A heartfelt ode to high school friendship, Neo Sora’s Happyend explores how bonds evolve—and dissolve—as adulthood looms.  Set in authoritarian, near-future Tokyo, this coming-of-age drama is also bracingly funny and ideologically intense.  Even better, despite its familiar set-up, the film bursts with personality:  surprisingly authentic, easy-to-fall-for characters whose personal and political awakening make us laugh, grin, and ultimately choke up. 

The Kneecap lads: Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí, all of whom star in the film.

Frank Berry’s Aisha is the superbly moving record of a Nigerian refugee’s quiet fight for dignity in Ireland’s inhumane Direct Provision system for asylum seekers.

I Saw the TV Glow is a cult film-in-the-making. A second turn at Sundance for writer/director Jane Schoenbrun (they/them), this haunting sophomore feature channels the voice of a generation: a voice dripping in Nickelodeon slime, Twin Peaks scores and creepypasta lore. A voice that demands to be taken seriously, even when its main villain is literally a Georges Méliès-style moon named Mr. Melancholy.

Don’t know Yang or his films? Prepare to be surprised by some of the most familiar characters you’ve never seen. Yang may not be on your radar, but here’s why he should be: from the early 1980s to the year 2000, his work has inspired generations of artists by turning cultural portraits of post-war Taiwan into universal life lessons. Sprawling casts of realistic, relatable and often hilarious characters—affectionately but acutely observed—offer compelling time capsules of our human condition. Even now, decades later, his films feel urgently relevant.

Rose Glass’s Love Lies Bleeding is a gleefully deranged, exceptionally-crafted, pitch-dark pulp-drama. This genre-bender—a Tarantino-esque concoction of crime, noir, romance, body horror, western, black comedy, and above all, mood—marks Glass as a must-watch talent. (It also makes a serious case for the return of mullets.)

My personal Top Ten films from Sundance 2024—plus distribution info, so that you too can catch these buzzy treasures in the coming year. Selected from a vast number of candidates (roughly 17,000 submissions), this year’s cadre of Sundance premieres delivers profound insights into our own collective evolution. These stories are pure entertainment, genre films with a conscience, Trojan Horses for cultural progress.

Randall Park’s Shortcomings is a refreshingly hilarious of-the-moment Rom-Dram that explores identity with a self-aware twist.

A towering achievement of both animation and imagination, The Boy and the Heron was expected to be Miyazaki’s swan song, a fitting send-off for the auteur whom many see as the world’s greatest living animator. His choice of the somewhat ambiguous question “How Do You Live?” is especially poignant given the circumstances.

Here are my highlights from Tribeca 2023—five narrative films, five documentaries, plus three honorable mentions—in no particular order beyond the conversation they have with each other.

Set during the final years of the war in Afghanistan, anchored by standout performances from Dar Salim and Jake Gyllenhaal, Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant balances less successful action clichés with suspenseful character drama that speaks directly to the viewer’s sense of justice.

Bing Liu and Joshua Altman’s All These Sons is a rousing, hauntingly powerful tableau about the on-the-ground effort to quell gun violence in Chicago by an altruistic few.

Bing Liu’s documentary Minding The Gap contains more entertainment—and more authenticity—than most narrative features achieve in their very best moments. First-time director, DP, co-star and co-editor Liu explores the down-and-out world he shares with his two best friends in Rockford, Illinois: all three have tumultuous family lives; all three survive by skateboarding.

Ray Romano’s first foray into acting-directing, Somewhere in Queens, is an uproarious family drama more akin to Little Miss Sunshine than Everybody Loves Raymond.

Elijah Bynum’s Magazine Dreams is an intense, deeply unsettling psychological thriller, superbly anchored by Jonathan Major’s performance as manic-muscleman Killian Maddox.

Michelangelo Frammartino’s Il Buco (“The Hole”) is a meditative journey into the center of the earth, replete with some of the year’s most gorgeous visuals and transportive sound design.

O Brother Wherefore Art Thou: Joel Cohen’s Stunning Solo Shakespeare

Kogonada’s After Yang opens with the most exhilarating dance sequence since Gaspar Noé’s Climax—but don’t be misled.

Yay or neigh?