Ranking: Sundance U.S. Dramatic Winners Since 2010

The 2021 Sundance Film Festival kicks off this week and I am lucky enough to be a part of it.  Sadly this year’s festival will be an at-home festival experience for the most part, I am still excited to be a part of the festival and see all the new and exciting movies Sundance has to offer.  For this list, I am going to rank all the movies that won the Sundance U.S. Dramatic prize – the top prize at the festival –  since 2010 from least favorite to best.  None of these movies are bad, but I do disagree with some of the past winners.  Here is my ranking of the the Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic winners since 2010.

 

 

 

 

11 – I DON’T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE (Macon Blair, 2017)

• This one really boggles my mind.  This isn’t a bad movie by any stretch, it’s just an okay movie.  The plot, which follows a woman and her weird neighbor as they try to track down the people who burglarized her home, is all over the place and the tonal shifts from comedy to bloody and dark drama are really jarring.  Usually in the festival, you can sense when a movie is going to win, as a buzz grows throughout the festival and you can feel a couple movies stand above the rest.  This movie had none of that.  To be honest, I forgot it was even at the festival, as it barely played anywhere and that was really it.  A number of films should have gotten the prize, like the rousing Patti Cake$, the riveting Novitiate, the hilariously weird Brigsby Bear, or the topical Ingrid Goes West.  I don’t know how this one won.

 

10 – ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, 2015)

• 2015 was a slightly disappointing year for Sundance movies in my eyes.  There wasn’t that GREAT movie that I had known to come from my previous four years of attending the festival.  But, of all the films to win the U.S. Dramatic prize, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl was one I didn’t see as a worthy winner.  It has funny moments, and it has dramatic moments, but it had a really unlikeable main character who’s motives kind of fell off the rails as the movie went on.  Olivia Cooke as Rachel, aka the dying girl, and RJ Cyler as Earl give excellent performances, as does John Bernthal as the insightful teacher.  But the rest of the movie is kind of bleh.  I would have much rather preferred the funny, inventive, wild urban comedy Dope to win, as that was far and away the best of the bunch.

 

9 – THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST (Desiree Akhanvan, 2018)

• The Miseducation of Cameron Post was one of two “gay conversion camp” movies of 2018 along with Beautiful Boy.  Cameron Post was far and away the better film and a film that really focuses on the teens in this camp and makes the film a cautionary tale along with a beautiful coming-of-age story.  Chloe Grace Moretz gives the best performance of her career and our titular Cameron Post and Jim Gallagher Jr. is really good as one of the workers of the camp.  Though I would have preferred the powerful relationship drama Wildlife, the thrilling American Animals, or the sweet and authentic Eighth Grade to have won the prize, Cameron Post is still a fascinating look at teens coming growing into their own skin.

 

8 – BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD (Behn Zeitlen, 2012)

• I remember seeing Beasts of the Southern Wild at a volunteer screening before the festival even started and that’s where it’s awards run began.  It had the buzz from the get go and people were championing it from the start.  This is far from a bad movie.  This was director Behn Zeitlen’s debut film, and it is something to marvel what he accomplished. Quvenzhané Wallis gave a great performance being only six years old, and I thought Dwight Henry, who played her father in the movie, gave a very impressive performance for taking such a meaty role with no acting experience.  What turned me off from this movie was the science fiction aspect of it.  I thought it was random and jarred the story a bit and the metaphor that it represented was something we figured out on our own.  There were a slew of movies I thought were more worthy of the win that year, like the highly inventive Safety Not Guaranteed,  the intense Luv, the powerful Smashed, or the extremely enjoyable and perfectly acted The Sessions. 

 

7 – THE BIRTH OF A NATION (Nate Parker, 2016)

• The Birth of a Nation came into the festival with a buzz around it.  Premiering in front of over 1,000 people at the Eccles Theater, writer/director/star/producer Nate Parker got a standing ovation BEFORE the movie even started.  I was one of those 1,000 people and I was one of those standing up for him, more so because of his past accomplishments in films like Arbitrage (2012) and Beyond the Lights (2013).  As soon as the movie was over, I stood back up and cheered with the 1,000-plus  people through the entire credits and minutes after.  Having rewatched the movie, however, I don’t think it holds up as well as it did when I initially saw it and I believe I was a victim of the hype, something that happens often at a film festivals like this.  Still, this is an impressive debut and the worthy winner of the top prize in 2016.

 

6 – LIKE CRAZY (Drake Doremus, 2011)

• My first ever Sundance Film Festival is an event I will remember forever.  As a young, bright eyed 22 year old fresh out of film school, this was the dream.  I remember I was unable to see Like Crazy when it was playing at the festival, but it was a movie that everyone was talking about.  When I got to see it at the Chicago Film Festival a few months later, I understood why it won the grand prize.  This is a personal, sad look at the bounds of love and what true love is.  It is Anton Yelchin’s best performance still and was the launching pad for 2014 Oscar nominee Felicity Jones, who is heartbreaking and authentic.  I really do like this movie and think it is one of the truest love stories told in modern cinema.  However, I would have preferred the haunting Take Shelter, the raw and emotional Gun Hill Road, or the science fiction masterpiece Another Earth to have won the prize. 

 

5 – WINTER’S BONE (Debra Granik, 2010)

• Winter’s Bone might best be known for being Jennifer Lawrence’s break-out film, but the film is far more than that.  Writer/director Debra Granik’s sophomore effort is a tense backwoods mystery about an Ozark teen (Lawrence) who treks through the mountain social terrain in an effort to find her drug-dealing father after he skipped bail and put their home in jeopardy of being repossessed.  Granik’s detailed, stunning direction brings us into Winter’s Bone a chilling, harsh reality while also being a stirring mystery.  Lawrence is brilliant and carries the movie on her shoulders, along with the chilling John Hawkes, who rightly got earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his performance.  This was the launching point for Lawrence and solidified Granik as a true talent.

 

4 – CLEMENCY (Chinonye Chukwu, 2019)

• The top three films are ones that rightly deserved their win.  Clemency is a truly powerful film that shook me to my core when I saw it in 2019.  Looking at a prison warden (Alfre Woodard) and her relationship with a death row inmate (Aldis Hodge) and how years of working death row has shattered her marriage and home life, Clemency is filled with truth, heartbreak, and tragedy.  The performances from Woodard and Hodge are masterful, both using keeping their performances subdued with scenes of exploding rage and emotion that should have earned them Oscar nominations.  This is a movie you can’t shake and a masterclass in acting and a worthy winner of the U.S. Dramatic prize.

 

3 – FRUITVALE STATION (Ryan Coogler, 2013)

• Ryan Coogler’s debut Frutivale Station is an amazing movie.  It is a gritty, intimate look at the true story of Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan), a young Bay Area man who was wrongfully shot by police officers on New Years Day 2009.  The movie follows the entire day prior to the shooting, as Grant starts to figure out his life and grow up.  Coogler doesn’t paint Oscar as perfect.  This is a flawed, angry man who is trying to turn his life around.  It is a rounded, multifaceted character that works because of the brilliance of Michael B. Jordan.  The confident hand of Coogler and the searing performance of Jordan helped make a brilliant movie that will pull at your heartstrings.

 

2- MINARI (Lee Isaac Chung, 2020)

• Minari is a stunning and gorgeous look at the immigrant experience and the American dream.  I saw it at the 2020 Sundance film festival and I loved it.  But it was after the movie that Minari had its real affect on me.  This was a movie I was constantly thinking about.  I kept thinking about the powerful, insightful immigrant story, the gorgeous cinematography and score, the brilliant ensemble led by Steven Yeun, Yeri Han, and Youn Yuh-jung, and the delicate, passionate direction of Lee Isaac Chung.  When I rewatched the movie, it not only solidified Minari’s greatness, but elevated it.  This is a movie that really sticks with you long after the credits roll.  There is so much detail and so many layers to what seems to be a simple American story that you pick up more and more with every viewing.  Minari is a quiet masterpiece.

 

1 – WHIPLASH (Damien Chazelle, 2014)

• I remember seeing Whiplash on the first official full day of the festival in 2014.  I saw it on a brisk morning at 9am with a few of my fellow volunteers.  This movie almost ruined the festival for me because I knew nothing was going to be this good.  Whiplash is an absolute knockout.  A blistering, high energy war movie in a music room.  J.K. Simmons gives one of the best performances of this decade and Miles Teller proves his star power.  Writer/director Damien Chazelle, in his narrative debut, has such a vision and steady hand for such a young director.  The editing in the movie has a pulse to it unlike most movies.  Whiplash is one of the greatest movies to ever debut at the Sundance Film Festival and a true masterpiece of cinema.

 

 

 

 

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