Which Sundance film will we be talking about next year?

Jan. 19, 2024 6 AM PT

A “pig-parker”? C’mon, Larry David. I thought you were better than that. Or maybe I didn’t really think you were better than that, just that you’d be able to park a car between two white lines.

But then he has had a few misadventures behind the wheel over the years ...

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, host of The Envelope’s Friday newsletter and the guy wondering how much it costs to buy a beloved bookstore. Let’s get to the week’s news.

What’s going to pop at Sundance?

With Cannes, Telluride, Toronto and New York, you have an idea what to expect when you look at the festival lineups, particularly when it comes to zeroing in on movies that might pop at the Oscars. You have your brand-name auteurs, your big-budget historical epics and maybe a biopic or three. Throw in a musical, as long as it’s not “Dear Evan Hansen,” and you have your road map.

At the Sundance Film Festival, though, you really have no idea. None. Three years ago at the virtual Sundance, an English-language remake of a 2014 French coming-of-age drama about the teen daughter of Deaf adults premiered without a distributor. It was titled “CODA.” Two days after its opening day screening, Apple bought it for a record $25 million. Nearly 14 months later, it took the Oscar for best picture, one of the most unlikely winners in the history of the Academy Awards.

“I was just hoping the movie would find a buyer,” Siân Heder, the film’s director, told me months after Sundance. Then she hoped it would find an audience when it landed in theaters and on Apple TV+. By the time it won the Oscar — and Heder had collected the trophy for adapted screenplay — “CODA” had moved from being what its star, Marlee Matlin, called a “tidal wave of awareness” for the Deaf community to a “tsunami” on just about every front.

I wrote a recent column looking at this year’s lineup, trying to figure out if there might be a “Past Lives” or a “Get Out” premiering at Park City. My colleagues at the festival, which opens today, have offered a list of the 10 films they’re most looking forward to seeing.

Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun lie on a bed and stare at each other

Oscar nomination predictions for all 23 categories (yes, even shorts)

Oscar nominations arrive bright and early Tuesday morning, the last of the season’s unveilings, following the guilds, the Globes, the Emmys, the ... what? The Emmys? In case you weren’t paying attention — and judging from the ratings, it seems like most of you had better things to do — television’s biggest night was shoehorned into the (extremely) long and winding road leading up to the Oscars, which are still a couple months away.

Still a couple months away ... and yet, so many of the races already seem decided. But let’s not jump ahead of ourselves. There remain battles to be fought, whisper campaigns to be hatched, payola scandals to be investigated. And, of course, excellent work to be celebrated. Because 2023 really was a great year for film, and this year’s Oscar nominations will likely reflect that, even if one of the year’s very best movies, Andrew Haigh’s unforgettable “All of Us Strangers,” figures to be blanked. I haven’t felt this melancholy since ... well ... since I saw “All of Us Strangers” at Telluride.

But now is not the time for tears. It’s time for clear thinking. I swept through all 23 categories, offering predictions, possible surprises and “snubs,” and a silent prayer that my alarm will sound before the crack of dawn Tuesday.

Greta Gerwig and Ryan Gosling playfully pose for a selfie with a pink Polaroid camera.

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That’s a wrap on the Emmys ... until a few months from now

If you’re not up to speed on “Succession,” “The Bear” and “Beef,” there wasn’t much for you at this year’s Emmys, as the three shows dominated their respective categories. It’s the continuation of a recent trend of Emmy voters rewarding a small number of shows at the exclusion of pretty much everything else. How can it still be a golden age of television if there are only three programs worth celebrating?

My colleague Mary McNamara enjoyed the nostalgic aspects of the 75th edition of the ceremony. The reunions did make me smile. Norm! Or ... erm ... George! We rounded up the looks, the winners and pretty much everything that happened at the show. R.I.P. to “Better Call Saul,” the most-nominated television program to never win an Emmy, going 0 for 53 over the course of six brilliant seasons.