HPL Videophiles: Sundance Film Festival and Kanopy

Welcome to HPL's film and television blog, highlighting staff-recommended movies or television. 

STAFF CONTRIBUTOR:
Nikki B., Public Services Librarian

Did you know that as an HPL cardholder, you can stream movies for free on Kanopy, including a wide selection of Sundance films? 

This year, 2026, marks the end of an era and a new beginning for the Sundance Film Festival. It was the first festival after Sundance Institute founder Robert Redford passed away in 2025 and also marks the final celebration at the festival's home in Park City, UT before its relocation to Boulder, CO in 2027. 

The Sundance Institute was created to give voice to independent filmmakers, showcase diversity, and celebrate film as an artform. Learn more about the Sundance mission, history, and Redford's legacy.

Dive into the world of Sundance with these films (and more!) that played at the Film Festival, available to borrow at the library and stream on Kanopy:

	Eileen (2023) In this dark psychological thriller set in 1960s Boston, Eileen is a withdrawn young woman trapped between her bleak home life with her volatile father and her grim clerical job at a local prison. Her world is upended by the arrival of the glamorous and enigmatic psychologist Rebecca, whose allure pulls Eileen into an intense bond. Based on the novel by Ottessa Moshfegh.
	Hive (2021) Sundance's triple award-winning film is a searing drama based on the true story of Fahrije, who, like many of the other women in her patriarchal village, has lived with fading hope and burgeoning grief since her husband went missing during the war in Kosovo. Hive is a pithy, devastating portrait of loss and our uphill journeys to freedom.
	Anthropocene: The Human Epoch: How Humans Have Impacted the Planet (2018) A stunning sensory experience and cinematic meditation on humanity’s massive reengineering of the planet, this years-in-the-making feature documentary follows the research of an international body of scientists who argue that the Holocene Epoch gave way to the Anthropocene Epoch as a result of profound and lasting human changes to the Earth.
	Sorry To Bother You (2018) In an alternate present-day Oakland, broke telemarketer Cassius Green skyrockets to success after adopting a magical “white voice,” drawing him into a twisted corporate world of greed and exploitation. As his girlfriend leads a growing resistance, he must choose between selling out and speaking up. The film blends absurdist comedy with razor-sharp social critique.
	A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014) A solitary female vampire stalks the streets overrun with crime, drugs and despair. Arash cares for his heroin-addicted father while struggling to make ends meet. When the two meet, a bizarre relationship begins in this joyful mash up, with influences spanning spaghetti westerns, graphic novels, horror films and the Iranian New Wave.
	Eagle vs Shark (2007) From award-winning director Taika Waititi comes a wicked and witty offbeat comedy for the closet romantic in all of us. When Lily, an oddball fast-food waitress and hopeless romantic, and Jarrod, another forsaken eccentric, connect at a 'dress as your favorite animal' party, it's a match seemingly made in outcast heaven.
	Memento (2000) An intricate crime story about a man who has lost his short-term memory due to a rare brain disorder. Now he is out to catch his wife's murderer, whose identity he cannot ever know for sure. The more he tries to figure out what is true and real, the more he sinks deeper into a multi-layered abyss of uncertainty and surprises.
	Smoke Signals (1998) This film festival favorite combines humor and heart as it explores the adventure of friendship. Victor and Thomas live in the same tiny Idaho town, on the same Reservation, but they couldn't have less in common. When Victor is urgently called away, Thomas hatches a scheme to pay for the trip, in exchange for a tagalong on the journey. Written by Sherman Alexie.
	Ordinary People (1980) Not a Sundance film, but a nod to the founder--Ordinary People marked Robert Redford's feature directorial debut about an upper-middle-class couple whose "ordinary" existence is irrevocably shattered by the death of their oldest son. Their younger son, struggling with survivor's guilt, begins to see a therapist, who provides a lifeline to survival and healing for the entire family.