Most major festivals program a section of their lineup dedicated to new voices in storytelling who are experimenting with the form of filmmaking in vibrant new ways. NYFF’s “Currents,” Cannes’s “Un Certain Regard,” TIFF’s “Platform,” and Tribeca’s “Viewpoints” are all examples where audiences can gather the pulse of what’s next in the art of film. Sundance is no exception, literally embracing what’s next in their “NEXT” section as a launchpad for new directors to share their unique artistic visions.
At Sundance 2026, the NEXT section was a joy to explore, with multiple titles landing among our favorite watches of the festival, spanning both fiction and nonfiction. Characterized by unique formal identities and visionary styles, every NEXT title had something unique to offer. Here is The Rolling Tape’s evaluation of what we saw from this year’s NEXT, a glimpse into the future of independent cinema.
Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild], dir. Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil
Learning from documentaries was a highlight of my Sundance 2026 experience, as I absorbed a wide range of topics, from nearby environmental concerns in Utah to the future of AI and its global sociopolitical consequences. Learning from the subjects of Adam and Zack Khalil’s Aanikoobijigan, however, was a profound, singular experience. The film details the work being done by tribal repatriation specialists of MACPRA (Michigan Anishinaabek Cultural Preservation and Repatriation Alliance) to reclaim and rebury the Indigenous human remains of their ancestors that have historically been looted and stolen for scientific inquiry and museum display.
The film expertly navigates the way colonial narratives unconsciously shape the world around us while Indigenous ways of life suffer the consequences. In their belief system, ancestors who have once returned to the land are also part of their present identity, and the identity of future generations. To remove their ancestors from the land is to enact cruelty and violence against their entire lineage. The film is a powerful testament to the arduous fight for repatriation, acknowledging both the legal and systemic hurdles as well as the psychological burden placed upon Indigenous tribes to carry out the work of returning the remains of their ancestors to the Earth. The directors use conventional documentary techniques but also employ animation flourishes occasionally to support the overall message through formal stylization. Courtesy of Danny Jarabek
BURN, dir. Makoto Nagahisa
All NEXT selections embrace a range of experimental techniques to one degree or another, but it’s hard to deny that director Makoto Nagahisa has the biggest toolkit of all. BURN takes on a stylized approach to image making and editing in telling a gut-wrenching story of cyclical child abuse in Japan.
In equal measure to the film’s explosive visual vocabulary is its bleakness. Ju-Ju (Nana Mori) encounters a variety of systemic failures on the part of Japan’s relationship to unhoused children after she runs away from her home and abusive parents. She joins a misfit group of runaways who find temporary peace in their communal atmosphere, until events take a darker turn. It’s a teen drama that’s unafraid to explore the dark parts of a society’s underbelly, populated by those with nowhere else to go. Drug addiction, self-harm, and sex work define their paths forward as a group while the world around them continues to prey on their weaknesses. It’s a tragic investigation of a Japanese subculture that most storytellers wouldn’t dare touch. Nagahisa crafts a surreal, dreamlike environment with an expressive digital sensibility that heightens the counterpoint to its uncompromising depiction of trauma. Courtesy of Danny Jarabek
Ghost in the Machine, dir. Valerie Veatch
One of two documentaries tackling the subject of Artificial Intelligence at Sundance 2026, Ghost in the Machine is maximalism personified. The film races through the extensive history of AI from its origins in eugenics to its technological foundations in Silicon Valley. Audaciously structured across a handful of artfully titled chapters, a slew of expert testimonies are utilized that range from computer scientists to historians to sociologists. All the while, an annotation in the top right corner demarcates whether the current clip is “AI” or “NOT AI.”
While you could certainly poke a critique at the maximalist overabundance of information in the first half of the film, there’s no denying the clarity it provides in delivering the key message in the back half. By the time the narrative reaches the contemporary timeline, the existential anxiety creeps in even further. If the omnipresence of AI in today’s culture isn’t scary enough, the work done by Veatch’s first few chapters to connect large learning models that power today’s AI technology to 1800s eugenics and race euthanization is downright harrowing. Ghost in the Machine could easily be expanded into a mini-series, allowing each chapter more room to breathe. Still, as a cautionary tale about the origins of AI and a call to action to raise our collective red flags on the patriarchal network of big tech, it’s as necessary and urgent a message as ever. Courtesy of Danny Jarabek
If I Go Will They Miss Me, dir. Walter Thompson-Hernández
Walter Thompson-Hernández’s expansion of his short of the same name is the most lyrical of the NEXT catalog, and one of multiple titles that grapple with family in one capacity or another. BURN establishes a sense of found family after its protagonist leaves her home, Aanikoobijigan defines family in ancestral terms as part of a nonlinear timeline, and TheyDream explicitly documents a family history through mixed media. If I Go Will They Miss Me shares the perspective of a young boy, Lil Ant (Bodhi Dell), and the troubled relationship he has with his father, who has been in and out of jail throughout his life.
The family struggles to overcome Big Ant’s (J. Alphonse Nicholson) uncontrollable fears that the world will bring harm and violence into his son’s life, the way it was brought into his. The expressionism of their relationship has a poetic artistry as if the film is floating in its ethereal aesthetic and soulful score. Thompson-Hernández offers honesty and empathy in portraying a flawed father as he continuously compromises the forgiveness offered to him by his friends, his son, and his wife (a subtle but brilliant Danielle Brooks). It’s a melodic family drama that has roots in the Barry Jenkins school of influence but is also able to achieve its own artistic identity. Courtesy of Danny Jarabek
Jaripeo, dir. Efraín Mojica, Rebecca Zweig
There’s something incredibly alluring about Jaripeo, a beautifully shot, dreamlike documentary that explores the popular world of Mexican rodeos and the small queer community that exists within them. It’s ironic that something so traditionally rooted in machismo and Modelos is also full of pageantry and vibrant costumes. It almost feels welcoming to the queer community, but as Jaripeo follows its subjects, it becomes clear that that is not the case. Its execution is rough around the edges, opting for a slice-of-life approach rather than a deeper examination of the dichotomy it attempts to explore, leaving the film feeling distant and only interested in the surface. It never lingers on any one particular subject for too long and switches them on a dime, never allowing the audience to really understand the individuals who actually make up this hidden queer world.
But Jaripeo thrives in its haunting dream sequences; queer cowboys, doused in red hues, riding mechanical bulls in a cornfield as a visual collision of passion and desire, but always just on the outside of acceptance. Its cinematography delivers a transportive quality that makes these wild rodeo parties feel alive and visually controlled despite their beer-fueled chaos. While I wish it dug a little deeper into how this community continues to navigate a tradition that doesn’t want them, it is a documentary that has grown on me significantly as I reflect on its core themes and mystifying hidden worlds I never knew existed. Courtesy of Derrick Murray
Night Nurse, dir. Georgia Bernstein
Night Nurse was perhaps my most anticipated NEXT selection title, mostly by word of mouth. A psychosexual thriller that explores desire, power, and obsession? This is the world of weird I was expecting to discover at Sundance. With a limited cast, set, and exposition, Night Nurse relishes in ambiguity, sometimes feeling a little too unclear at times as far as motivation, growth, or meaning. When a newly hired night nurse becomes entangled with her patient, a con artist, things quickly spiral out of control.
Cemre Paksoy plays the infamous ‘Night Nurse,’ or, as my colleague said, the ‘vehicle’ into this weird world of sex, drugs, and scam calls. Her background and motivations are unclear as she develops an unhinged obsession with her relationship to her patient, Douglas (Bruce McKenzie). Despite being the lead, her character showed little growth and agency. Primarily reacting to those around her, except in the final act, I was left confused as to how Bernstein wanted me to feel by the end. Douglas holds the power in the film, dictating when calls are made, when the nurses party, and when the party is over. For an erotic thriller, there was more sex and tension to be desired, but the bones of this story carry heavy weight in what power dynamics are at play in a relationship that involves exploitation of each other and outsiders. At the very least, the film had me squirming in my seat, bringing out physical reactions to an unsettling story, showing Bernstein knows how to be provocative, and I expect even more to come. Courtesy of Sara Ciplickas
The Incomer, dir. Louis Paxton
In true NEXT section fashion, I walked into Louis Paxton’s The Incomer with almost zero knowledge of what to expect. Admittedly, the film requires some degree of patience through its exposition while getting on the wavelength of its satirical Scottish humor. A lovely “training montage” sequence about a third of the way in kicks the project into its next gear.
What ensues is a delightful adult coming-of-age journey about facing your fears and rediscovering joy in the world around you. The trio of central performances: islanders Isla (Gayle Rankin) and Sandy (Grant O’Rourke), joined by the titular incomer Daniel (Domhnall Gleeson), have an abundance of delicate tightropes to walk as their islander and mainland cultures clash. Unforeseen romantic feelings develop while the relocation efforts of the mainland eviction agency to remove Isla and Sandy from the island grow increasingly robust and absurd. The time spent laying the seeds of each character’s fears pays off as the relationship dynamics flourish. The film as a whole transforms into a heartfelt debut gem that doesn’t ignore its commentary on cultural assimilation and the absurdity of forced evictions and land rights. Courtesy of Danny Jarabek
TheyDream, dir. William David Caballero
The Sundance lineup was sparsely populated with examples of animation, but William David Caballero’s TheyDream makes up for its absence in the mixed media of multiple formats employed to document his family’s history in Puerto Rico. On paper, the story appears like something we’ve seen plenty of times before — home video documentation of a family growing apart, experiencing loss, and finding their way back into each other’s lives through collective grief and forgiveness. While those formulaic beats are present, the formal innovation is so monumental that Caballero shatters the mold set forth by predecessors in the familial subgenre.
Between miniature building, stop motion acting, 2D superimposed animation, archival interviews, and voicemail reenactments, TheyDream collages together a playground portrait of intergenerational care. Caballero’s courage to showcase the love passed down between generations, but also the heartache of loss and disapproval, particularly in his father’s inability to reckon with his queer identity, is what sets the hybrid documentary apart. It’s an ode to the act of making, and in composing TheyDream, Caballero hopefully finds peace in his family’s path. Courtesy of Danny Jarabek
Zi, dir. Kogonada
Kogonada is easily the most recognizable name attributed to this year’s NEXT section, and while he’s well-established as a visionary independent filmmaker after the critical success of his first two features, Columbus (2017) and After Yang (2021), his first foray into the studio system with A Big Bold Beautiful Journey (2025) was widely considered a step down. As a result, it’s no surprise that Zi serves as a creative palette cleanser constructed on a micro-budget in true cinema verité fashion with minimal script and crew to support the production.
Kogonada has always explored existential questions of life, loss, and memory, but in his fourth feature, he scales back those adventures of the mind and soul, treating Hong Kong as a character alongside the three protagonists. He allows the naturalism of the performances, the lush 1.33 ratio images, and the rich, melancholic Ryûichi Sakamoto soundtrack to lead the way. It’s an intensely personal rediscovery of Kogonada’s cinematic mind (and of his creative partnership with Haley Lu Richardson) that is more successful than his recent studio venture with Sony, but doesn’t reach the peaks of his first two features. The extreme minimalism has its perks, but the intelligence of its concept (an individual’s perception of the present lagging with enough intensity that they see themselves in the future) doesn’t feel maximized by the self-imposed production constraints. There’s a cosmic intimacy in the liminal space the characters share for one night, but the takeaways are based in craft and experience rather than thematic and emotional magnitude. Courtesy of Danny Jarabek
Reviews Courtesy of Danny Jarabek, Sara Ciplickas, and Derrick Murray
Feature Image Still from ‘Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great grandparent/great grandchild]’ | Courtesy of Sundance Institute