Sundance Film Festival's Top 10 Feature Films From Its First Four Decades

by IMDb-Editors | created - 3 months ago | updated - 3 months ago | Public

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Sundance Film Festival, the Sundance Institute commemorates four decades of independent filmmaking presented at the festival, with the results of a survey taken by filmmaking communities that have screened at the festival since it began in 1985.

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1. Whiplash (2014)

R | 106 min | Drama, Music

89 Metascore

A promising young drummer enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.

Director: Damien Chazelle | Stars: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Melissa Benoist, Paul Reiser

Votes: 988,941 | Gross: $13.09M

2. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

R | 99 min | Crime, Thriller

81 Metascore

When a simple jewelry heist goes horribly wrong, the surviving criminals begin to suspect that one of them is a police informant.

Director: Quentin Tarantino | Stars: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn

Votes: 1,087,943 | Gross: $2.83M

3. Get Out (I) (2017)

R | 104 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

85 Metascore

A young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.

Director: Jordan Peele | Stars: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener

Votes: 696,455 | Gross: $176.04M

4. Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

R | 101 min | Comedy, Drama

80 Metascore

A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus.

Directors: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris | Stars: Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Greg Kinnear, Abigail Breslin

Votes: 517,962 | Gross: $59.89M

5. Memento (2000)

R | 113 min | Mystery, Thriller

83 Metascore

A man with short-term memory loss attempts to track down his wife's murderer.

Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Mark Boone Junior

Votes: 1,322,595 | Gross: $25.54M

6. Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)

R | 100 min | Drama

86 Metascore

A sexually repressed woman's husband is having an affair with her sister. The arrival of a visitor with a rather unusual fetish changes everything.

Director: Steven Soderbergh | Stars: James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, Laura San Giacomo

Votes: 59,436 | Gross: $24.74M

7. Before Sunrise (1995)

R | 101 min | Drama, Romance

78 Metascore

A young man and woman meet on a train in Europe, and wind up spending one evening together in Vienna. Unfortunately, both know that this will probably be their only night together.

Director: Richard Linklater | Stars: Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy, Andrea Eckert, Hanno Pöschl

Votes: 339,193 | Gross: $5.54M

8. Boyhood (I) (2014)

R | 165 min | Drama

100 Metascore

The life of Mason, from early childhood to his arrival at college.

Director: Richard Linklater | Stars: Ellar Coltrane, Patricia Arquette, Ethan Hawke, Elijah Smith

Votes: 367,133 | Gross: $25.38M

9. And Your Mother Too (2001)

R | 106 min | Drama

89 Metascore

In Mexico, two teenage boys and an older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life and each other.

Director: Alfonso Cuarón | Stars: Maribel Verdú, Gael García Bernal, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Ana López Mercado

Votes: 128,870 | Gross: $13.62M

10. Blood Simple (1984)

R | 99 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller

84 Metascore

The owner of a seedy small-town Texas bar discovers that one of his employees is having an affair with his wife. A chaotic chain of misunderstandings, lies, and mischief ensues after he devises a plot to have them murdered.

Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen | Stars: John Getz, Frances McDormand, Dan Hedaya, M. Emmet Walsh

Votes: 105,220 | Gross: $2.15M



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