#sundance-2026

#sundance-2026

The quirky crime thriller Tuner follows Niki, a young piano tuner with acute absolute pitch, as he makes his rounds among an upscale New York clientele. At the film's outset, we meet his aging, hard-of-hearing mentor and wife (Dustin Hoffman, Tovah Feldshuh), ersatz parents who will soon recede into the background of this genre trope mashup. There are East European gangsters, Asian drug traffickers, safecracking, robbery, extortion, a killing, an encrypted wire transfer, a romcom meet-cute, even an onstage music competition.

For the Duplass brothers, the festival was, as it has been for many a small-budget artist trying to break out, the difference between a career and another $3 film. Without Sundance, he recently joked: I'd probably be a psychologist right now. Psychologist sympathies peek through See You When I See You, Duplass's feature film return to the festival after 16 years largely focused on acting and directing episodic television, notably for Togetherness, Search Party and the criminally underseen Somebody, Somewhere.

It's the final slate of films to play the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. Next year, the festival moves to Boulder, Colorado, making this year's lineup historic. The U.S. Dramatic Competition includes Carousel, a divorce drama starring Chris Pine and Jenny Slate, and two separate movies about theater programs, The Musical and Run Amok. Out of competition, the premieres include Gregg Araki's new movie, I Want Your Sex, featuring Olivia Wilde, Cooper Hoffman, and Charli XCX.