The snow may be falling heavily across the U.S. this week, but it won’t stop the celebration of film excellence at Sundance 2026. Starting today in Park City, Utah — its last hurrah in the region before the film festival settles into its new home in Boulder, Colorado — Black filmmakers, new and seasoned, will present their visions across Sundance stages. This year falls heavily into the documentary category, touching on everything from altering experiences in Nigeria to a rediscovery of the Harlem Renaissance. Here are seven directors whose stories will leave a lasting imprint long after the credits roll.
The Brittney Griner Story: Brittney Griner (pictured above) was playing basketball outside the U.S. — despite being one of the best players in the sport — which led to an unexpected detention by Russian authorities during a trying political period. This documentary by Alexandra Stapleton examines the extraordinary steps taken to secure Griner’s freedom and how the athlete has become an activist, advocating for the release of other wrongful detainees.
When a Witness Recants: This collaboration between documentarian Dawn Porter and author Ta-Nehisi Coates revisits the wrongful prosecution of three innocent teenagers in the eighties. Wrongfully convicted of the murder of a 14-year-old boy in 1983, they were robbed of 36 years of life imprisoned for a crime they did not commit. The film questions other children coerced into false testimonies against the trio and how the media did, and continues, to paint young Black youth as something to be feared.
Once Upon a Time in Harlem: It’s a trip back in time with David Greaves and his father, the late, great filmmaker William Greaves, featuring unearthed footage from 1972. What’s on that celloid? A party that David’s father engineered with the last surviving luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. It’s a celebration of the elder Greaves’ unfinished work that his son is finally bringing to light.
Troublemaker: The Story Behind the Mandela Tapes: Director Antoine Fuqua taps recently discovered audio interviews to explore the life of the president and apartheid freedom fighter. Mandela’s former cellmate, Mac Maharaj, serves as executive producer, adding a new level of complexity beyond the icon.
If I Go Will They Miss Me: Walter Thompson-Hernández offers an Afro-Latino fictional narrative, where the director explores the delicate, often fraught relationship between fathers and sons through the eyes of a 12-year-old growing up in South Los Angeles. Academy Award nominee Danielle Brooks stars.
Soul Patrol; Director JM Harper takes us inside the Vietnam War’s first Black special operations team, which reunites its members decades after the war to grapple with the identity crisis of what it meant to be a “soul brother” fighting in Vietnam, when America was fighting its own civil rights agenda.
Lady: Set in the backdrop of Lagos, Nigeria, a young cab driver meets a band of radiantly reckless sex workers with a fierce sisterhood. Their allure pulls her into danger and joy that leads her to her own transformation. Nigerian-born director Olive Nwosu makes her film debut.