Sundance’s Uncertain Future Hovers Over a 2025 Film Fest With Jennifer Lopez, Cynthia Erivo and LA Fire Worries
Everything You Need to Know About One of The Last Sundances In Park City
BY Jane Howze // 01.23.25Jennifer Lopez stars in buzzy Tony-award-winning Broadway movie musical “KISS of the Spider Woman” that premieres at the Sundance Film Festival. (photo courtesy of Sundance Institute)
PARK CITY, Utah — The Sundance Film Festival, the pioneer of promoting independent film makers, kicked off its 10 day run Thursday in this sub-zero snowy mountain town. This year’s Sundance, the 41st edition of the film fest, is taking place in the town library, a high school auditorium and various movie theaters in Park City and nearby Salt Lake City during its first six days. Beginning January 29, most of the Sundance showcased movies will be available for online streaming with the Sundance App through February 2.
Sundance received 16,000 submissions this year, culled down to 87 feature films and six episodic projects. The carefully curated final program contains movies from 36 first-time feature filmmakers.
The vibe around Sundance this year is unsettling for the many movie afficiandos who relish the rituals of the film festival in Park City. That means snow and endless lines more than balanced out by a loyal community of film lovers and movies that might not be seen elsewhere.
Why unsettled? Like many film festivals, Sundance has failed to reach the success it enjoyed prior to COVID. This is due to changes in the industry, including the ease and immediacy of streaming. Sundance launched a bidding process last April to relocate from Park City beginning in 2027. This year and next will be the last two Sundances in Park City. The finalists to be the new home of Sundance are Boulder Colorado, Cincinnati, Ohio and Salt Lake City. The chosen city will be revealed after the completion of this year’s festival.
Adding to the uneasiness of this year’s Sundance is how much attendance (like many events this Oscar season) will be impacted by the wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes in the Los Angeles area.

Despite the somewhat somber tone permeating this year’s festival, Sundance has never deviated from its mission to show an outstanding slate of movies and introduce new film makers who bring new perspectives and challenge movie goers to perhaps think differently.
Let’s take a look at some of the most notable Sundance movies of 2025.
Doc Heaven
Sundance’s stellar slate of documentaries tend to have something for every taste. A number of them — Icarus, Searching for Sugar Man, American Factory and An Inconvenient Truth — have won Oscars over the years. This 2025 group features stories of war, freedom, transgender rights and politics (global and national), but is nicely balanced with stories of coming of age, entertainment and some cultural icons of our time.
Music fans will be delighted to see several music documentaries. Questlove, who premiered Summer of Soul in 2021 which went on to win an Oscar, is back with Sly Lives!, a highly anticipated film about the 1960s group Sly & The Family Stone. Other music documentaries include One to One: John & Yoko exploring John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s time in Greenwich Village in the 1970s, It’s Never Over about late singer Jeff Buckley, and Queen of Tejano Music about Selena Quintanilla. All three musicians died before reaching their full potential.

Other highly anticipated documentaries are centered around Marlee Matlin, the first deaf actor to win an Oscar, Sally Ride the first American woman in space and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Big Name Stars
Although Sundance dramas are more hit or miss, 2024 had a number of winners. Hit Man, Thelma, A Real Pain and My Old Ass to name but a few. This year’s lineup features some newcomers to the Sundance scene. None is more anticipated than Jennifer Lopez who stars in Kiss of the Spider Woman, a movie adaptation of the Tony award winning musical.
Benedict Cumberbatch stars as a young father dealing with the death of his wife, grappling with an unseen presence who stalks him in The Thing With Feathers. The Ballad of Wallis Island is a comedy-drama tells the story of a long separated music duo brought together by a billionaire for one last concert. It stars Carey Mulligan and Tom Basden.

And what would Sundance be without stars and celebrities? Some of the most well known actors scheduled to walk the red carpet include Jennifer Lopez (without Ben Affleck, though he is a producer for her movie), Rose Byrne, Olivia Colman, Cynthia Erivo, John Malkovich, Marlee Matlin, Conan O’Brien and Elijah Wood.
Author’s note: Jane Howze is managing director of The Alexander Group, a national executive search firm headquartered in Houston. She has reported on the Sundance Film Festival for 16 years and is covering the 41st edition of the movie extravaganza for PaperCity on site in Park City.