There was no official ranking of Sundance 2024’s “buzziest” films. A useful shortlist instead brings together films that won audience or jury awards, drew contemporary press attention, or stood out for an unusual premise. Those signals point to different kinds of interest—not a single festival-wide consensus.
What “buzziest” means for Sundance 2024
The 40th Sundance Film Festival ran January 18–28, 2024, in Park City and Salt Lake City, with selected films available online nationwide January 25–28. Its January 26 awards announcement said the festival presented 91 feature-length and episodic works and 53 shorts. Those figures describe the festival as presented; they differ in scope from the December 2023 lineup announcement, which described 82 films, eight episodic titles, and one New Frontier experience selected at that point. Sundance’s awards announcement and lineup announcement provide those respective counts.
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The films below are grouped by the evidence behind their inclusion: official audience or jury recognition, contemporary coverage, and distinctive premises highlighted by Sundance. Awards show recognition by a particular jury or audience; a press mention reflects that outlet’s interest. Neither is a definitive measure of overall buzz.
Audience award winners
These films received official audience awards in their respective categories. The awards are a direct signal of audience recognition, but they do not establish a comparable ranking across categories.
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- Dìdi (弟弟) won the U.S. Dramatic Competition audience award.
- Daughters won the U.S. Documentary Competition audience award and the Festival Favorite Award, selected by audiences across new feature films. Those two awards give it the broadest official audience recognition among the films on this list.
- Girls Will Be Girls won the World Cinema Dramatic Competition audience award.
- Ibelin won the World Cinema Documentary Competition audience award.
- Kneecap won the NEXT Audience Award.
Jury prize winners
Jury prizes offer a different kind of recognition from audience awards: they identify films chosen by the festival’s juries in their competition categories.
- In the Summers won the U.S. Dramatic Competition Grand Jury Prize.
- Porcelain War won the U.S. Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize.
- A New Kind of Wilderness won the World Cinema Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize.
- Sujo won the World Cinema Dramatic Competition Grand Jury Prize.
Sundance’s full awards announcement lists these honors and the other 2024 recipients.
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- Genre: Horror
Films that drew contemporary press attention
I Saw the TV Glow
The Associated Press explicitly called Jane Schoenbrun’s film one of 2024’s buzziest. Its story follows Owen and Maddy, whose fixation on a fictional television series shapes a psychodrama about identity and change. AP reported Schoenbrun’s description of the film as a parable of pre-transition, one framing rather than the only possible interpretation. In the same interview, Schoenbrun said: “What I think ‘TV Glow’ is about is the very unpleasant process of committing to throw yourself off a cliff.” Read the Associated Press coverage.
A Real Pain
Axios included Jesse Eisenberg’s film among ten movies it liked at the festival. It follows cousins exploring their Jewish ancestry after their grandmother’s death. The January 30, 2024, roundup reported that the film sold to Searchlight for $10 million, citing Deadline; that is a contemporaneous reported deal, not an independently verified term from the buyer. Read Axios’s roundup.
Presence
Steven Soderbergh’s haunted-house thriller was another of Axios’s ten picks. Its distinctive viewpoint is that of the ghost, an approach also highlighted in Sundance’s own preview. Axios reported that Neon acquired worldwide rights, citing Variety. Sundance’s preview and Axios’s roundup describe the film and its contemporary attention.
Standouts with unusual premises
Sundance’s official preview singled out these films for approaches that make them worth considering beyond the award and press lists. The preview is a programming guide, not evidence that they were the festival’s most popular titles.
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- In a Violent Nature reframes the slasher by following the killer through the forest.
- Black Box Diaries is journalist Shiori Ito’s documentary about her investigation of her own sexual assault.
Both descriptions come from Sundance’s official festival preview.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to choose what to seek out
| If you want… | Start with… | Why it stands out |
|---|---|---|
| An audience-award documentary | Daughters or Ibelin | Daughters won two audience honors; Ibelin won the World Cinema Documentary Competition audience award. |
| A jury-recognized drama | In the Summers or Sujo | Each won a dramatic competition Grand Jury Prize, in a different competition. |
| A genre film with an unusual point of view | Presence or In a Violent Nature | One tells a haunted-house story from the ghost’s perspective; the other follows a slasher’s killer through the forest. |
| A film receiving explicit press “buzz” language | I Saw the TV Glow | AP directly described it as one of 2024’s buzziest films. |
| A documentary centered on personal investigation | Black Box Diaries | Its subject is Ito’s investigation of her own sexual assault. |
These are different routes into the lineup, not a scorecard. Your choice may depend more on whether you want documentary or fiction, drama or horror, than on the type of recognition a film received.
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Where to watch these films now
Current availability is not established by the cited sources and can vary by country and date, so this article does not assign a streaming service or rental link to each title. Axios reported in January 2024 that The Greatest Night in Pop was then available on Netflix and expected many other festival films to reach theaters or streamers later that year; that report is historical and does not confirm availability in October 2026. Check a film’s official distributor or a current service listing in your region before planning a watch.
Quick Recap
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