The 2025 Sundance Film Festival has two more days of in-person and online screenings, but the world premieres have been over since Tuesday. This morning, the festival revealed its juried and audience awards. The big winners were “Atropia,” “Seeds,” “Twinless,” “East of Wall,” and “André is an Idiot.”
The U.S. Grand Jury Prize Dramatic went to Hailey Gates’ “Atropia.” Set during the Iraq War, Alia Shawkat plays a struggling actress who pretends to play an Iraqi in a fake Iraqi city set up to train soldiers in the California desert. Initial reviews were not kind.
Rashad Frett took the Directing Award for “Ricky,” Carmen Emmi’s “Plainclothes” won a Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast while Dylan O’Brien took a Special Jury Award for Acting for “Twinless.” Eva Victor won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for “Sorry, Baby,” a movie many thought would win the top prize this year. Last year’s winner, “A Real Pain’s” Jesse Eisenberg, was nominated for an Academy Award.
This year, the Festival jury m included: Reinaldo Marcus Green, Arian Moayed, and Celine Song for the U.S. Dramatic Competition; Steven Bognar, Vinnie Malhotra, and Marcia Smith for the U.S. Documentary Competition; Ava Cahen, Wanuri Kahiu, and Daniel Kaluuya for the World Cinema Dramatic Competition; Daniela Alatorre, Laura Kim, and Kevin Macdonald for the World Cinema Documentary Competition; Kaniehtiio Horn, Maggie Mackay, and Kibwe Tavares for the Short Film Program Competition; and Elijah Wood for the NEXT section.
In a statement after the awards ceremony Eugene Hernandez, Director of the Sundance Film Festival and Public Programming remarked, “Arriving at our Awards Ceremony after seven days of connection and discovery is especially rewarding this year. We are thrilled to honor these filmmakers for their inventiveness, generosity, and for the valuable conversations, moments of levity, and deep insights their work has offered We share our gratitude with the State of Utah, audiences, staff, volunteers, and everyone who makes the Sundance Film Festival possible.”
A complete list of this year’s winners is as follows:
US DRAMATIC COMPETITION
Presented by Celine Song
US Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic
Atropia / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Hailey Gates, Producers: Naima Abed, Emilie Georges, Luca Guadagnino, Lana Kim, Jett Steiger)
Directing Award: US Dramatic
Rashad Frett for Ricky / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Rashad Frett, Screenwriter: Lin Que Ayoung, Producers: Pierre M. Coleman, Simon TaufiQue, Sterling Brim, DC Wade, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Josh Peters, Mark Steele)
S Dramatic Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast
Plainclothes / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Carmen Emmi, Producers: Colby Cote, Arthur Landon, Eric Podwall, Vanessa Pantley)
US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting
Dylan O’Brien for Twinless / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: James Sweeney, Producer: David Permut)
Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award: US Dramatic
Eva Victor for Sorry, Baby / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Eva Victor, Producers: Adele Romanski, Mark Ceryak, Barry Jenkins)
US DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Presented by Steve Bognar & Marcia Smith
US Documentary Special Jury Award for Archival Storytelling
Selena y Los Dinos / U.S.A. (Director: Isabel Castro, Producers: Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements, J. Daniel Torres, David Blackman, Simran Singh)
US Documentary Special Jury Award
Life After / U.S.A. (Director: Reid Davenport, Producer: Colleen Cassingham)
Directing Award: US Documentary
Geeta Gandbhir for The Perfect Neighbor / U.S.A. (Director and Producer: Geeta Gandbhir, Producers: Nikon Kwantu, Alisa Payne, Sam Bisbee)
US Grand Jury Prize: Documentary
Seeds / U.S.A. (Director and Producer: Brittany Shyne, Producers: Danielle Varga, Sabrina Schmidt Gordon)
AUDIENCE AWARDS
Presented by Raúl Esparza
Audience Award: US Dramatic
Twinless / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: James Sweeney, Producer: David Permut) —
Audience Award: NEXT
East of Wall / U.S.A. (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Kate Beecroft, Producers: Lila Yacoub, Melanie Ramsayer, Shannon Moss)
Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary
Prime Minister / U.S.A. (Directors: Michelle Walshe, Lindsay Utz, Producers: Cass Avery, Leon Kirkbeck, Gigi Pritzker, Rachel Shane, Katie Peck)
Audience Award: World Cinema Dramatic
DJ Ahmet /North Macedonia, Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia (Director and Screenwriter: Georgi M. Unkovski, Producers: Ivan Unkovski, Ivana Shekutkoska)
Audience Award: US Documentary
André is an Idiot / U.S.A. (Director: Anthony Benna, Producers: André Ricciardi, Tory Tunnell, Joshua Altman, Stelio Kitrilakis, Ben Cotner)
NEXT AWARDS
Presented by Jack Begert
NEXT Special Jury Award for Ensemble Cast
Mad Bills to Pay (or Destiny, dile que no soy malo) / U.S.A. (Director and Screenwriter: Joel Alfonso Vargas, Producer: Paolo Maria Pedullà
NEXT Innovator Award
Zodiac Killer Project / U.S.A., U.K. (Director and Producer: Charlie Shackleton, Producers: Catherine Bray, Anthony Ing)
WORLD DRAMATIC COMPETITION AWARDS
Presented by Wanuri Kahiu
World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic
Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) /India, U.K., Canada (Director and Screenwriter: Rohan Parashuram Kanawade, Producers: Neeraj Churi, Mohamed Khaki, Kaushik Ray, Hareesh Reddypalli, Naren Chandavarkar, Sidharth Meer)
World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Writing
Two Women / Canada (Director: Chloé Robichaud, Screenwriter and Producer: Catherine Léger, Producer: Martin Paul-Hus)
Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic
Alireza Khatami for The Things You Kill /Turkey, France, Poland, Canada (Director, Screenwriter, and Producer: Alireza Khatami, Producers: Elisa Sepulveda Ruddoff, Cyriac Auriol, Mariusz Włodarski, Michael Solomon)
WORLD DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION AWARDS
Presented by Cristina Costantini
World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary
Cutting Through Rocks (اوزاک یوللار) / Iran, Germany, U.S.A., Netherlands, Qatar, Chile, Canada (Directors and Producers: Sara Khaki, Mohammadreza Eyni
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award
Mr. Nobody Against Putin /Denmark, Czech Republic (Director and Screenwriter: David Borenstein, Producer: Helle Faber
World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression
Coexistence, My Ass! / U.S.A., France(Director and Producer: Amber Fares, Screenwriter and Producer: Rachel Leah Jones, Screenwriter: Rabab Haj Yahya, Producer: Valérie Montmartin)
Directing Award: World Cinema Documentary
Mstyslav Chernov for 2000 Meters to Andriivka
SHORTS PROGRAM AWARDS
Presented virtually by Isaac Mizrahi
Short Film Grand Jury Prize
Theo Panagopoulos for The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing / U.K.
Short Film Special Jury Award for Directing
Loren Waters for Tiger
Short Film Special Jury Award for Animation Directing
May Kindred-Boothby for The Eating of an Orange
Short Film Jury Award: Animation
Natalia León for Como si la tierra se las hubiera tragado
Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction
Christopher Radcliff for We Were The Scenery
Short Film Jury Award: International Fiction
Chheangkea for Grandma Nai Who Played Favorites
Short Film Jury Award: US Fiction
Jazmin Garcia for Trokas Duras
Retroactive Awards
Presented by Kim Yutani
The Sundance Institute | Amazon MGM Studios Producers Award for Nonfiction : Danielle Varga for Seeds
The Sundance Institute | Amazon MGM Studios Producers Award for Fiction: Joe Pirro for The Wedding Banquet
The 2025 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize: SALLY
