The 2026 Sundance Film Festival is a little more than 100 days away, and programmers are busy making the last one in Utah — the first without Robert Redford — an event to remember.
“We’re excited to share the first stage of the festival, and there is a lot more to come,” said Eugene Hernandez, the festival director and director of public programming. “Already we were embodying a quote that Mr. Redford shared, ‘Everybody has a story,’ when we went into planning this year’s festival. In the recent weeks since his passing, it feels more poignant, and (that has) been a clarifying moment for us and the festival in reflecting the love and thoughtfulness around Mr. Redford’s impact and legacy.”
Redford died Sept. 16 at his home in Sundance Mountain Resort. He brought the iconic indie film fest to Park City in 1981. The festival is known for launching the careers of filmmakers such as Jordan Peele, Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino.
The festival, scheduled for Jan. 22 to Feb. 1, will premiere the Park City Legacy Program that celebrates its colorful history in Utah through archival and restoration screenings of iconic films from past festivals, artists talks with notable festival alumni and a special event for the community.
In-person and online ticket packages and passes to the 2026 Sundance Film Festival will go on sale at festival.sundance.org/tickets at 10 a.m. Mountain Time on Wednesday. Single film tickets will go on sale starting Jan. 14. For information visit festival.sundance.org.
John Nein, the festival’s senior programmer and director of strategic initiatives, designed the Legacy Program events, Hernandez said.
“The program is a continuation of what John has been doing with the institute for decades to support and restore these independent films that might not otherwise get the profile they deserve,” he said.
The program will run during the second half of the festival — Jan. 27 through Jan. 30, when it will culminate with a special event, with the time and place announced later, to thank Park City and the local Utah community, according to Nein.
“We knew the festival would be deeply meaningful to a lot of different people for a lot of different reasons, so there was always this plan to put this together in a way that celebrated this history of the festival in Park City,” he said. “I think community really is at the center of this, and all along we saw this as a way of celebrating how this has been a shared experience for filmmakers, industry, staff and volunteers, audiences and, obviously, and the local community.”
When Redford died, the celebration Nein was planning took on a different tone.
“This program (became) a way to celebrate the vision he had all along for independent storytelling,” Nein said. “The Legacy Program maintains that and these four days are a way of celebrating all of those things he stood for. The emphasis is placed on the artist and the work, and the community that forms around it.”
Selecting the films for the program is also a continuation of the Retrospective program, which screens films from past Sundance Film festivals.
“Every year we screen classic festival films,” he said. “We’ve had a partnership with the UCLA Film and Television Archive for almost 30 years, and that has been in the interest of safeguarding important independent films and ensuring they can be discovered by new audiences. We also look to see if there is a preservation need where we’re aware of some issue with a film that can be remedied.”
Those screenings have included Quentin Tarantino’s iconic 1992 “Reservoir Dogs” to Steven Soderbergh’s 1992 breakthrough “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” and Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick’s 1999 groundbreaking “Blair Witch Project,” Nein said.
The films earmarked for the 2026 Legacy Program are brand-new digital restorations of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s 2006 comedy-drama “Little Miss Sunshine,” Reginald Hudlin’s 1990 comedy musical “House Party,” Ryan Fleck’s 2006 drama “Half Nelson,” Barbara Kopple’s 1990 documentary “American Dream,” Gregg Araki’s 2004 drama “Mysterious Skin” and James Wan’s 2004 slasher “Saw.”
The series will also feature an archival screening of the 2009 romantic comedy, “Humpday,” by Lynn Shelton, Nein said.
“We included that as a way of recognizing filmmakers who are no longer with us,” he said.
A late addition to the screenings is Michael Ritchie’s 1969 sports drama, “Downhill Racer,” starring Robert Redford and Gene Hackman, Nein said.
“We added that in the mix of films as a way of recognizing how it played a role in Sundance history,” he said.
Making “Downhill Racer” was a struggle shared by Ritchie and Redford, according to Hernandez.
“His struggle to get the movie made shaped his ideas around what would eventually create the Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival,” he said.
Nein remembered Redford mentioning the film during his annual directors’ brunch at the Sundance Institute.
“It was a way to underscore how much he knew the importance of what independent film was and connecting with the artists,” he said.
In addition to feature-length films, the 2026 Sundance Film Festival Legacy Program will include a retrospective short film program, which will be announced later.
Another element of the Legacy Program will be live presentations and discussions at the Egyptian Theatre.
The theater has become an iconic image associated with the Sundance Film Festival, and it was not listed as a venue when Sundance announced its preliminary 2026 programming in July.
The theater’s manager, Randy Barton, said at the time he was interested in working with Sundance for a daytime event because he wanted to program live concerts to celebrate the theater’s 100th anniversary.
“Over the summer, Randy invited me to a concert at the Egyptian,” Hernandez said. “I’ve only seen movies there, so it was cool to be at a bluegrass show.”
After the show, Hernandez, Barton and Jenn Sylva, the Egyptian Theatre’s director of operations, began talking about how to involve the theater in the 2026 festival.
“We know it’s a big ask every year to turn it into a movie theater, because it’s a performing arts venue,” Hernandez said. “But we had some great conversations, and it has been great working with them in the past couple of months to put a program together.”
Barton said he looks forward for the Egyptian Theatre
“We did not renew as a film venue because of the change, but we’ve always been in discussion with them about doing something fabulous in the Legacy Program, being the original home of Sundance,” he said. “They will use the theater early in the day, so we’ll be able to do our music shows at night. It will be wonderful to be used as a Sundance venue for the last festival, and we’re happy that we’re in the catalog and on the program.”