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A 14-year-old is obliged to stay at her grandparents’ lake home after her impulsive mom elopes and prioritizes her new husband. At the competitive music camp across the water, a determined young violinist pushes himself to be named first chair, sacrificing the personal connections he covets more. Meanwhile, at the local bar, a fisherman finds an unlikely ally in catching the whopper that’ll change his life. And finally, at a family-run bed-and-breakfast, two sisters make the most of their summer before the older one heads off to college.

The location, rather than the characters or their independent narrative strands, serves to unify the four sketches that comprise “Sunfish and Other Stories on Green Lake.” Set in writer-director Sierra Falconer’s old stomping grounds — among the cozy, neighborly community that surrounds a scenic lake in northern Michigan — the pleasantly laconic anthology film debuted in U.S. dramatic competition at Sundance.

The great frustration with anthology films — and the reason I sink a little deeper into my seat every time I sit down to watch a new one — is that even the best of them tend to be wildly uneven, the whole seldom greater than the sum of a few select parts. Enter: Sierra Falconer’s light and languid “Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake),” a collection of wistfully effervescent vignettes that resists the usual highs and lows of its format by drawing a gentle power from the stillness of the water that runs through it.

Indeed, the four short episodes that form this affecting debut flow together so fluidly, the camera passing its focus between them like a baton, that it might have been hard to know where one ends and the next begins if not for the title cards that “Sunfish” includes for context. Where most anthologies spotlight each...

The opening moments of Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake) are pictures of idyll. Ducks bob in a row across the water. A basketball hoop stands surrounded by trees, waiting for someone to come out and play. A girl swings lazily in a hammock. Especially at a time when it so often feels like the world is burning down (maybe literally, depending on where you are), the scenes feel like a much-needed break.

But if Sunfish is a vacation, it’s the kind that’s less about escaping into a fantasy than about trying on a different reality: learning your way around the terrain, getting to know the locals, falling into their everyday rhythms. Once it’s over, you’ll resume your normal life to find not much has changed. For those 87 minutes, though, it’s just nice to get to drop in on its world.

Overly precious punctuation notwithstanding,...

Filmmaker Sierra Falconer’s Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake) captures a bittersweet feeling. That feeling of endings and beginnings, happening at the same time. For eighty minutes, we watch four short stories unfold in and around Green Lake. One involves a young girl (Maren Heary) learning how to sail after being dumped at the doorstep of her grandparents’ lake house by her neglectful mother. Another concerns a young boy (Jim Kaplan) at the fancy summer camp on the other side of the lake. He’s facing intense pressure from his mother to make first chair violin in the camp orchestra. An extended sequence of him practicing is particularly tense. The third story features an overworked young mother (Karsten Liotta) seduced by adventure in the form of a charming, wayward bar patron (Dominic Bogart) and a once-in-a-lifetime fish to be caught. Finally, there’s the lovely tale of two sisters...

Director Sierra Falconer, whose debut feature will premiere next week at the Sundance Film Festival, has signed for representation at WME.

The UCLA grad’s “Sunfish (& Other Stories on Green Lake)” was selected for the U.S. dramatic competition at the 41st edition of the Utah cinema confab founded by Robert Redford. The film weaves together four interconnected tales unfolding over one summer around an idyllic lake in Northern Michigan.

“I grew up spending summers on Green Lake in rural, northern Michigan, and from the start, I knew my first film had to be a portrait of this special place,” Falconer tells Variety, adding that her film “captures small but significant moments of connection, framed by a shared sense of belonging.”

Narrative threads in “Sunfish” include a young girl bonding with her grandparents through sailing and two sisters savoring their last days running a bed-and-breakfast together. The festival bills the...

Top L–R: The Legend of Ochi, Rabbit Trap, East of Wall, Seeds Center Row L–R: Rebuilding, Together, Love, Brooklyn, Jimpa Bottom L–R: Hal & Harper, Selena y Los Dinos, The Dating Game, Brides screen at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival‘s lineup will include 87 feature films and six episodic projects. Sundance received 15,775 submissions from 156 countries, including 4,138 feature-length film submissions. The 87 films selected represent 33 countries and territories, with 36 of the chosen films coming from first-time feature filmmakers.

“The Sundance Film Festival remains steadfast in its commitment to elevating unique and urgent voices in independent storytelling. Audiences can expect a 2025 program that showcases varied and vibrant filmmaking globally,” stated Robert Redford, Sundance Institute Founder and President.

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival will run January 23rd through February 2nd. For ticket information, visit festival.sundance.org.

“The Festival is our most significant public program as an Institute and builds...

The Sundance Film Festival is once again upon us! Set to happen from January 23rd to February 2nd in Park City, Utah (with an online component from January 30th to Feb 2nd), the official schedule was unveiled today, and once again it’s an eclectic mix of indie fare, award hopefuls, and horror flicks. Once again, I’ll be there for JoBlo, filing a ton of reviews. To note, in recent years, Sundance has become especially well known for genre fare, with Hereditary, Talk to Me, and I Saw the TV Glow all premiering in the midnight section of the fest. This year’s Midnight selection includes some very buzzy titles:

Dead Lover / Canada –– A lonely gravedigger who stinks of corpses finally meets her dream man, but their whirlwind affair is cut short when he tragically drowns at sea. Grief-stricken, she goes to morbid lengths to resurrect him through madcap scientific experiments,...

Sundance Film Festival’s 2025 line-up comprises 87 features, nearly half of which are directed by women, and is crammed with new work by returning stars and indie stalwarts including Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jennifer Lopez, Isabelle Huppert, Mark Ruffalo, and Dev Patel.

Among anticipated highlights are the feature directorial debut of UK playwright and incoming Young Vic artistic director Nadia Fall with her Bankside Films sales title Brides inWorld Cinema Dramatic Competition,about teenage friends who plan to travel to Syria.

Scroll down for the full line-up

Peter Hujar’s Day, a drama in Premieres about the New York portrait photographer...

The 2025 Sundance Film Festival revealed the 87 feature films and six episodic projects selected for the festival on Wednesday, announcing that new films starring Jennifer Lopez, Dylan O’Brien, Chloe Sevigny, André Holland, Conan O’Brien and Olivia Colman will debut in Park City in January.

Ahead of the festival, which runs from from Jan. 23 to Feb. 2, TheWrap spoke to Eugene Hernandez, Director, Sundance Film Festival and Public Programming and Kim Yutani, Sundance Film Festival Director of Programming, about this year’s festival – what people should look out for and if they’re ready for the Sundance arrival of Lopez, whose new version of “Kiss of the Spider Woman” from director Bill Condon is one of the buzzier titles at the festival.

Considering this is awards season, Hernandez said that Sundance is “the crystal ball.” “This is the chance to look into the future,” Hernandez said. And he’s right – current Oscar contenders...

The Sundance Film Festival is considering a big move for 2027, but the 2025 feature film and episodic programs find the Robert Redford founded gathering very much in its traditional wheelhouse with a mix of big-name projects, politics, and what might just be the next big thing.

See the full list of Sundance 2025 feature films (including world premieres) and episodic projects below.

“The Sundance Film Festival remains steadfast in its commitment to elevating unique and urgent voices in independent storytelling,” the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid star said today of the 41st iteration of the festival kicking off on January 23. “Audiences can expect a 2025 program that showcases varied and vibrant filmmaking globally,” Redford added of the 87 features and six episodic projects selected for screenings in Park City, Salt Lake City and online next month.

It wouldn’t be Sundance without stars in plushy hooded ski coats, and they’ll be aplenty...

Sundance, as ever, is coming, and fast. Today, the nonprofit Sundance Institute announced the 87 feature films and six episodic projects selected for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, with more announcements expected in the coming weeks. While the festival may be moving in 2027, for 2025, it will be out in full force in its traditional home of Park City, Utah.

This year’s lineup includes a number of returning names, including Ira Sachs, Amy Berg, Andrew Ahn, Justin Lin, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, Cooper Raiff, Kahlil Joseph, Heidi Ewing & Rachel Grady, David France, Jesse Short Bull, Ryan White, Sophie Hyde, Jesse Moss & Amanda McBaine, Meera Menon, and Clint Bentley. But there are also a hefty number of newbies joining these ranks, as the 2025 program is composed of 36 of 87 (41 percent) feature film directors who are first-time feature filmmakers. Mostly, new work will be on offer, as the film and episodic slate includes 89 (or 96 percent) world premieres.

The 2025 line-up for the Sundance Film Festival has been announced.

This year’s fest features the latest projects from Oscar winners, studio filmmakers, and indie stalwarts like Justin Lin, Ira Sachs, Barry Levinson, and Questlove while the U.S. Dramatic Competition section is made of selections from directors new to the Park City fest.

“The combination of these new voices and some of these filmmakers who might be more household names, speaks to the the power of independent cinema and how, no matter where you are in your career, you are drawn to this community that Sundance has helped build over the years,” Sundance director of programming Kim Yutani told The Hollywood Reporter. Of the 87 feature films announced thus far, 36 titles (41 percent) are directed by first-time feature film directors.

Across the line-up, talents like Jennifer Lopez, Dev Patel, Bowen Yang, Chloë Sevigny, Olivia Colman, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Ayo Edebiri star in fest films,...

Whether you love the darker side of humanity or just want to experience the story of a deeply flawed human being, there is something for every psychological thriller fan on Netflix. With some of its latest outings, such as Ripley and Baby Reindeer, the streamer has proved that there is no place better for the fans of psychological thriller shows than Netflix’s vast library of content. If you also want to experience heart-pounding thrills, suspenseful stories, and dark psychological drama, here are the best psychological thriller shows you can find on Netflix.

You Credit – Netflix

You is one of the most popular Netflix psychological thriller shows ever, and most of the credit for that goes to the writing behind its main character, Joe Goldberg. Created by Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble, the Netflix series is based on a novel series of the same name by author Caroline Kepnes. You...

You can’t turn on the television or open a podcast these days without being assailed by true crime in its many forms and director Jimmy Goldblum, after working on one of those shows, made the decision to take a particular trope from the genre and flip it on its head. Jude, an extract from a novel and made as a proof of concept short, doesn’t follow the typical trajectory of a young girl gone missing narrative but instead dives into the crevices of what is left behind and in particular, that empty void where a child once sat, cherished and loved. Seeking a better reality, 14 year old Appalachian local Cindy Stoat cuckoos herself into that hole left by loss and the tragedy is suddenly seen from different eyes. The mysteries and unspoken truths in Jude ooze out of every scene, the dark and brooding house where our young...

Exclusive: Karsen Liotta (Blackbird), daughter of the late Ray Liotta, is headlining an anthology indie pic that has been handed a SAG-AFTRA interim agreement.

Liotta is leading Sunfish (& Other Stories On Green Lake), the debut feature from short film writer-director Sierra Falconer, alongside Marceline Hugot (Julia & Julie) and Wayne Duvall.

The anthology follows the residents of a small town and the lake that binds them together. The four stories weave together themes of belonging, coming of age, and rural lake life, exploring a deeper commentary about community, the collateral damage that ensues from the changes in our lives, and how it can reverberate in relationships and the process of maturation.

Also featuring in Sunfish are Adam Lefevre (Ozark), Dominic Bogart (American Primeval), Emily Hall (Lumina), Maren Heary (She Said), Tenley Kellogg (Faith Under Fire) and Jim Kaplan (Marry Me) in leading roles. Supporting...

She Said Review — She Said (2022) Film Review, a movie directed by Maria Schrader, written by Rebecca Lenkiewicz and starring Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Samantha Morton, Jennifer Ehle, Angela Yeoh, Maren Heary, Sean Cullen, Anastasia Barzee, Keilly McQuail, Hilary Greer, Tina WongLu, Nancy Ellen Shore, Wesley Holloway, Stephen Dexter, [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: She Said (2022): Maria Schrader’s Film About Investigative Journalism Hits All the Right Notes...