Sundance 2025 has Uncharted Queer Territory and Reimagined LGBTQ Classics

The 41st annual Sundance Film Festival kicks off Thursday in Park City, Utah, with a tough slate of 90 feature-length films from around the world. Each film will also be screened in nearby Salt Lake City at least once during the festival, which runs through February 2.

Long at the forefront of breaking the best and boldest in LGBTQ cinema, Sundance will bring the goods again with 15 dramatic and documentary features on the exciting and largely upbeat slate.

“The list is really festive,” said Sundance programmer Ash Hoyle. “Sometimes it’s the queer community that we’re so good at looking at and documenting our own stories and our own struggles – and that’s certainly at play with a lot of these – but the tone this year is overwhelmingly really optimistic and really celebratory . “

Jennifer Lopez stars alongside Diego Luna in an extravagant musical remake of the 1985 queer classic “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” while Bowen Yang co-stars with Lily Gladstone in a reimagining of gay favorite “The Wedding Banquet.”

A number of returning Sundance directors and LGBTQ audience favorites will also premiere their latest works, including Ira Sachs (“Peter Hujar’s Day”), Zackary Drucker (“Enigma”) and Elegance Bratton (“Move Ya Body: The Birth of House”) .

Last year’s Sundance Film Festival premiered several of the year’s most acclaimed LGBTQ titles, including Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow,” which recently picked up nine Dorian Award nominations from Galeca, the Society of LGBTQ+ Entertainment Critics.

“I think this shows how audiences crave something different and films that are breaking the mold and filmmakers like Jane who are willing to take risks in their work,” said Sundance’s director of programming, Kim Yutani .

Fortunately for those unable to attend the festival, more than half of this year’s LGBTQ titles will also be available for the ticketed Online screening From 30 January.

Here are the LGBTQ features that will premiere this year:

“We start the festival on day one with Sophie Hyde’s latest film,” said Yutani. “She has had many films at the festival – most recently ‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’ – but this feels like her most personal film as she looks at intergenerational relationships, with a character who is a filmmaker played by Olivia Colman. Sophie’s own child, Aud Mason-Hyde, is one of the main actors, adding another layer of things as a dense personal story. It’s a really fun movie – it’s set in Amsterdam; It’s John Lithgow as you’ve never seen him before. “

“Especially exciting is Sam Feder’s new film following Chase Strangio, the ACLU attorney who went to the Supreme Court for litigation this year,” said Hoyle. “It’s just one of many really prescient, urgent films that are at the festival this year. Really grateful for Sam’s voice on the show and being able to really meet the moment we are in the US this year. ”

“This is definitely one that’s already kind of buzzing around and people are getting really excited about,” Hoyle said of the film about two young men who meet in a twin eligibility group and form an unlikely bromance. “Talk about bold – this is a film about messy dark queerness, with a really interesting angle. It’s funny, it’s sexy, and it’s actually one of a large number of films in America’s dramatic competition this year, written, directed and starring a singular voice, James Sweeney. ” (available online)

“This one has all the right elements, like the fun, star cast (including Yang and Gladstone) and direction by Andrew Ahn—who made the beloved ‘Spa Night’ and ‘Fire Island,’ of course—and he co-wrote the script with James Schamus , who authored the original ‘Wedding Banquet,’ Yutani said. “It’s not a direct remake, but rather uses the Ang Lee film as more of a launchpad to tell its own story.”

Already a 1985 queer film classic and a 1993 Tony-sweeping musical, “Kiss of the Spider Woman” is reimagined here as a movie musical by director Bill Condon (“Dreamgirls,” “Gods and Monsters”) and stars Lopez and Luna. “This movie has such amazing performances and Old-School Hollywood Grandeur. We couldn’t be happier that this will also be one of the buzziest titles at the festival. “

“This Doctor of Elegance Bratton looks at the history of house music and its birthplace in Chicago and, of course, the queer black community from which the scene emerged,” Hoyle said. “This film has an amazing cast, people who really touched and started the scene.

This documentary feature from Zackary Drucker, who co-directed 2023’s “The Stroll,” explores the lives of two legendary transgender women: English model April Ashley and French singer Amanda Lear. “This is a really fun title that looks at two divergent lives and how they explore and foil each other in terms of how one person navigates the queer community,” said Hoyle, who added that the film is a “fascinating story and a rich look at Trans history.”

Hoyle said that this narrative feature “feels so nuanced to a degree that it’s really not something I’ve seen before. It explores gay male affinity spaces and how trans men do and don’t fit into them. It’s also a romantic love story , but It doesn’t stay away from the parts of love and infatuation that are really close to jealousy and to competition.What does it look like?

“Ira Sachs (‘Keep the Lights On,’ ‘Passages’) is one of the filmmakers who has played Sundance the most, if not the most,” Yutani said. “We were attracted to this one because it is so different from his other work. I think one of the exciting things about IRA is just how he continues to challenge himself and work in almost different forms. Adapted from an interview with artist Peter Hujar, this is basically a monologue that Ben Whishaw delivers so exquisitely. This is just a special movie that transports you to another time, another place, a specific place and it’s just done with such a delicate touch. “

“This movie is a gut punch,” said Hoyle. “It’s a beautiful portrait of poet laureate in Colorado, Andrea Gibson, who is a real talent and who navigates a really difficult cancer diagnosis with their boyfriend. It’s a beautiful portrait of their relationship and their kind of loving intellectual approach to death in dying. And then, of course, it’s interwoven with their poetry, which is just relentlessly moving. This is not one to miss, but not one to attend without a full pack of Kleenex. “

This documentary about astronaut Sally Ride “really has everything,” Hoyle said. “It’s got a queer love story, it’s got an analysis of the implications, and it’s a great way to track the way that being out has changed in the public eye over the years since Sally Ride’s career. Our own space program, but especially at this time when we see gender politics playing out in that space so loudly.”

“This is a semi-autobiographical film about a young man who goes back to his hometown in India and struggles to stay true to his own identity with his family,” said Yutani. “The kind of pastoral gay story it tells is a really special one. It’s probably one of the more explicitly gay movies I’ve seen out of India too. “

This documentary feature “focuses on a doctor in Milan, Dr. Bini, and we have a very intimate look at how he communicates with his patients, a lot of which has to do with their gender identity,” Yutani said. “If this film offers anything, it offers optimism and what medical treatment for all people could be. And it’s truly extraordinary to see this doctor at work.”

“This is a period piece about the ’90s, a fun throwback in much more recent history about a plainclothes police officer who busts gay men in shopping malls and then ends up having an exploration of his own sexuality through role-playing that he engages in, Hoyle said. “One of the things we responded to this film is how exquisitely it is made. We were so happy to see a first time filmmaker who performs technically at the level that Carmen (Emmi) is in a first feature. It’s just beautifully done, really accurate and really interesting narrative terrain. “

This feature from Colombia centers on a group of misfits who hang out at a dive bar that doubles as purgatory, according to the film’s description on Sundance’s website. Yutani described it as a “very attractive film with kind of this weird goth punk feel to it” and said that it “completely builds its own landscape that’s just completely unique.”