BY: Amanda Jane Stern

The 2021 Sundance Film Festival just ended. While it looked a bit different this year than in past ones (it was all virtual), there were still a slew of wonderful movies to see, just this time, from the comfort of your own home. Let’s take a look at 7 of the best movies from Sundance this year.

 

CODA

A remake of the 2014 French film La Famille Bélier, the plot follows the hearing daughter, Ruby, (Locke & Key’s Emilia Jones) of 2 deaf parents, with the mother played by Oscar winner Marlee Matlin. Ruby spends her days helping her parents run their fishing business. When she discovers her passion for music she has to decide between staying to help her family or pursuing her goals. Apple TV+ bought it for $25 Million.

 

Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

This documentary marks Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s directorial debut. It covers the events of the1969 Harlem Cultural Festival (aka “Black Woodstock”). After winning the Grand Jury prize and Audience award, this film was picked up by Searchlight Pictures and Hulu. According to to Variety, this acquisition was north of $12 million, a new record for a Sundance documentary

 

Passing

Rebecca Hall made her directorial debut with this historical drama, based on a book of the same name, about two light-skinned African-American women (Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga), childhood friends who reconnect later as adults in 1920s Harlem. While one of the women has been living her life, “passing” as a white woman, the other has embraced her Black identity. Passing will be released later this year on Netflix.

 

Mass

Fran Kranz (The Cabin in the Woods) made his directorial debut with this drama about grief. The plot follows two sets of parents, one set the parents of the victim of a tragic shooting, and the other set, the parents of the perpetrator, who meet face-to-face years after the event. The film stars Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Ann Dowd, and Reed Birney.

 

Pleasure

This Swedish drama from Ninja Thyberg, follows 20-year-old Linnéa (Sofia Kappel). She leaves her small town in Sweden to make it big in the porn world in Los Angeles. While Kappel is a professional actress, the rest of the cast was made up of professional adult entertainers. A24 acquired the distribution rights to Pleasure and will release both an R-rated version, and an uncencorsed, unrated version of the film.

 

Judas and the Black Messiah

This historical drama was actually a late addition to the Sundance lineup, and is interestingly enough, is coming out this Friday. The film follows the true-story of small-time crook and FBI informant William O’Neal’s (Lakeith Stanfield) infiltration of the Chicago Black Panther party in order to gain intel on the Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya). Judas and the Black Messiah comes out on HBO Max and in theaters this Friday, February 12.

 

Flee

This animated documentary follows a man named Amin, who moved to Denmark from Afghanistan as a child. Now, at 36-years-old, he has made a successful life for himself as an academic, and is getting ready to marry his long-time boyfriend. However, a secret he has been keeping for over two decades threatens to ruin the life he has made for himself. Flee won the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Documentary section.