunite with the possibility of mending their relationship.
Sleeping With Other People
Director: Leslye Headland
Key Cast: Jason Sudeikis, Alison Brie, Jordan Carlos
Description: A good-natured womanizer and a serial cheater form a platonic relationship that helps reform them in ways, while a mutual attraction sets in.
Obvious Child
Director: Gillian Robespierre
Key Cast: : Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffmann
Description: A twenty-something comedienne's unplanned pregnancy forces her to confront the realities of independent womanhood for the first time.
The Overnight
Director: Patrick Brice
Key Cast: Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwartzman
Description: Alex, Emily, and their son, RJ, are new to Los Angeles. A chance meeting at the park introduces them to the mysterious Kurt, Charlotte, and Max. A family "playdate" becomes increasingly interesting as the night goes on.
A Walk in the Woods
Director: Ken Kwapis
Key Cast: Robert Redford, Nick Nolte, Emma Thompson
Description: After spending two decades in England, Bill Bryson returns to the U.S., where he decides the best way to connect with his homeland
is to hike the Appalachian Trail with one of his oldest friends.
Infinitely Polar Bear
Director:: Maya Forbes
Key Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Zoe Saldana, Imogene Wolodarsky
Description: A manic-depressive mess of a father tries to win back his wife by attempting to take full responsibility of their two young, spirited daughters, who don't make the overwhelming task any easier.
Hot Girls Wanted
Director: Jill Bauer, Ronna Gradus
Key Cast: Farrah Abraham, John Anthony, Rachel Bernard
Description: A documentary about young women who have been drawn into the sex trade - and how easy it is for a web-savvy generation to end up making porn.
Brooklyn
Director: John Crowley
Key Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Emory Cohen, Domhnall Gleeson
Description: An Irish immigrant lands in 1950s Brooklyn, where she quickly falls into a romance with a local. When her past catches up with her, however, she must choose between two countries and the lives that exist within.
*Estimate based on blended average of 100 people working on each feature-length film through all phases of production and post production.
(Hover over images for film info)
THE DETAILS
Director: Jacob Aaron Estes
Key Cast: Toby Maguire, Elizabeth Banks, Laura Linney
Description: When a family of raccoons discover worms living underneath the sod in Jeff and Nealy's backyard, this pest problem begins a darkly comic and wild chain reaction of domestic tension, infidelity and murder.
OUR IDIOT BROTHER
Director: Paul Rudd
Key Cast: Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel
Description: A comedy centered on an idealist who barges into the lives of his three sisters.
THE SESSIONS
Director: Ben Lewin
Key Cast: PJohn Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy
Description: A man in an iron lung who wishes to lose his virginity contacts a professional sex surrogate with the help of his therapist and priest.
THE WAY WAY BACK
Director: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash
Key Cast: Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Allison Janney
Description: Shy 14-year-old Duncan goes on summer vacation with his mother, her overbearing boyfriend, and her boyfriend's daughter. Having a rough time fitting in, Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen, manager of the Water Wizz water park.
DON JON
Director: Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Key Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore
Description: A New Jersey guy dedicated to his family, friends, and church, develops unrealistic expectations from watching porn and works to find happiness and intimacy with his potential true love.
THE SKELETON TWINS
Director: Craig Johnson
Key Cast: Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader, Luke Wilson
Description: Having both coincidentally cheated death on the same day, estranged twins reunite with the possibility of mending their relationship.
WHIPLASH
Director: Damien Chazelle
Key Cast: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Melissa Benoist
Description: A promising young drummer enrolls at a cutthroat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Key Cast: Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, Olivia Cooke
Description: High schooler Greg, who spends most of his time making parodies of classic movies with his co-worker Earl, finds his outlook forever altered after befriending a classmate who has just been diagnosed with cancer.
The Guard
Director: John Michael McDonagh
Key Cast: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheedle, Mark Strong
Description: An unorthodox Irish policeman with a confrontational personality is partnered with an up-tight F.B.I. agent to investigate an international drug-smuggling ring.
Project Nim
Director: James Marsh
Key Cast: Nim Chimpsky, Stephanie LaFarge, Herbert Terrace
Description: Tells the story of a chimpanzee taken from its mother at birth and raised like a human child by a family in a brownstone on the upper West Side in the 1970s.
Searching for Sugar Man
Director: Malik Bendjelloul
Key Cast: Rodriguez, Stephen Segerman, Dennis Coffey
Description: Two South Africans set out to discover what happened to their unlikely musical hero, the mysterious 1970s rock 'n' roller, Rodriguez.
Hello I Must Be Going
Director: Todd Louiso
Key Cast: Melanie Lynskey, Christopher Abbott, Blythe Danner
Description: Circumstances force a young divorcée to move back in with her parents in suburban Connecticut, where an affair with a younger guy rejuvenates her passion for life.
The Queen Of Versailles
Director: : Lauren Greenfield
Key Cast: Lorraine Barrett, June Downs, Phillip Froehlich
Description: A documentary that follows a billionaire couple as they begin construction on a mansion inspired by Versailles.
Wish You Were Here
Director:Kieran Darcy-Smith
Key Cast: Joel Edgerton, Teresa Palmer, Felicity Price
Description: Four friends lose themselves in a carefree South-East Asian holiday. Only three come back
Who Is Dayani Cristal
Director: Marc Silver
Key Cast: Gael Garcia Bernal
Description: An anonymous body in the Arizona desert sparks the beginning of a real-life human drama. The search for identity leads us back across a continent to seek out the people left behind and the meaning of a mysterious tattoo.
Crystal Fairy & The Magical Cactus
Director: Sebastián Silva
Key Cast: Michael Cera, Gaby Hoffman, Juan Andrés Silva
Description: As Jamie travels in Chile, he invites an eccentric woman to join his group's quest to score a fabled hallucinogen, a move that finds him at odds with his new companion, until they drink the magic brew on a beach at the edge of the desert.
Twenty Feet From Stardom
Director: Morgan Neville
Key Cast: : Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer
Description: Backup singers live in a world that lies just beyond the spotlight. Their voices bring harmony to the biggest bands in popular music, but we've had no idea who these singers are or what lives they lead, until now.
May In The Summer
Director: Cherien Dabis
Key Cast: Hiam Abbass, James Garson Chick,
Description: Cherien Dabis group's quest to score a fabled hallucinogen, a move that finds him High off the success of her first book and planning to marry ZIAD, her sensible, stable and studious fiance, MAY BRENNAN has it all. At least that's what she'd like people to believe.
Whiplash
Director: Damien Chazelle
Key Cast: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Melissa Benoist
Description: A promising young drummer enrolls at a cutthroat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.
Dinosaur 13
Director:: Todd Douglas Miller
Key Cast: Stan Adelstein, Lance Archer, Robert Bakker
Description: A documentary about the discovery of the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil ever found.
The Bronze
Director: Bryan Buckley
Key Cast: Melissa Rauch, Gary Cole and Haley Lu Richardson
Description: A foul-mouthed former gymnastic bronze medalist must fight for her local celebrity status when a new young athlete's star rises in town.
What Happened, Miss Simone?
Director: Liz Garbus
Key Cast: James Baldwin, Stokey Carmichael,
Walter Cronkite
Description: A documentary about the life and legend of Nina Simone, an American singer, pianist, and civil rights activist.
(Hover over images for film info)
*Data is based on the Sundance Institute's spend to produce the festival and on non-resident spending during the festival.
• Sundance.org
• Excipio
• the-numbers.com
• Bureau of Economic and Business Research
(David Eccles School of Business/The University of Utah)
• Indiewire.com
• Deadline.com
• TheWrap.com
• CulturalWeekly.com
• EntertainmentMediaPartners.com
• BoxOfficeMojo.com
