All the best movies we saw at the virtual film festival

Instead of roughing it through the cold and snow of Park City, Utah to get to various screenings at the annual Sundance Film Festival, we’re couch-bound seeing the best of what independent cinema has to offer in 2021.

Like the other big-time fests in Toronto, New York and elsewhere did in 2020, Sundance has gone virtual this year due to COVID but they’re not skimping on on the cinematic goodness. This year’s event features the world premiere of high-profile awards-season contender “Judas and the Black Messiah”; projects featuring stars like Tiffany Haddish, Constance Wu, Tessa Thompson and Nicolas Cage; a ton of documentaries featuring the glam-rock duo Sparks, Hollywood legend Rita Moreno, “Black Woodstock” and activist nuns; plus a modern, social-media-driven update of Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet.” 

Throughout the fest, we’ll be keeping readers up to date with reaction to all the major films and hidden gems we’re seeing. (And, yep, because we love to rank things, we’re doing that, too.) 

Sundance 2021:Here’s how to watch this year’s virtual film fest at home

11. ‘Strawberry Mansion’

Filmmaking duo Kentucker Audley and Albert Birney’s very strange romantic fantasy will break your brain but also fill your heart a bit. In a near-futuristic setting where the government audits people’s dreams, bland federal agent James Preble (Audley) travels to the rural residence of an aging artist named Bella (Penny Fuller) who’s made thousands of VHS dream tapes. Preble whips out his monstrous contraption to watch them (think virtual reality if it was a thing in the ’80s), and begins a journey that involves falling for young Bella (Grace Glowicki) and running into various characters including a strange man covered in grass, rodent sailors and a frog waiter playing a sax.

10. ‘Censor’

British director Prano Bailey-Bond’s gory and meta midnight movie presents her as a horror force to watch, and star Niamh Algar is magnetic as Enid, a film censor whose job is to watch bloody, exploitative “video nasties” that were a controversial aspect of 1980s English film culture. Watching one of these low-budget works triggers a childhood trauma from her past – and the fact that her sister’s been missing for decades – and Enid goes in search of answers. It’s an OK execution on a knockout premise, and Bailey-Bond keeps the viewer unnerved throughout a twisty, visually mesmerizing nightmare.

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9. ‘How It Ends’

The dark comedy (filmed during COVID quarantine last year) captures a lot of existential crises we’re all feeling right now, but with way more recognizable guest-star cameos. Zoe Lister-Jones (who also writes and directs with husband Daryl Wein) stars as an L.A. woman hanging with her younger self (Cailee Spaeny) on her final day on Earth prior to the apocalypse. The main character needs to work some stuff out with family and loved ones, and it’s fun seeing who comes out to play, including Olivia Wilde as a psychic friend and Nick Kroll as a dude stocking up on drugs before The End.

8. ‘Homeroom’

Director Peter Nicks’ thought-provoking and uplifting documentary follows the senior class of Oakland High School over the course of the 2019-20 school year, one unlike any other. Nicks captures the diverse student population preparing for the future and and trying to get rid of the school’s on-campus police force. And that’s all before COVID hits. After they’re sent home and faced with graduating virtually, Nicks captures kids as they embrace change in the wake of George Floyd and organize to make their own lives and city better.

7. ‘Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street’

Director Marilyn Agrelo’s documentary about the early days of “Sesame Street” is a fairly straightforward, soup-to-nuts origin story, but given the children’s program history, she didn’t have to do anything too fancy to make her point. A blast of nostalgia for those who grew up learning about the ABCs and 123s from Jim Henson’s lovable Muppets, “Street Gang” is also a touching and, yes, educational look at the show’s creators and their neverending commitment to representation, teaching kids to love one another and be good people, and having some fun along the way.

6. ‘John and the Hole’

This is the kind of thing you show kids when they think they’re ready to be an adult. Part moody ’70s psychological horror, part coming-of-age story, “John” is a family fable starring Charlie Shotwell as a 13-year-old who drugs his wealthy mom (Jennifer Ehle) and dad (Michael C. Hall) plus his sister (Taissa Farmiga) one night and sticks them at the bottom of an unfinished bunker, keeping them prisoner while he lives life his way. Pascual Sisto’s directorial debut is disturbing, darkly comic and, in its own strange way, rather heartening.

5. ‘In the Earth’

After mixed results redoing “Rebecca,” writer/director Ben Wheatley (“Kill List”) is thankfully back to his original, bizarre genre mashups. In the sci-fi thriller/trippy folk horror, a mysterious virus plagues the world and a scientist (Joel Fry) and a guide (Ellora Torchia) venture to find a research site in a forest that turns people a little funny. Wheatley gives just a hint of potentially interesting mythology (wood spirits!), instead leaving much up for interpretation, but there’s plenty of psychedelic, sensory-overloading sounds and visions courtesy of nature and the coolest park ranger ever.

4. ‘On the Count of Three’

Comedian Jarrod Carmichael puts together a quite impressive, darkly humorous buddy film for his directorial debut. Suicidal best friends Val (Carmichael) and Kevin (Christopher Abbott) make a pact to shoot each other in the head. But first they have a few things to do on their final day, including ride dirt bikes, try to make some amends, engage in various crimes and exact bloody revenge. Tiffany Haddish and Henry Winkler both have small but key roles in the emotionally complex dramedy, and Carmichael and Abbott are great as ride-or-die buds who might not be totally ready for the “die” part. 

3. ‘Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It’

We knew Moreno is a trailblazing icon; she’s also a blintz-loving, vibrant and impressively honest storyteller. Director Mariem Pérez Riera’s fascinating documentary chronicles the star’s life and work in a historical and influential context but is best when just winding Moreno up and letting her go. She tells of coming to America when she was 5, gets real about sexual assault and attempted suicide and discusses struggles she had being able to finally play a Latina on screen. Moreno had to settle for “island” and “native” girls until Anita, her Oscar-winning character in “West Side Story,” who became her role model “because I never had one.”

2. ‘CODA’

Written and directed by Siân Heder, the film is a sweet, inclusive and funny twist on the coming-of-age formula starring a fabulous Emilia Jones as Ruby, the only hearing member of a deaf Massachusetts fishing family. Ruby struggles to balance high school with commitments to her mom (Marlee Matlin), dad (Troy Kotsur) and headstrong big brother (Daniel Durant). But joining the school choir – and working with an eccentric and caring teacher (comedian Eugenio Derbez, more restrained than usual) – shows her that singing is a passion she truly wants to explore and unlocks a new part of herself that’ll unleash all the tears.

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1. ‘Summer Of Soul (Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)’

Just imagine the magic of seeing a 19-year-old Stevie Wonder live, joyfully going to town on keyboard and (yes) drums in the rain, and that’s what Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson conjures in his directorial debut. Never-before-seen footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival shows a divided community coming together to celebrate Black art. Most noteworthy are the spectacular musical performances lost for 50 years, including Mahalia Jackson and Mavis Staples’ heavenly rendition of “Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” Martin Luther King Jr.’s favorite gospel song.