Sundance Revisited

Sundance Revisited presents a selection of 35mm films from the Yale Film Archive collection that had their American or world premieres in Park City, UT. This series was inspired by the Sundance Film Festival’s upcoming move to Boulder, CO. All screenings in the series are free and open to the public.

Location:
Humanities Quadrangle, Lower Level
320 York Street
New Haven, CT

SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE (Steven Soderbergh, 1989, 35mm, 100 mins)
7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 4, 2026
A fraying marriage, a reckless affair, and a drifter with a camcorder. Soderbergh’s landmark debut is a slow-burning study of honesty, repression, and emotional vulnerability, marked by whispered confessions and voyeuristic desire. It ignited the American indie revolution and remains as seductive, unsettling, and slyly funny as ever. James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, and Laura San Giacomo star in “a film whose enormous authority and intelligence extend to every detail” (Caryn James). Sex, Lies, and Videotape had its world premiere at Sundance on January 20, 1989.

HOOP DREAMS (Steve James, 1994, 35mm, 170 mins)
7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026
A coming-of-age story, an American epic, and one of the greatest documentaries of all time, Hoop Dreams brings us two Chicago teenagers whose basketball talent offers hope for brighter futures. Filmed over five years, it follows family struggles, financial pressures, schoolwork, injuries, and the realities of how race and class complicate the boys’ ambitions. Expansive without ever losing sight of the individual, the film finds drama not in the buzzer-beaters, but in the daily grind of chasing a dream. “The most powerful movie about sports ever made” (Hal Hinson). Hoop Dreams had its world premiere at Sundance on January 22, 1994.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS (Bryan Singer, 1995, 35mm, 106 mins)
7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9, 2026
What a lineup: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palmintieri, Benicio del Toro, Pete Postlethwaite, Giancarlo Esposito, Kevin Pollack, Stephen Baldwin…but who’s Keyser Söze? When a dockside explosion leaves San Pedro Bay strewn with bodies—and the police with a boatload of questions—the sole survivor recounts the tangled chain of events that brought five career criminals together in a two-time Oscar-winning film that’s equal parts noir, caper, and cinematic shell game. “This elegant puzzle not only enjoys showing off, it also has something to show” (Kenneth Turan). The Usual Suspects had its world premiere at Sundance on January 25, 1995.

BRICK (Rian Johnson, 2005, 35mm, 110 mins)
9:05 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9, 2026
The dazzling debut feature from director Rian Johnson stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a high school student delving into the dark side of his California suburb on a search for his missing ex-girlfriend. With stylized dialogue, intricate plotting, deadpan humor, double-crosses, lunch-money shakedowns, femmes fatales, and an unforgettable teenage kingpin in the form of Lukas Haas (complete with cape and cane), this neo-noir thriller won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance. “A triumph of attitude” (Troy Patterson) that’s “quotable, clever, and cryptic” (Victoria Segal). Brick had its world premiere at Sundance on January 21, 2005.

BOUND (Lana & Lilly Wachowski, 1996, 35mm, 109 mins)
8:50 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13, 2026
30th anniversary screening! Before reinventing sci-fi, the Wachowskis made their knockout neo-noir debut with a film known for its crackling chemistry, relentless suspense, unabashed eroticism, and style to burn. An ex-con fresh out of prison (Gina Gershon) and her alluring new neighbor (Jennifer Tilly) hatch a plot to steal millions from the mob, but first they’ve got to get around a money-laundering boyfriend (Joe Pantoliano) who fights dirty and suspects everyone. “Bound is one of those movies that works you up, wrings you out, and leaves you gasping. It's pure cinema, spread over several genres” (Roger Ebert). Bound had its world premiere at Sundance on January 26, 1996.

DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST (Julie Dash, 1991, 35mm, 113 mins)
7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, 2026
Dash conjures the story of three generations of Gullah women on an island off the South Carolina coast in the first feature film by an African American woman to get national theatrical distribution and the first selected for the Library of Congress's National Film Registry. Her luminous masterpiece’s "impressionistic look at the Great Migration (who will go, who will stay, and at what cost?) combines a corporeal sense of history with poetic, often indirect and allegorical underpinnings” (Durga Chew-Bose). A singular meditation on heritage, identity, and the power of cultural memory. Daughters of the Dust had its world premiere at Sundance on January 24, 1991.

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, 2006, 35mm, 101 mins)
7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4, 2026
20th anniversary screening! “This sparkling little gem takes the family road movie to unhoped-for heights of hilarity and humanity” (Angie Arrigo). Greg Kinnear, Toni Colette, Steve Carell, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, and Alan Arkin pile into a battered yellow VW van so seven-year-old Olive can chase her dream (and show off her dance moves) at a kiddie beauty pageant in sunny California. Beloved by audiences and praised by critics, this sleeper hit won Academy Awards for Best Original Screenplay (Michael Arndt) and Best Supporting Actor (Arkin). Little Miss Sunshine had its world premiere at Sundance on January 20, 2006.

WELCOME TO THE DOLLHOUSE (Todd Solondz, 1995, 35mm, 88 mins)
9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4, 2026
Dawn Wiener (Heather Matarazzo) is an awkward and overlooked middle child, harassed by bullies at her suburban New Jersey junior high and crushing on an aspiring rocker. She stumbles through social catastrophes and small triumphs in a cringe-inducing but compassionate coming-of-age story that won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Darkly comic and deliberately uncomfortable, Solondz’s fearless cult classic remains one of cinema's sharpest portraits of growing up on the outside. “A brilliantly malevolent treat” (Janet Maslin) that’s “hilariously provocative and almost too real” (Rich Cline). Welcome to the Dollhouse had its U.S. premiere at Sundance on January 15, 1996.

WHEN WE WERE KINGS (Leon Gast, 1996, 35mm, 88 mins)
7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 10, 2026
30th anniversary screening! Muhammad Ali floats, taunts, and dazzles in Gast’s exhilarating depiction of the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle, when sports, politics, race, and international identity converged in a steamy Kinshasa stadium. This Academy Award winner for Best Documentary Feature includes astonishing footage of Ali, his rival George Foreman, James Brown, B.B. King, Norman Mailer, George Plimpton, Spike Lee, Miriam Makeba, and more. “One of the best and most emotionally affecting documentaries ever made” (David Parkinson) is both an unforgettable ringside spectacle and a powerful portrait of a global superstar. When We Were Kings had its world premiere at Sundance on January 19, 1996.

RUN LOLA RUN (Tom Tykwer, 1998, 35mm, 80 mins)
8:50 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 10, 2026
Tykwer’s third feature is a “hyperkinetic pop culture firecracker” (Kenneth Turan) starring Franka Potente and Moritz Bleibtreu. With propulsive editing, kinetic camerawork, bursts of animation, and a pulsing electronic score, it follows the tangerine-haired Lola as she careens through the streets of Berlin in a dash to save her boyfriend who’s on the hook for losing a gangster’s loot. In a race to beat the clock, split-second decisions have seismic consequences. The thriller won seven German Film Awards, including German Film of the Year. “Run Lola Run is fun, fun, fun” (Rick Groen)! Run Lola Run had its U.S. premiere at Sundance on January 26, 1999.

See the full Yale Film Archive screening schedule here.