2025's Sundance winners explore resilience, grief, and politics' impact on private lives

This year's awards season is wrapping up, which means it's time to look forward to the films we'll be discussing this time next year. Some of those hopefuls just premiered in Park City during the Sundance festival, which generally provides one of our first glimpses at next year's landscape. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of films loosed upon the world, you can check out some of our festival recaps here. You can also look to the projects that stood out above the crowd, at least according to the festival's jury. 

Hailey Gates' Atropia took home this year's Grand Jury prize for U.S. Dramatic Competition. The political satire stars Alia Shawkat as an aspiring actress in a military role-playing facility who falls in love with a soldier cast as an insurgent. "This timely and timeless first feature was both hilarious and damning in its portrayal of the theater of war," read a citation from the dramatic-competition jury, which included directors Reinaldo Marcus Green and Celine Song and actor Arian Moayed.

Other jury winners included Seeds, an exploration of Black generational farmers in the American south (U.S. Documentary Competition), Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears), a queer Indian drama (World Cinema Dramatic Competition), and Cutting Through Rocks, a profile of an Iranian woman who challenges her patriarchal village by teaching teenage girls to motorcycle (World Cinema Documentary Competition). 

Audiences chose a little differently. Twinless, which stars Dylan O'Brien as a man grieving his twin brother, won the audience award in the U.S. Dramatic Competition, while André Is an Idiot took it for U.S. Documentary, DJ Ahmet got it for World Cinema Dramatic Competition, and Prime Minister won in the World Cinema Documentary Competition.

Unfortunately for anyone who didn't score a coveted ticket to Park City, many of these films—including Atropia and Twinless—have not yet found a U.S. distributor. As of the award ceremony today, the only two that have, per The New York Times, are Together, a body-horror film starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco, and Train, a period drama starring Joel Edgerton. 

Hopefully the rest of the winners will soon follow suit. You can check out the full list below:

Grand Jury Prizes

U.S. Dramatic Competition: Atropia

U.S. Documentary Competition: Seeds

World Cinema Dramatic Competition: Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears)

World Cinema Documentary Competition: Cutting Through Rocks

Next Innovator Award: Zodiac Killer Project

Directing, U.S. Dramatic: Rashad Frett, Ricky

Directing, U.S. Documentary: Geeta Gandbhir, The Perfect Neighbor

Directing, World Cinema Dramatic: Alireza Khatami, The Things You Kill

Directing, World Cinema Documentary: Mstyslav Chernov, 2000 Meters to Andriivka

Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: U.S. Dramatic: Eva Victor, Sorry, Baby

Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award, U.S. Documentary: Parker Laramie, André Is an Idiot

U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting: Dylan O’Brien, Twinless

U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast: Plainclothes

U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Archival Storytelling: Selena y Los Dinos

U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award: Life After

World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Creative Vision: Georgi M. Unkovski, DJ Ahmet

World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Writing: Two Women

World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Mr. Nobody Against Putin

World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression: Coexistence, My Ass!

NEXT Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast: Mad Bills to Pay

Audience Awards

U.S. Dramatic Competition: Twinless

U.S. Documentary Competition: André Is an Idiot

World Cinema Dramatic Competition: DJ Ahmet

World Cinema Documentary Competition: Prime Minister

Next: East of Wall