2026 Sundance Film Festival Movie Review: American Doctor

As of writing this review, it is the end of January. 2026 is still fresh, and we have a whole year of new and exciting movies still to come out. However, I firmly believe that there will not be a more important movie in 2026 than Poh Si Teng’s American Doctor. This shocking, masterfully made documentary drops us right in the middle of the Palestinian-Israeli war and shows us the horrors of what is going on over there. The result is one of the most visceral and powerful movies I’ve seen in recent years.

American Doctor follows three doctors, Dr. Thaer Ahmad, Dr. Mark Perlmutter, and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who volunteer to assist at a hospital in Gaza, where every day the hospital is bombarded with Palestinians on the verge of death following an Israeli attack.

Teng delves deep into the experiences these doctors have at their Gaza hospital, and it is tough to watch much of the time. We are continuously shown images of wounded or dead Palestinians. We hover over the doctor’s shoulders like an overly anxious medical student as they operate on a child who was rushed in after a bombing. We see dead bodies stacked on top of rubble. There is an unnerving casualness to the way doctors talk about death that caused shivers down my spine. They see death every day and are almost numb to the number of casualties they witness weekly.

What makes all the imagery worse is that a majority of this is happening to children as young as two or three. There are images and moments in this movie that I won’t soon forget. They are horrific and sickening, but also an important reality check for what is going on in the world. The brutality of bombing hospitals and places where many children reside is a sickening reality that this war is bigger and more brutal than anything we’ve ever seen.

When the doctors aren’t trying to save lives in Gaza, they are continuously trying to refocus the mainstream media on what is actually happening in Gaza versus what the media is reporting. They are also fighting for the U.S. to no longer support Israel’s arsenal of weapons (the U.S. accounts for 70% of their weaponry) and trying every attempt to get the U.S. government to stop this war. Even when we aren’t in the emergency room, the doctors are still battling for the lives of the Palestinians, despite the media spinning what is actually happening.

The final moments of American Doctor are a rage-filled summary of the war. Set to a heavy metal score, Teng shows us how the constant barrage of bombs hitting Gaza, while showing protests all around the world. American Doctor is a shocking, infuriating, disturbing, poignant documentary that needs to be seen by all.

American Doctor played in the U.S. Dramatic Category of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival.

Follow Kevflix on Twitter, Instagram, and Letterboxd, @kevflix, and Facebook by searching Kevflix.