Charli XCX’s The Moment and Courtney Love Documentary Among Major Music Premieres at Sundance 2026
The Sundance Film Festival will open its 2026 edition with a notable slate of music-driven features, led by the world premiere of The Moment, starring Charli XCX, and Antiheroine, a feature-length documentary about Courtney Love. The programming reflects Sundance’s continued interest in exploring the lives, pressures, and creative evolution of prominent musicians through both fiction and documentary formats.
The Moment, directed by Aidan Zamiri and based on an original concept from Charli XCX, imagines an alternate path for a rising pop performer facing the demands of global success. The film centers on an artist preparing for her first arena tour while navigating conflicting expectations from audiences, industry executives, and personal relationships.
Rather than functioning as a traditional biopic, the film adopts a metafictional approach, contemplating how a blockbuster album cycle might have unfolded under different personal decisions. Zamiri, who has previously directed several of Charli XCX’s visual and editorial projects, builds on the vocabulary and creative world that surrounded the singer’s Brat era in 2024 and 2025.
The feature marks a notable expansion of Charli XCX’s presence in film, arriving as she continues to influence contemporary pop culture through collaborations, touring, and production work. As with past Sundance debuts, The Moment is expected to generate strong interest among buyers and distributors.
Balancing Sundance’s fiction lineup is Antiheroine, a feature documentary directed by Edward Lovelace and James Hall. The film follows Courtney Love, who has spent the past decade largely outside mainstream music while focusing on sobriety and personal recovery. According to early materials, Love will share her experiences with fame, addiction, and creative reinvention in her own words.
The documentary arrives as Love prepares her first new music release in more than 10 years and reflects on the personal and artistic costs of public scrutiny. The filmmakers characterize the portrait as candid and uncompromising, aiming to contextualize Love’s legacy beyond tabloid narratives. The film is also expected to examine her impact as frontwoman of Hole, her cultural influence in 1990s rock, and her ongoing public fascination.
Sundance 2026 will also host the world premiere of The Best Summer, a documentary from filmmaker Tamra Davis. The feature provides extensive behind-the-scenes access to an era-defining moment in alternative music, including archival performances and personal footage featuring the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Pavement, Rancid, Beck, Foo Fighters, The Amps, and Bikini Kill.
Davis, known for Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child and the Kathleen Hanna documentary The Punk Singer, is expected to deliver a broad view of the artists and cultural innovations that shaped alternative music communities in the mid-1990s.
Sundance will also spotlight Broken English, a portrait of singer Marianne Faithfull, who died earlier in 2025 at age 78. The film, directed by Jane Pollard and Iain Forsyth, premiered earlier at the Venice International Film Festival but will make its U.S. debut at Sundance. With appearances by Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Zawe Ashton, Tilda Swinton, and others, examines the pressures, vulnerability, reinventions, and public contradictions that marked Faithfull’s long career.
First-time feature director Joanna Natasegara brings The Disciple, a documentary centered on the mythology surrounding the Wu-Tang Clan’s once-in-a-lifetime album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. The film examines the exclusivity, cultural intrigue, and artistic intention behind the project and the community of creators surrounding it.
Another archival entry, Once Upon a Time in Harlem, surfaces rarely seen footage from a 1972 reunion of Harlem Renaissance figures. Originally directed by William Greaves and completed posthumously by his family, the film captures intellectual and artistic exchanges among voices such as James Van Der Zee, Eubie Blake, and Gerri Major.
Rounding out Sundance’s 2026 documentary slate is Paralyzed by Hope, directed by Judd Apatow and Neil Berkeley. The film follows comedian Maria Bamford as she integrates her mental health journey into performance, blurring the boundary between personal crisis and creative material.
