5 Must-See Sundance Movies Coming to a Theater Near You

5 Must-See Sundance Movies Coming to a Theater Near You Plus, enter to win more than $1,000 worth of prizes from Sundance.



JGL's Directorial Debut
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Every year, Colorado gets struck by a tidal wave of films — and film snobs — when the Sundance Film Festival comes to town. And each year, dozens upon dozens of films are screened there to much fanfare and debate, only to leave readers wondering which ones they should actually remember by the time they arrive in theaters in the rest of the country.

We’ve rummaged through the many releases of this year’s Sundance slate and assembled a list of the best and most talked-about offerings of the year. If you’re a lover of small, indie dramas, dark comedies, tense thrillers or flat-out, terrifying horror flicks, there’s something here for everybody. Watch out of the majority of these films to hit throughout the coming year.

And in addition to Celebuzz’ shortlist of promising Sundance movies, we’re giving away a selection of prizes from the festival which celebs took home — and you can, too! — by participating in a contest, the details for which are listed below.

Upstream Color

Director Shane Carruth was the mastermind behind the incredibly low-budget, super complex time-travel film Primer, a mind-bender made for seemingly pennies. Beautifully filmed and incredibly evocative, Primer set a high bar, and after many years away from screens, Carruth returns with Upstream Color, a purposefully esoteric tone-poem that’ll keep viewers debating the film’s actual meaning for years to come. Focusing on two lovers caught up in a surreal and abstract tale, the film will be distributed by Carruth through his own company later this year.

S-VHS

Last year’s found-footage horror anthology V/H/S received mixed reviews for its inconsistent short-film omnibus, which featured some spectacular highs as well as disappointing lows. Word out of Sundance this year, however, is that the follow-up S-VHS is flat-out amazing, featuring segments by Adam Wingard, Simon Barrett, Jason Eisener and Gareth Evans, the director of the unbelievably kick-ass action flick, The Raid. The distributor of the first film, Magnolia, picked this up with the expectation that it’ll be an even bigger critical darling and a hit with fans of the original.

Don Jon’s Addiction

Looper star and neo-Batman Joseph Gordon-Levitt takes up the reigns as director of this shocking/lurid/sexy/funny dramatic-comedy about porn addiction. Starring opposite Scarlett Johannson and Julianne Moore, Gordon-Levitt gives a wildly different performance from his previous, admittedly more dour roles and pulls off an equally impressive feat behind the camera, as well. The film kicked off something of an indie bidding war at the festival, but Relativity Media eventually beat out the Weinstein Company to distribute the film for a festival high of $4 million.