Hello From (Virtual) Sundance 2026: Bryan’s Documentaries Roundup

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Sundance is one of the few major film festivals that provides a virtual option. While not every film is available (including some key exclusions from the very buzzy ‘Premieres’ category), more than half of the films at Sundance are available virtually. So I took a couple of days off from work, hunkered down on my couch, and spent a long weekend watching interesting movies. I’ve already shared full reviews for Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!, The Incomer, Josephine, and a roundup of the narrative features I saw. But Sundance also premieres many of the best documentaries of the year, and I was able to catch quite a few. The following is a summary of the documentaries I saw at this year’s virtual Sundance Film Festival.

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The Cream of the Crop

American Doctor

This looks specifically at Israel’s bombings in Gaza, including bombings of hospitals, through the eyes of three American doctors who go overseas to provide care. You see them sneaking in antibiotics in their luggage, going to treat patients wounded from weapons supplied by their own government. They end up getting into the worlds of journalism and political advocacy, too, as their direct witness of the killing of children and bombing of hospitals affects them deeply. I was deeply affected, too. Poh Si Teng has a real eye for how to show images and tell stories in a way that spurs to action.

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Barbara Forever

This covers the life and work of Barbara Hammer, an influential lesbian experimental filmmaker. It really captures her essence, both by painting a clear biopic timeline of the things that matter to her and by mirroring her artistry with impressive visual sensibilities. It’s worth the price of admission for the footage of her showing elementary school kids one of her experimental films. I do watch some experimental film from time to time, but I haven’t seen anything yet made by Barbara Hammer; this doc made them rise to the top of the watchlist.

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Worth a Watch

Aanikoobijigan [ancestor/great-grandparent/great-grandchild]

This movie is a profound exploration of repatriation of Native American remains, which in many cases have been unearthed and stored at museums and universities. It connects to the history of racism that led to these institutions having so many of the remains, as well as a very local and personal story of one tribe’s journey to get remains back from the University of Michigan. It’s got a very unique style, and a couple of early stylistic choices turned me off a bit, but then some absolutely magnificent style in the second half got me back on board. But it also tells its story with clarity and a strong journalistic rigor.

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Closure

Closure follows a man named Daniel as he tirelessly searches a river for the body of his teenage son, who went missing after being spotted on a bridge. This is captured in a very cinematic style, shot more like a work of fiction than a documentary. That really places us inside the action and emotions in a fresh way, and the cinematography is really stunning. But that’s not to say that you ever forget that this is real – there’s a beautiful moment in here where a grieving parent is shot from behind to give them some semblance of privacy in an emotional conversation that really moved me. The emotional journey and arc of the film are really strong.

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Everybody to Kenmure Street

This is a really neat portrait of ad hoc protest and activism in action. Using footage captured from the day, interviews, and recreations, it tells the story of a community that physically crowded around an immigration enforcement van to stop their neighbors from being detained. The story is the community’s story to tell, and the film mostly does a good job getting out of their way and letting them tell it. There are recreation-style interviews, in which the words of a participant are acted out by someone else as if they are performing the actions of the interviewee. This is a neat concept, but the performances are tonally inconsistent with the interviews, bringing an unnecessary layer of artificiality. The music is also a little hokey and overbearing. One choice that I did really like was the use of historical archival footage and voiceover to place the protest in a lineage of Irish history and culture.

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One in a Million

This starts out as a refugee journey story following a young girl named Israa from Syria all the way to Germany, but it plays out over ten years and ends up in a much different place. After the family arrives in Germany, the ways in which the different family members assimilate into the culture or react against it cause some friction, which the film then shifts to cover. I found it really engaging as a meta-commentary on the subjectiveness of documentaries and the human experience in general. Formally, it would be better off just letting the images and interviews speak for themselves as the material is strong, but it’s been over-edited and over-scored.

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Disappointments

Nuisance Bear

This documentary follows a Canadian polar bear as it moves south due to climate change and comes into contact with both Canadian and Inuit communities. Polar bears are really cool animals, which carries this a long way. Some of the style choices didn’t work for me – the music is a bit much, for example. Certain moments also very much seem staged to heighten the drama. A late reveal doesn’t really connect the way it is meant to. But its choice to show us the events from the bear’s perspective work well, and despite its flaws it does make the situation clear.

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Seized

Seized covers the importance of the press in rural America through a story of a newspaper that was raided by the police to cover up police corruption. It’s an interesting story that’s stretched a bit thin, but filled out with some engaging interviews and characters. A young journalist, Finn, is hired by the paper shortly after the raid, and he is great as an entry point into this world as he is an outsider who cares about work but doesn’t agree with everything that Eric, the editor-in-chief, does. I wish it dug a little more into the conflicts there, but it’s more content to stay rather small stakes and surface level, which is fine.

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Time and Water

This is the latest documentary by Sara Dosa, the filmmaker behind Fire of Love, and I’ve found that her brand of pathos doesn’t really resonate with me. Both films have nature as a clunky metaphor for the human condition and vice versa, and a sentimentality that feels cheap. There were some positives, though: it incorporates home video family footage in a fun way, and the photography is beautiful. I particularly liked the imagery of dripping glaciers and flowing water to show the gradual slipping away of something forever. But the whole film is framed as a time capsule for the future, and I couldn’t really get over the corniness of the narration.