Within the midst of an exhilarating awards season, A-list celebrities and Hollywood icons swooped into the snow-lined streets of Park Metropolis, Utah for the fortieth anniversary of the Sundance Movie Competition. All through its illustrious four-decade historical past, Sundance has launched business redefining unbiased movies, and acted as an accelerator for the expertise behind them. Not solely does the competition proceed to program a slate of groundbreaking works—a few of that are destined for subsequent 12 months’s awards season—it additionally attracts a roster of marquee film stars to occasions alongside Park Metropolis’s picturesque Major Avenue, in addition to movie premieres and after-parties throughout the mountain city.

Sundance commenced with an official Opening Night time Gala set to an upscale mountain stylish gown code. Hosted by the Sundance Institute, the non-profit arts group behind the competition, the glamorous gathering welcomed 500 friends—together with Oppenheimer’s Christopher Nolan and Robert Downey Jr., in addition to filmmaker Celine Tune (who premiered Previous Lives at Sundance in 2023), A Actual Ache’s Jennifer Gray, and Kristen Stewart, who stars in two Sundance movies this 12 months, A24’s electrifying Love Lies Bleeding and the astonishing post-apocalyptic romance Love Me.

From midnight screenings on the Egyptian Theatre to après-ski celebrations on the Montage Deer Valley, glasses of Moët throughout the not too long ago reimagined Classic Room on the St. Regis Deer Valley, unique fetes on the UTA Home, and media panels at The Asian American Basis’s Dawn Collective, Sundance sparkled with immense star energy. Saoirse Ronan, star of the grim, lovely Orkney Islands-set function The Outrun, made appearances at each the Acura Home of Power and Chase Sapphire on Major. Chrissy Teigen, Camila Cabello, Kerry Washington, Meghann Fahy, Lucy Liu, Alicia Silverstone, Colman Domingo, Dominic Fike, in addition to Jason Schwartzman and Hollywood legend Carol Kane (each of the sudden, engrossing Between the Temples) all got here to assist new initiatives.

As with earlier years, LGBTQ+ movies, figures, and occasions stepped into the Sundance highlight. This included director Alexandra Hedison’s Alok, centered on the non-binary creator and public speaker Alok Vaid-Menon, and the highly effective brief documentary’s subterranean after-party at Fletchers hosted by Meta, to GLAAD’s festive gathering within the Park Metropolis boutique of Actual Housewives of Salt Lake Metropolis star Meredith Marks, full along with her caviar model and single serve glass bottles of Wander + Ivy wine, and author/director Amrou Al-Kadhi’s unmissable function debut, Layla, and the after-party at The Cabin.