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Last year may have been the Sundance Film Festival’s official return to an in-person experience, but the just-concluded 2024 edition felt even more lively: It wasn’t just a return to business, it was a full presentation . party, with top-notch talent on hand even beyond what you might have expected from the festival in its final two pre-COVID years.
The best films of the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, as determined by IndieWire’s annual critics poll, are an eclectic mix, full of star power and star-making turns. And, no doubt, having all the competition titles screened virtually over the festival’s final five days boosted visibility for some: If all the celebrities descended on Park City, Utah, this year, some journalists who used to be in-person regulars opted for doing it. just for the online experience.
If the number of journalists who responded to the IndieWire survey, 166 in total, is lower than in the past, this has something to do with it: some who only attended the festival remotely felt they had not seen enough to participate.
Regardless, whether in person or remotely, attendees voting this time propelled one film to overwhelming dominance in most categories: Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain” topped this poll to a level almost no film can. has achieved in all six. I’ve been compiling it for years, although last year’s “Fair Play” was close, but even that was much more in a neck-and-neck race with “Past Lives”, while the gap between “A Real Pain” and the second place is a lot broader in its categories.
As always with IndieWire polls, voters vote through preferential voting in which first-place votes are ranked higher than second-place votes, and so on. Let’s think about how the Academy votes for the Oscars. It is possible, under this scheme, for something to get more first-place votes than anything else, but still fall behind something that received more votes overall.
“A Real Pain” is No. 1 in Best Picture, Best Performance (Kieran Culkin), Best Director (Eisenberg) and Best Screenplay (Eisenberg), all categories for which it was eligible. Not even eventual Best Picture Oscar winner “CODA” managed such a feat when she topped this poll’s Best Picture category in 2021: It fell short in the other categories. Movies that top the IndieWire critics poll are sometimes contenders for Oscar glory, as “CODA” demonstrated: “Minari,” which topped the poll in 2020, also received a Best Picture nomination.
Just to show you how much “A Real Pain” resonated with IndieWire voters: a third of all respondents placed it among their top three films of the festival, and 17.5 percent placed it at number one. The film that took second place on the Best Picture list, “I Saw the TV Glow,” received half as many mentions.
Best Performance for Kieran Culkin and Best Director for Eisenberg had a little less rampant dominance, but then there’s the Best Screenplay category, in which Eisenberg’s script appeared on 41 percent of all ballots and 21 percent of all the ballots in the number one position. place. Clearly, Eisenberg’s personal film (himself of Polish descent, he had just received his Polish social security card the day before the IndieWire studio interview) resonated in a powerful way, making the Searchlight acquisition for 10 million dollars seems like a bargain.
“Daughters,” the moving nonfiction vision of imprisoned parents preparing for a father-daughter dance, topped the Best Documentary category. Netflix is supposedly reaching a deal to buy it, and winning the People’s Choice Awards for Festival Favorite and the US Documentary Competition should go a long way. And “Good One,” India Donaldson’s thought-provoking camping trip drama that should draw comparisons to the work of Kelly Reichardt, is still looking for a home: “Good One” topped the Best First Feature category at our poll and ranked number 1. three on the overall Best Picture list.
“I Saw the TV Glow” may not have gotten the most votes overall in its categories, but of those votes cast for it, it’s more skewed toward being the number one pick than any other film: Jane Schoenbrun Actually received the most number one votes for Best Director, slightly less overall than Eisenberg in that category. That suggests that “I Saw the TV Glow” may not be for everyone, but it will inspire intense devotion in those who love it. So a perfect A24 title! And he arrived at the festival with the independent distributor already purchased.
One film that deserves a closer look from distributors is “Didi (弟弟),” the title of Sean Wang’s American drama competition. It ranked at number four on the Best Picture list, number seven on Best Director and at number two in Best First Film.
The aforementioned “Daughters” topped the Best Documentary list, but the Netflix acquisition “Ibelin,” winner of the Audience Award in the World Cinema Documentary competition, came in at number two. The film, about a young man who died of a degenerative disease at the age of 25 and formed his most significant relationships in “World of Warcraft,” sparking great emotion among his fellow players after his death, impressed many with its use of animation and recreations of “World of Warcraft” to tell its moving story.
Check out the full critics’ poll results below.
The best movie
1. “A real pain”
2. “I saw the television shine”
3. “The good one”
4. “Didi (弟弟)”
5. “Among the temples”
6. “Love lies bleeding”
7. “Thelma”
8. “Exhibit forgiveness”
9. “A different man”
10. “Girls will be girls”
Best Documentary
1. “Daughters”
2. “Ibelin”
3. “Black box diaries”
4. “Union”
5. “Soundtrack for a coup d’état”
6. “Skywalkers: a love story”
7. “Power”
8. “Gaucho Gaucho”
9. “Sugar cane”
10. “Finding Mavis Beacon”
best performance
1. Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”
2. Andre Holland, “Exhibiting Forgiveness”
3. June Squibb, “Thelma”
4. Saoirse Ronan, “The Race Overcome”
5. Lily Collias, “The Good One”
6. Resident, “In the summers”
7. Brigette Lundy-Paine, “I Saw the Brightness of Television”
8. Carol Kane, “Between the Temples”
9. Justice Smith, “I Saw the Glow on Television”
10. Katy O’Brian, “Love lies bleeding”
best director
1. Jesse Eisenberg, “A Real Pain”
2. Jane Schoenbrun, “I Saw the Brightness of Television”
3. Rose Glass, “Love lies bleeding”
4. India Donaldson, “The Good One”
5. Steven Soderbergh, “Presence”
6. Alessandra Lacorazza, “In the summers”
7. Sean Wang, “Didi (弟弟)”
8. Nathan Silver, “Between the Temples”
9. Aaron Schimberg, “A Different Man”
10. TIE: Astrid Rondero, Fernanda Valadez, “Sujo”; Benjamín Ree, “Ibelín”
Best screenplay
1. “A real pain”
2. “Among the temples”
3. “The good one”
4. “Thelma”
5. “In the summers”
6. “My old ass”
7. “I saw the television shine”
8. “Ghostly Light”
9. “A different man”
10. “Stress positions”
Best debut film
1. “Good”
2. “Didi (弟弟)”
3. “Thelma”
4. “Finding Mavis Beacon”
5. “In the summers”
6. “Exhibit forgiveness”
7. “Costa del Sol”
8. “Knee”
9. “Brief history of a family”
10. “It’s what’s inside”