From one corner of the world to another, Sundance remains one of the few major festivals that still keeps a meaningful online component. For anyone who can’t travel to Salt Lake City, Utah, the at-home run is scheduled for one weekend, from January 29 to February 1, 2026.
Other festivals that have confirmed online offerings include Chattanooga and Panic Fest. Virtual access is often geo-locked due to licensing agreements. Some viewers use VPNs to get around those restrictions, but that’s a personal call, and not one I’m about to moralise for you. For geeks who must see a film, the cleanest option is often the most annoying one: wait until it’s legally available in your region.
With that in mind, here are five essentials I’m keeping my eye on, including one title that should be available online.
In the Blink of an Eye
This isn’t necessarily a time travel film, but it plays with time the way memory does. Past, present, and future overlap as three lives cross paths in ways humans can’t fully grasp.
In the distant past, a Neanderthal family struggles to survive after being displaced, doing what they can to protect their children with little more than primitive tools. In the present day, Claire (Rashida Jones), a driven post-grad anthropologist studying proto-human remains, begins a relationship with fellow student Greg (Daveed Diggs). And two centuries later, on a spaceship bound for a distant planet, Coakley (Kate McKinnon) and a sentient onboard computer confront a disease afflicting the ship’s oxygen-producing plants.
This one sounds more philosophical than anything else. Mortality, legacy, maybe reincarnation, it’s all on the table. Life can disappear in the blink of an eye. That’s true whether it’s an asteroid, an illness, or a single choice made at the wrong moment.
Mum, I’m Alien Pregnant
New Zealand has a knack for genre innovation, and this one looks poised to join the tradition. The filmmaking duo Thunderlips (Sean Wallace and Jordan Mark Windsor is behind this debut, and if you’re unfamiliar with their work, a quick look at their filmography is the best primer.
It’s body horror filtered through a sense of humour that feels very at home in midnight movie circles. The title says enough, and spoiling the specifics would do it a disservice. This is the sort of film that plays best when you walk in knowing only that things are about to get weird.
Zi (Also available online)
Experimental, dream-logic storytelling. Likely light on exposition and heavy on mood. This one feels built for late-night viewing when you want something strange rather than straightforward.
In Hong Kong, a young woman feels uncertain about her future. When her visions keep turning grim, a stranger enters her orbit and offers a possible shift in direction, for better or worse. There’s a touch of the fantastic, but what matters most is how the film uses the past as a tool to shape what comes next.
Undertone
Strained by the responsibility of providing end-of-life care to her dying mother, Evy (Nina Kiri) seeks respite from the loneliness of her fragmented reality. Now living in a house full of sentimental keepsakes and memories, her stability hangs on her work for a supernatural podcast, The Undertone.
While she usually plays skeptic to the creepy audio files sent by co-host Justin (Adam DiMarco), the latest submission hits differently. A set of ten unheard recordings from a young pregnant couple unfurls one by one, each more ominous than the last. As Evy draws parallels to her own life, hidden messages begin to manifest, pushing her toward paranoia and madness.
The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist
There’s something compelling about art born out of acute anxiety. It comes from vulnerability, and from a need to make the future feel readable. This documentary grew out of co-director Daniel Roher’s unease about where AI and automation are headed, especially when systems are allowed to make decisions without meaningful human oversight.
Working with Charlie Tyrell, Roher explores both the dazzling possibilities and the risks of fast-evolving tools, along with the price they may carry. Interviews, home videos, and animation help ground the topic in something human rather than abstract. It also aims to dispel a few myths, while still making space for the concerns that matter most.
If you want one title on this list that feels urgent rather than escapist, this is it.
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