Robert Redford’s legacy and mission was always going to be a key component of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, which will be the last of its kind in Park City, Utah. But in the wake of his death in September at age 89, those ideas took on a new significance.
This January, the institute that Redford founded over 40 years ago, plans to honor his career and impact with and a screening of his first truly independent film, the 1969 sports drama “Downhill Racer,” and a series of legacy screenings of restored Sundance gems from “Little Miss Sunshine” to “House Party,” festival organizers said Tuesday.
“As we were thinking about how best to honor Mr. Redford’s legacy, it’s not only carrying forward this notion of ‘everyone has a story’ but it’s also getting together in a movie theater and watching a film that really embodies that independent spirit,” festival director Eugene Hernandez told The Associated Press. “We’ve had some incredible artists reach out to us, even in the past few weeks since Mr. Redford’s passing, who just want to be part of this year’s festival.”
Archival screenings will include “Saw,” “Mysterious Skin” and “House Party,” as well as the 35th anniversary of Barbara Kopple’s documentary “American Dream,” and 20th anniversaries of “Half Nelson” and “Little Miss Sunshine,” with some of the filmmakers expected to attend as well.
“Over the almost 30 years of Sundance Institute’s collaboration with our partner, the UCLA Film & Television Archive, we’ve not only worked to ensure that the Festival’s legacy endures through film preservation, but we’ve seen that output feed an astonishing resurgence of repertory cinema programming across the country,” said festival programmer John Nein.
“The films we’ve preserved and the newly restored films screening at this year’s festival, including some big anniversaries, are an important way to keep the independent stories from years past alive in our culture today.”
Tickets for the 2026 festival, which runs from Jan. 22 through Feb. 1, go on sale Wednesday at noon Eastern, with online and in person options. Some planning is also already underway for the festival’s new home in Boulder, Colorado, in 2027, but programmers are heads down figuring out the slate of world premieres for January. Those will be revealed in December.
“There’s a lot more to come and a lot more to announce,” Hernandez said. “This is just laying a foundation.”
Redford's death has added a poignancy to everything.
“Seeing and hearing the remembrances took me back to why I felt compelled to go to the festival in the first place,” Hernandez said. “It’s been very grounding and clarifying and for us as a team it’s been very emotional and moving. But it’s also been an opportunity to remind ourselves what Mr. Redford has given to us, to our lives, to our industry, to Utah.”
