The 6 Queer Short Films at Sundance 2026
Of the 28 total films I watched, just six of them were queer or featured queer characters in some way.

23‑year‑old Machi Watarase, a perpetual part‑timer, works multiple odd jobs. One day, she’s asked by 19‑year‑old painter Okazaki Yoshito to be his model. Captivated by his sketch of her, she begins living with him. Meanwhile, a 27‑year‑old art writer, Itokawa Hiroshi, appears in her life. Although both Yoshito and Hiroshi let her be just as she is, strange feelings grow as her discomfort with her own image in the painting increases.
Of the 28 total films I watched, just six of them were queer or featured queer characters in some way.
Netflix’s Shadow and Bone has a complicated relationship with race. It has a diverse cast, but not without its problems. Based on Leigh Bardugo’s two book series, the show features characters from the Shadow and Bone trilogy, which is very straight and white, and the Six of Crows duology, which is much more diverse. When bringing together a cast and writing about these characters, the team behind the show expanded upon some of the representation missing from the first trilogy, then seemed to take away representation from the duology. Shadow and Bone seems to play a bit of a push and pull game when it comes to portraying diversity onscreen.
Adam Sandler goes hard as an NBA scout in this male-heavy sports-drama.
This anti-love young adult movie includes mature topics and dialogue.
Ruben Östlund muses about his characters, “As soon as you get close to a person, you see them as just another human being”. It is widely recognized that aboard the luxury yacht in ‘Triangle of Sadness’, the different groups of people represent a small society as a commentary on classism and gender binaries.
'Jungle Cruise' is fun if you can ignore the racism of the ride it’s based on and the film’s bland, stereotypical characters.