Sundance Audience Winners
by pbn | created - 05 Jan 2018 | updated - 11 Aug 2022 | PublicHere are the annual winners of the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award of the Sundance Film Festival.
Which one do you think holds up best?
Discuss your choice here
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1. Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989)
R | 100 min | Drama
A sexually repressed woman's husband is having an affair with her sister. The arrival of a visitor with a rather unusual fetish changes everything.
Director: Steven Soderbergh | Stars: James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, Laura San Giacomo
Votes: 59,418 | Gross: $24.74M
2. Longtime Companion (1989)
R | 96 min | Drama, Romance
The emergence and devastation of the AIDS epidemic is chronicled in the lives of several gay men living during the 1980s.
Director: Norman René | Stars: Stephen Caffrey, Patrick Cassidy, Brian Cousins, Bruce Davison
Votes: 6,128 | Gross: $4.61M
3. Pastime (1990)
PG | 94 min | Drama, Sport
Pastime is a story of an aging, white pitcher on a minor league baseball team who takes a young, talented, black pitcher under his wing in 1957.
Director: Robin B. Armstrong | Stars: William Russ, Glenn Plummer, Noble Willingham, Jeffrey Tambor
Votes: 419 | Gross: $0.27M
aka One Cup of Coffee
4. The Waterdance (1992)
R | 106 min | Drama, Romance
A young man learns how to come to terms with his disability after becoming paralyzed in a hiking accident.
Directors: Neal Jimenez, Michael Steinberg | Stars: Eric Stoltz, Helen Hunt, Wesley Snipes, William Allen Young
Votes: 4,190 | Gross: $1.72M
5. El Mariachi (1992)
R | 81 min | Action, Crime, Thriller
A traveling mariachi is mistaken for a murderous criminal and must hide from a gang bent on killing him.
Director: Robert Rodriguez | Stars: Carlos Gallardo, Consuelo Gómez, Jaime de Hoyos, Peter Marquardt
Votes: 71,255 | Gross: $2.04M
6. Spanking the Monkey (1994)
Unrated | 100 min | Comedy, Drama
A med student is forced by his traveling salesman dad to cancel a top summer internship and look after his hot mom, who's bedridden with a broken leg. Applying lotion to her legs arouses him.
Director: David O. Russell | Stars: Jeremy Davies, Alberta Watson, Benjamin Hendrickson, Elizabeth Newett
Votes: 6,764 | Gross: $1.36M
7. Picture Bride (1994)
PG-13 | 94 min | Drama, Romance
Riyo marries a man more than twice her age. She is devastated and labors in the sugar cane field. At the end she is able to love her husband.
Director: Kayo Hatta | Stars: Yûki Kudô, Akira Takayama, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Tamlyn Tomita
Votes: 1,185 | Gross: $1.24M
8. The Spitfire Grill (1996)
PG-13 | 117 min | Drama
Oscar-winner Ellen Burstyn (The Exorcist) headlines this critically praised drama about a young woman, just out of prison, who finds spiritual redemption working at a cafe in Maine.
Director: Lee David Zlotoff | Stars: Alison Elliott, Ellen Burstyn, Marcia Gay Harden, Will Patton
Votes: 7,209 | Gross: $12.64M
9. Hurricane Streets (1997)
R | 86 min | Crime, Drama, Romance
A teenage petty criminal dreams of escaping his increasingly unlawful lifestyle when he meets a sweet girl who hopes to one day travel to Alaska.
Director: Morgan J. Freeman | Stars: Brendan Sexton III, Shawn Elliott, Antoine McLean, Mtume Gant
Votes: 1,302 | Gross: $0.33M
10. Love Jones (1997)
R | 109 min | Drama, Romance
Darius Lovehall is a young black poet in Chicago who starts dating Nina Mosley, a beautiful and talented photographer. While trying to figure out if they've got a "love thing" or are just "... See full summary »
Director: Theodore Witcher | Stars: Larenz Tate, Nia Long, Isaiah Washington, Lisa Nicole Carson
Votes: 5,639 | Gross: $12.51M
11. Smoke Signals (1998)
PG-13 | 89 min | Comedy, Drama
Arnold rescued Thomas from a fire when he was a child. Thomas thinks of Arnold as a hero, while Arnold's son Victor resents his father's alcoholism, violence and abandonment of his family.
Director: Chris Eyre | Stars: Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Irene Bedard, Gary Farmer
Votes: 12,598 | Gross: $6.72M
12. Three Seasons (1999)
PG-13 | 104 min | Drama
Although the hearts and goals and desires are different for everyone in a culturally-shifting Ho Chi Minh City, the stories of four separate individuals paint a vivid picture of the past, present, and future of a city eking into a new era.
Director: Tony Bui | Stars: Ngoc Hiep Nguyen, Ngoc Minh, Phat Trieu Hoang, Diem Kieu
Votes: 3,298 | Gross: $2.02M
13. Two Family House (2000)
R | 108 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A dreamer finds that his wife and friends are binding him to his mediocre existence.
Director: Raymond De Felitta | Stars: Michael Rispoli, Kelly Macdonald, Kathrine Narducci, Kevin Conway
Votes: 1,730 | Gross: $1.02M
14. Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
R | 95 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
A gender-queer punk-rock singer from East Berlin tours the U.S. with her band as she tells her life story and follows the former lover/band-mate who stole her songs.
Director: John Cameron Mitchell | Stars: John Cameron Mitchell, Miriam Shor, Stephen Trask, Theodore Liscinski
Votes: 37,334 | Gross: $3.03M
15. Real Women Have Curves (2002)
PG-13 | 90 min | Comedy, Drama
In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.
Director: Patricia Cardoso | Stars: America Ferrera, Lupe Ontiveros, Ingrid Oliu, George Lopez
Votes: 8,233 | Gross: $5.84M
16. The Station Agent (2003)
R | 89 min | Comedy, Drama
When his only friend dies, a man born with dwarfism moves to rural New Jersey to live a life of solitude, only to meet a chatty hot dog vendor and a woman dealing with her own personal loss.
Director: Tom McCarthy | Stars: Peter Dinklage, Patricia Clarkson, Bobby Cannavale, Paul Benjamin
Votes: 73,368 | Gross: $5.74M
17. Maria Full of Grace (2004)
R | 101 min | Crime, Drama
A pregnant Colombian teenager becomes a drug mule to make some desperately-needed money for her family.
Director: Joshua Marston | Stars: Catalina Sandino Moreno, Guilied Lopez, Orlando Tobón, Virginia Cristina Ariza
Votes: 36,179 | Gross: $6.52M
18. Hustle & Flow (2005)
R | 116 min | Crime, Drama, Music
With help from his friends, a Memphis pimp in a mid-life crisis attempts to become a successful hip-hop emcee.
Director: Craig Brewer | Stars: Terrence Howard, Ludacris, Anthony Anderson, Taryn Manning
Votes: 43,211 | Gross: $22.20M
19. Quinceañera (2006)
R | 90 min | Drama
As Magdalena's 15th birthday approaches, her simple, blissful life is complicated by the discovery that she's pregnant. Kicked out of her house, she finds a new family with her great-granduncle and gay cousin.
Directors: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland | Stars: Emily Rios, Jesse Garcia, Chalo González, Jesus Castanos
Votes: 4,297 | Gross: $1.69M
20. Grace Is Gone (2007)
PG-13 | 85 min | Drama, War
Upon hearing his wife was killed in the Iraq war, a father takes his two daughters on a road trip.
Director: Jim Strouse | Stars: John Cusack, Emily Churchill, Rebecca Spence, Jennifer Tyler
Votes: 9,697 | Gross: $0.05M
21. The Wackness (2008)
R | 99 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
It's the summer of 1994, and the streets of New York are pulsing with hip-hop. Set against this backdrop, a lonely teenager named Luke Shapiro spends his last summer before university selling marijuana throughout New York City, trading it with his unorthodox psychotherapist for treatment, while having a crush on his stepdaughter.
Director: Jonathan Levine | Stars: Josh Peck, Ben Kingsley, Olivia Thirlby, Famke Janssen
Votes: 31,266 | Gross: $2.08M
22. Precious (II) (2009)
R | 110 min | Drama
In New York City's Harlem circa 1987, an overweight, abused, illiterate teen who is pregnant with her second child is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that she can re-route her life in a better direction.
Director: Lee Daniels | Stars: Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey
Votes: 116,205 | Gross: $47.57M
23. Happythankyoumoreplease (2010)
R | 100 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Captures a generational moment - young people on the cusp of truly growing up, tiring of their reflexive cynicism, each in their own ways struggling to connect and define what it means to love and be loved.
Director: Josh Radnor | Stars: Josh Radnor, Malin Akerman, Zoe Kazan, Michael Algieri
Votes: 30,510 | Gross: $0.22M
24. Circumstance (2011)
R | 107 min | Drama
A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's dangerous obsession.
Director: Maryam Keshavarz | Stars: Sarah Kazemy, Nikohl Boosheri, Reza Sixo Safai, Soheil Parsa
Votes: 8,004 | Gross: $0.44M
25. The Sessions (2012)
R | 95 min | Biography, Comedy, Drama
A man in an iron lung who wishes to lose his virginity contacts a professional sex surrogate with the help of his therapist and priest.
Director: Ben Lewin | Stars: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood
Votes: 43,978 | Gross: $6.00M
26. Fruitvale Station (2013)
R | 85 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
The story of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old Bay Area resident, who crosses paths with friends, enemies, family, and strangers on the last day of 2008.
Director: Ryan Coogler | Stars: Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, Octavia Spencer, Kevin Durand
Votes: 85,852 | Gross: $16.10M
27. Whiplash (2014)
R | 106 min | Drama, Music
A promising young drummer enrolls at a cut-throat music conservatory where his dreams of greatness are mentored by an instructor who will stop at nothing to realize a student's potential.
Director: Damien Chazelle | Stars: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Melissa Benoist, Paul Reiser
Votes: 988,188 | Gross: $13.09M
28. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)
PG-13 | 105 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
High schooler Greg, who spends most of his time making parodies of classic movies with his co-worker Earl, finds his outlook forever altered after befriending a classmate who has just been diagnosed with cancer.
Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon | Stars: Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, Olivia Cooke, Nick Offerman
Votes: 138,236 | Gross: $6.74M
29. The Birth of a Nation (2016)
R | 120 min | Biography, Drama, History
Nat Turner, a literate slave and preacher in the antebellum South, orchestrates an uprising.
Director: Nate Parker | Stars: Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Penelope Ann Miller, Jackie Earle Haley
Votes: 21,816 | Gross: $15.86M
30. Crown Heights (2017)
R | 94 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
When Colin Warner is wrongfully convicted of murder, his best friend Carl King devotes his life to proving Colin's innocence.
Director: Matt Ruskin | Stars: LaKeith Stanfield, Nnamdi Asomugha, Natalie Paul, Luke Forbes
Votes: 2,922 | Gross: $0.24M
31. Burden (I) (2018)
R | 117 min | Biography, Drama, History
When a museum celebrating the Ku Klux Klan opens in a South Carolina town, the idealistic Reverend Kennedy strives to keep the peace even as he urges the group's Grand Dragon to disavow his racist past.
Director: Andrew Heckler | Stars: Garrett Hedlund, Andrea Riseborough, Forest Whitaker, Tom Wilkinson
Votes: 4,135
*added 15 Feb 2020
32. Brittany Runs a Marathon (2019)
R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama
A young woman decides to make positive changes in her life by training for the New York City Marathon.
Director: Paul Downs Colaizzo | Stars: Jillian Bell, Jennifer Dundas, Patch Darragh, Alice Lee
Votes: 22,215 | Gross: $0.22M
*added 15 Feb 2020
33. Minari (2020)
PG-13 | 115 min | Drama
A Korean American family moves to an Arkansas farm in search of its own American dream. Amidst the challenges of new life in the strange and rugged Ozarks, they discover the undeniable resilience of family and what really makes a home.
Director: Lee Isaac Chung | Stars: Steven Yeun, Han Yeri, Alan Kim, Noel Cho
Votes: 96,835
*added 15 Feb 2020
34. CODA (2021)
PG-13 | 111 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
As a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults) Ruby is the only hearing person in her deaf family. When the family's fishing business is threatened, Ruby finds herself torn between pursuing her passion at Berklee College of Music and her fear of abandoning her parents.
Director: Sian Heder | Stars: Emilia Jones, Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur, Daniel Durant
Votes: 164,724
*added 11 August 2022
35. Cha Cha Real Smooth (2022)
R | 107 min | Comedy, Drama
A young man who works as a Bar Mitzvah party host strikes up a friendship with a mother and her autistic daughter.
Director: Cooper Raiff | Stars: Cooper Raiff, Dakota Johnson, Evan Assante, Vanessa Burghardt
Votes: 26,476
*added 11 August 2022
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