It may seem premature to speculate about next awards season when we haven’t even made it to the Oscars, but that’s never stopped us before! The Sundance Film Festival wrapped last week at Park City, Utah and online. It’s the first big film festival of the new year and, in recent years, has premiered several Oscar-winning films, such as Navalny (2022), Coda (2021), Judas and the Black Messiah (2021), and Minari (2020). Oscar buzz aside, there’s usually a few exciting acquisitions, and sometimes even some bidding wars as distributors try to snatch up films they think will become hits upon release. 

P.T. and I were not able to attend in person, but we did take advantage of several of the online screenings on offer. In this episode of The Long Take Review, we distill our review reading and podcast listening to identify the films that seemed to come out of Sundance with the most buzz. Then we share our loose rankings of the films we watched, from most to least favorite. Which films or actors could get the most Oscars traction next year? How might the distributor (or a lack thereof) of certain films impact their future releases and awards chances? And why couldn’t Jen quite get into the documentary about moths? Put on your hipster chic beanies and parkas and listen as we try to answer these questions. 

You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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