Top 5 – Most Anticipated Movies of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival

The 2019 Sundance Film Festival kicks off this week and I could not be more excited.  This is my ninth year attending the festival, which is insane to think about.  Every festival showcases new and exciting voices, making way for the future of cinema.  Past festivals have given us the likes of Damien Chazelle, Ryan Coogler, and Debra Granik.  The festival shows hundreds of movies each year from every genre from all around the world.  Obviously I can’t see them all, but I will be seeing quite a few and this list highlights the ones I am most looking forward to.  Here are my most anticipated movies of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

5 – HONEY BOY (Alma Har’el)

Honey Boy tells the story of a former child actor who must mend the relationship between his hard-drinking, abusive father.  Lucas Hedges stars as the former child star and Shia LeBeouf as his father, which is crazy casting.  What’s most intriguing about this film is that it is written by LeBeouf, a former child star himself.  This is apparently a look at LeBeouf’s life growing up starring on Even Stevens, which sounds fascinating, yet incredibly depressing, especially with how much I loved that show.  Regardless, Hedges is one of the best young actors working today and LeBeouf is a daring actor who takes more chances than most actors do today, so those two coming to Park City is enough for me to check this out.

4 – WOUNDS (Babak Anvari)

The last time Babak Anvari was in Park City was in 2016 with Under the Shadow, a slow-burning horror flick that I enjoyed thoroughly.  Now, he’s back with another horror flick, only this time with a bigger and more intriguing film.  Wounds stars Armie Hammer and Dakota Johnson and takes a look at the weird and disturbing things that begin to happen when a bartender (Hammer) picks up a phone left behind in his bar.  This is the kind of it-could-actually-happen horror films and a film that will have us guessing the whole time.  Hammer has a great screen presence and Johnson is actually a really good actress if you don’t include her Fifty Shades roles.  Chalk this one up as my most anticipated Midnight film.

3 – THE REPORT (Scott Z. Burns)

The Report boasts one of the most impressive casts at this year’s festival.  The all-star cast includes Adam Driver, whom I love in just about everything, Jon Hamm, Maura Tierney, Matthew Rhys, Michael C. Hal, Tim Blake Nelson, and the legendary Annette Bening.  Scott Z. Burns, known more for his writing with such screenplays as The Bourne Ultimatum, The Informant!, Contagion, and Side Effects, makes his directorial debut in this political thriller about CIA interrogation tactics after 9/11.

2 – MEMORY: THE ORIGINS OF ALIEN (Alexandre O. Philippe)

If there is one sub-genre of documentary that I love the most, it is documentaries about movies.  Whether it is about a specific filmmaker or about the filmmaking process, I love diving into these movies getting a two hour film school.  Alexandre O. Philippe’s last documentary, 78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene, was an insightful, fascinating look at Psycho, particularly the shower scene.  I loved every second of that movie and it taught me so much more about a movie I have dissected a number of times.  Now, Philippe takes his focus into space to look at Ridley Scott’s Alien.  I love Alien (not as much as Psycho, but there aren’t many movies I love more than Psycho) and think it is a genre-changer for sci-films.  I can’t see what Philippe gives us this time around.

1 – EXTREMELY WICKED, SHOCKINGLY EVIL AND VILE (Joe Berlinger)

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile takes a look at the murders of Ted Bundy told through the perspective of his longtime girlfriend Elizabeth Kloepfer, who refused to believe the truth about him for years.  Bundy is one of the most notorious serial killers ever, so it was only a matter of time before we got a movie about him.  But the main reason this movie is number one in this list: Zac Efron is playing Bundy.  Efron has one of the more interesting careers, going from High School Musical to being a surprisingly good comedic actor.  But Efron has never jumped fully into the dramatic field until this film.  This could be a game-changing performance for Efron’s career.  I can’t wait to see him become one of the world’s most reviled and horrible humans and see him get to that level of anger and darkness.

Follow all of Kevflix’s coverage of the 2019 Sundance Film Festival on Twitter and Instagram, @kevflix, and on Facebook by searching Kevflix.