The 6 Queer Short Films at Sundance 2026

Every year, I buy the online Sundance Film Festival Short Film Program Pass. This allows me to watch all of the shorts from the comfort of my home over the course of the weekend. Of the 28 total films I watched, just six of them were queer or featured queer characters in some way. While that isn’t a lot, I’ve decided to give them special attention here by ranking them based on how queer they were. You can find complete coverage of all of the shorts on Write Through the Night.

1. Callback

In Callback, a gay couple faces a reckoning after one of them lands an acting job. This causes the two of them to get into a massive fight that continues to escalate over the course of the night. The focus stays consistently on the dynamic between the two of them. It is a fascinating case study into the competition that exists in same-sex couples, especially ones where both people pursue the same career. 

Callback belongs at the top of this list because it’s about a gay relationship in a way that feels authentically gay. Matthew Puccini does an incredible job capturing the power dynamics that tend to stay obfuscated when both people in the couple are men. There’s still issues of who makes more money, who is doing better in their career, and who has more friends. It takes open communication and a lot of internal work to avoid having everything blow up the way it did in this short.

2. Gender Studies

Jamie Kiernan O’Brien perfectly illustrated the pain of wanting to become someone in her trans short film, Gender Studies. Despite not being trans myself, I viscerally felt the longing the protagonist felt when looking at her peer. There’s some people who radiate sexuality, self-assuredness, and womanhood in a way that makes me desperate to get close to them. Is it because I want to be them or date them, I’m never quite sure.

Jake Jenkins does a fantastic job of playing with those dynamics in her performance, especially when her character goes so far as to get involved with the (horrible) man the girl in her class is sleeping with. Jenkins’ intense gaze and the emotion behind them brought Gender Studies to life.

3. Together Forever

Together Forever brings us into the room of a Mormon couple on their wedding night. While the woman is excited to get in bed and have sex for the first time, the man in the couple is terrified. He tries to get out of hooking up as best he can, and it soon becomes clear that he’s gay.

This is director Gregory Barnes’ second short film about Mormonism, and it’s obvious that he understands his subjects and wants to portray them with empathy. There’s an earnestness to the woman in her interactions and my heart breaks for her equally as much as it does for her closeted spouse. The seriousness is offset by an undercurrent of humor that brings the whole thing together flawlessly.   

4. Seniors

Although the queerness is not inherent to the story, Seniors stars a gay high school senior on his college tour. The film starts out with scenes of three people masturbating in separate rooms: the senior, his mom, and his dad. The mom finds out that morning that the father is cheating on her, and thus the planned college tour ends up being an exercise in holding it together for the mother. 

As is probably obvious from the description, the main thrust of the film is the mother’s reaction to the news. The fact that the high schooler is gay isn’t relevant, but it is an accepted fact. The dad asks the tour guide about the queer community on campus, and the student jokes about it being a stereotype that he’s interested in attending a historically women’s college. I appreciate that being gay is just part of the character. It’s no big deal, and that’s nice to see especially in a short about family dynamics.

5. Balloon Animals

Although it’s not inherent to the story, I think Balloon Animals can be considered a queer short because of the presence of Izzi Roja, a trans-nonbinary filmmaker. In the film, they played one of the two grocery store clerks who are asked to fill a balloon order at closing. The mix of grief and humor in this film was done flawlessly, making for a unique experience that existed entirely within itself. Izzi Roja’s character is delightful in their behavior, acting in a way that only an entirely self-absorbed young person who’s naturally kind could.

6. How Brief

I’m putting this film last not because it was the worst film, necessarily, but because it was the least gay. This wasn’t tagged as LGBTQ+ in the program, but I struggle to read it any other way. After realizing it was directed by Kelly McCormack, actor in Sorry, Baby and A League of Their Own TV Show, I decided that was enough to confirm my theory.

In How Brief, a woman returns to her childhood home where her brother now lives and has a chaotic, terrible night of unraveling. It’s very separate from the real world, with events transpiring over music and color-laden sets that feel straight out of an oversaturated sitcom. The way the woman abdicated the role expected of her created queer undertones that I think will be relatable for many lesbian women.