After 11 long days of screenings, parties, sales bidding wars, and endless slushy sidewalks, the Sundance Film Festival finally came to a close Sunday. The event seemed to end with a whimper instead of a bang — unlike recent years, when festival favorites such as “Past Lives,” “CODA,” or “Fire of Love” rocketed out of their Sundance premieres straight into awards-hype mania, this year’s batch seems bound for more modest runs.
But the 2024 lineup still yielded a host of surprises, especially when it came to what the festival does best: introducing (or, in some cases, reintroducing) the world to new talent. After all, this is the festival where some of today’s biggest movie stars — from Tessa Thompson (for “Dear White People”) to Jennifer Lawrence (for “Winter’s Bone”) to Miles Teller (for “Whiplash”) — had their breakthroughs.
With that in mind, here are five performers under the age of 25 — and, as a bonus, two over 80 — who had audiences buzzing this year.
Lily Collias in ‘Good One’
When India Donaldson, the writer and director of “Good One,” was searching for a young actress to star in her feature debut about a trio on a camping trip, she used an unorthodox approach: She asked her little sister, a senior in high school, if she knew anyone who fit the bill. That shot in the dark led to Donaldson meeting and casting Lily Collias, whose enormously intuitive turn in the film has made it one of the festival’s most revelatory discoveries.
Taking a page from another Sundance breakout, Kelly Reichardt’s “Old Joy” (2006), “Good One” follows Sam as she gamely embarks on a three-day camping trip with her dad and his needy, newly divorced best friend. Despite her age, Sam soon falls into the gendered role of playing the men’s caretaker — cooking, cleaning, and lending an ear to their grousing. Throughout, Collias emanates quiet insight and assurance, and her ability to slowly build emotion both anchors the film and ensures that we’ll be seeing more of her.
Ian Foreman in ‘Exhibiting Forgiveness’ and ‘I Saw the TV Glow’
Child actor Ian Foreman appeared in two Sundance hits this year, playing younger versions of the protagonist in each. Foreman didn’t come into the festival as a total unknown — he’d appeared in the TV series “Let the Right One In” among other projects — but his memorable turns in Titus Kaphar’s “Exhibiting Forgiveness” and as a lonely misfit middle schooler in Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow” will guarantee that he’ll be first in line for challenging adolescent roles in the years to come.
His most memorable Sundance moment came in an extended flashback sequence in “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” in which Foreman shines as a sensitive kid whose dad pushes him into a long day of manual labor. It’s a difficult scene to watch, but Foreman’s careful balance between childlike innocence and rugged resilience counteracts any threat of the story veering into sentimentality.
Callina Liang in ‘Presence’
Steven Soderbergh’s haunted-house thriller has an audacious artistic conceit: It’s shot from the point of view of an invisible phantom. To pull off the trick, Soderbergh needed a magnetic protagonist, someone who could claim the film’s center even as the camera takes on a life of its own. Enter Callina Liang, the breakout actress who plays Chloe, a high schooler reeling from the recent death of a close friend.
The film begins as Chloe’s family moves into a new house and Chloe starts to feel a strange presence in her bedroom, which she takes to be the ghost of her friend. In the role — one of the first of her acting career — Liang pulls off a delicate choreography. She is often pictured in private moments, gazing in the direction of the camera or reaching out in an attempt to make contact.
Katherine Mallen Kupferer in ‘Ghostlight’
Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan’s “Ghostlight” is the rare cinematic family affair: The film stars a real-life father, mother, and daughter as a family of three dealing with a recent tragedy. All three of the actors deliver, but the daughter, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, takes on the film’s most gleefully meaty role as Gretchen, a musical theater aficionado prone to dramatic outbursts. Early in the movie, one of these angry eruptions leads to Gretchen getting suspended from high school, which, in turn, gives her more time to bug her worn-out parents.
Mallen Kupferer has no problem playing the troubled kid, and she wrings a lot of humor from Gretchen’s stomping, screaming, and swearing. But defiant teen girls dealing with trauma are a movie mainstay, and Mallen Kupferer’s big achievement lies in how she opens up the character to imbue Gretchen with passion and emotional fortitude. This kid might seem spiky, but, like the actress playing her, she’s wise beyond her years.
Maisy Stella in ‘My Old Ass’
One of Sundance’s biggest deals this year was for Megan Park’s coming-of-age comedy “My Old Ass,” about a teenager named Elliott who meets her older self during a mushroom trip. Amazon MGM is in final negotiations to acquire the film for a hefty $15 million, and much of the excitement surrounding the title was inevitably due to the winning lead: newcomer Maisy Stella. It’s no easy feat to go head to head in deadpan humor with Aubrey Plaza (who plays the older Elliott), but Stella holds her own with ease, and the bond she builds with Plaza feels easy, charming, and lived in.
June Squibb in ‘Thelma’
When was the last time you saw June Squibb play a leading lady? I’ll give you a hint: It’s never happened — until now. The 94-year-old Hollywood big shot, who became a film actress in her 60s and scored an Oscar nomination at 84 for a supporting role in Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska,” lit up Sundance this year with her turn as a cheeky action star in “Thelma.” The film, written and directed by Josh Margolin, is a sweet family comedy about a grandma on a mission to find the phone scammer who duped her into mailing thousands of dollars to a PO Box. After the film’s premiere, Squibb took the stage to confidently declare that she did many of her own stunts — including a lot of speeding on a mobility scooter and one lean-and-roll maneuver over a mattress.
Chang Li Hua in ‘Didi’
Here’s a heartwarming story: The 85-year-old Chang Li Hua arrived at Sundance a first-time actress. She left with an Oscar nomination. The real-life grandmother of Taiwanese-American director Sean Wang, Li Hua appears in his narrative directorial debut, “Dìdi,” as the adolescent protagonist’s loving Nǎi Nai, or grandmother. But she’s also the subject of another Wang project: the short documentary “Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó,” which last Tuesday received an Academy Award nomination for best documentary short film. A delightful video of Li Hua and the rest of her family finding out about the nomination has been circulating on social media, and her beaming smile in the clip — as well as her inventive poses on the “Dìdi” premiere red carpet — tell you everything you need to know about her ability to steal a show.