25 Independent Movies You Should Be Excited About

Directors: Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal
Stars: Bradley Cooper, Zoe Saldana, Olivia Wilde, Dennis Quaid, Ben Barnes, Jeremy Irons, Michael McKean, J.K. Simmons, John Hannah
Release info: Sold at Sundance to CBS Films; no release date has been announced yet

Why you should be excited: Bradley Cooper should be a hater’s worst nightmare. Possessing the pretty boy looks that make boyfriends feel inferior as girlfriends swoon, he’s a million-dollar man who hooks up with A-list actresses and cashes insanely large checks thanks to weak films like The Hangover Part II and Limitless, yet, for some reason, we can’t dislike the guy. Perhaps it’s because, even in his lesser movies, Cooper has charisma to spare, showing glimpses of becoming a Brad Pitt type of actor if put in the right projects.

A challenging, dense film like The Words, possibly. Having debuted at Sundance to varying opinions, it’s said to be a meditative, somber, and structurally oblique drama about a struggling writer (Cooper) who finds a manuscript and passes it off as his own, only to come under fire from someone who claims to be the legit scribe (Jeremy Irons). With its appealing supporting cast, including Zoe Saldana and Olivia Wilde, Cooper has in The Words an intriguing alternative to his glossier, undeniably bankable options (The Hangover Part III, which, unfortunately, we’re going to see sooner or later); hopefully it’s just the beginning.

Director: Sarah Polley
Stars: Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, Sarah Silverman, Aaron Abrams, Luke Kirby
Release info: To be determined (2012), through Magnolia Pictures

Why you should be excited: Yes, you read those Oscar nominations correctly: Jonah Hill is now officially an Academy Award nominee, thanks to his work alongside Brad Pitt in Moneyball. Thus proving that Judd Apatow’s go-to funnymen are fully springing into sobering maturity, a truth also evidenced by Jason Segel’s upcoming Jeff Who Lives At Home and Seth Rogen’s recent involvement in the superb, though sadly overlooked, 50/50.

Still on his subtle humor kick, Rogen’s next project, Take This Waltz, has all the makings of a critically beloved indie romance. Overseen by gifted actress turned director Sarah Polley (Away From Her), Take This Waltz finds current Oscar nom Michelle Williams (for My Week With Marilyn) playing a woman torn between two men, one of whom is Rogen’s character. Look at it this way: As an actress, Williams makes Knocked Up’s Katherine Heigl look like a first-year drama student, so Rogen is in very good company.

Director: Spike Lee
Stars: Clarke Peters, Jules Brown, De’Adre Aziza, Nate Parker, Tony Lysaith, Heather Alicia Simms
Release info: Seeking distribution

Why you should be excited: As Spike Lee made adamantly clear during the film’s post-screening press conference at Sundance, Red Hook Summer is not Do The Right Thing 2, but you can’t blame speculators for thinking so. Putting the outspoken filmmaker back in both his indie roots and Brooklyn stomping grounds, this lo-fi look at a southern kid’s time spent in BK with his preacher uncle (The Wire’s Clarke Peters) operates with the same type of scathing social commentary (a third act reveal takes the film to a very dark, perverted place) and within the same universe (Lee makes a cameo as Do The Right Thing’s Mookie, Dodgers shirt and all).

Unsurprisingly for a Spike Lee joint, Red Hook Summer caused much dissent amongst critics at Sundance, with some praising the director’s return to his fearless, do-it-yourself roots and others decrying the film’s harrowing conclusion. But, really, would we expect anything less from Tyler Perry’s number one hater?

Director: Jake Schreier
Stars: Frank Langella, James Marsden, Liv Tyler, Susan Sarandon, Peter Sarsgaard, Jeremy Strong
Release info: Sold at Sundance in a package deal between Sony Pictures Worldwide and Samuel Goldwyn Films; no release date has been announced yet

Why you should be excited: Robot And Frank appears to be one taken right out of the late Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone handbook, specifically from the sentimental, non-threatening section. The first-rate actor Frank Langella plays, you guessed it, Frank, an older man heading into dementia and making the lives of everyone around him miserable in the process. His son (James Marsden) gives him a robot (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard) to help Frank with chores and enforce proper dietary and exercise habits. And here’s the kicker: Frank used to be a cat burglar, and his new robot companion represents an intriguing new way for him to get back into his criminal ways.

Such a high concept could very easily derail into utter, laughable silliness, but Langella’s presence alone hints at a script that’s more profound than the bizarre plot description might lead one to believe.

Director: Leslye Headland
Stars: Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher, Lizzy Caplan, James Marsden, Adam Scott
Release info: Seeking distribution

Why you should be excited: When Bridesmaids hit theaters last summer, the marketing team behind it wisely, though not accurately, sold the comedy as “the female Hangover.” Anyone who’s seen Kristen Wiig’s standout movie knows that’s bogus, of course, especially now that there legitimately is an estrogen-powered answer to the Wolf Pack: Bachelorette, a raunchy, night-before-the-wedding romp led by the enticing trio of Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher, and Lizzy Caplan.

An alternate title for this one could be Women Behaving Badly, as the reviews that have surfaced thus far point out that its character’s antics make those dudes from The Hangover look like a bunch of inexperienced squares. Caplan, for instance, plays a neurotic and high-strung headcase who’s none too shy about discussing her oral sex skills; Fisher, meanwhile, plays her suicidal friend who snorts more cocaine than Tony Montana. Granted, Bachelorette sounds a bit too overboard for its own good, but anything has to be better than The Hangover Part II, right?

Director: Don Coscarelli
Stars: Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman, Doug Jones, Daniel Roebuck
Release info: Seeking distribution

Why you should be excited: John Dies At The End, the exceptionally twisted horror/comedy/sci-fi novel from one David Wong (the pen name for humorist Jason Pargin), is a tough property to describe, but here goes nothing: The protagonist, David Wong (intentionally meta, yes), recounts a wild story to a reporter, a tale that involves his best friend John and a drug called Soy Sauce that causes hallucinations and bridges our world with that of an alternate dimension full of disgusting monsters, demons, and doorknobs that turn into penises. Seriously.

It’s the kind of book that you read and think, “There’s no way in hell anyone could ever make this into a movie.” But damn if veteran genre director Don Coscarelli (Phantasm, Beastmaster) isn’t willing to try. Making its premiere at Sundance this past weekend, Coscarelli’s take on John Dies At The End is a must-see simply for the fact that even if he can only execute, say, a third of the book’s insanity, we’re in store for a psychedelic horror-comedy the likes of nothing we’ve ever seen before.

To play devil’s advocate, the film’s low budget doesn’t bode well for the special effects, and, trust us, John Dies At The End could live or die on the quality of its tirelessly gruesome and absurd visuals. Coscarelli seems like a worthy fit for the material, though, so fingers shall be crossed.

Director: Michael Dowse
Stars: Seann William Scott, Jay Barcuhel, Alison Pill, Liev Schreiber, Kim Coates, Eugene Levy, Marc-Andre Grondin
Release info: In theaters on March 30 (after hitting Video On Demand on February 24), through Magnet Releasing

Why you should be excited: Technically, Happy Gilmore isn’t a full-on hockey comedy, so fans of the NHL really have waited 35 long years for a puck-and-ice laugher worthy of succeeding Paul Newman’s Slap Shot (1977). It’s safe to say that actor turned screenwriter Jay Baruchel hopes that Goon, which he co-wrote with Evan Goldberg (Seth Rogen’s screenwriting partner), is embraced in that manner.

If nothing else, Goon is certainly the most violent and graphic hockey flick to date. Seann William Scott plays a timid bouncer whose ability to whoop asses leads him into a semi-professional career as a hockey team’s “goon,” the guy responsible for getting into fights and sending opponents to either the penalty box or the local hospital. And director Michael Dowse doesn’t shy away from the brutality, with blood pouring like faucet water and teeth flying out of mouths with ease. Whether it’s too hardcore for those who don’t appreciate hockey’s grittiness (especially in light of recent concussion studies) or not might be Goon’s most crucial issue.

Director: Julie Delpy
Stars: Julie Delpy, Chris Rock, Kate Burton, Vincent Gallo, Dylan Baker, Brady Smith, Malinda Williams
Release info: Sold at Sundance to Magnolia Pictures; no release date has been announced yet

Why you should be excited: Chris Rock starring in a romantic comedy opposite independent darling Julie Delpy? Yeah, we’re confused, too. That’s not to say that we don’t think the standup comedy heavyweight has what it takes to tone his humor into a dramedy frame of mind—it’s just odd to think that the guy whose only semi-dramatic credit is I Think I Love My Wife would be the nuanced Delpy’s first choice to play her even-keeled boyfriend in this sequel to 2007’s 2 Days In Paris. We wholeheartedly understand why Rock, on his end, would chase down a movie of this caliber: anything to erase the stench of Grown-Ups off movie heads’ noses. Apparently Miss Delpy hasn’t seen that shitshow.

Director: David Chase
Stars: Jack Huston, John Magaro, Will Brill, James Gandolfini, Brad Garrett, Christopher McDonald, Molly Price, Bella Heathcote, Isiah Whitlock, Jr., Alex Veadov, Julia Garner, Lisa Lampanelli
Release info: In theaters on October 19, through Paramount Vantage

Why you should be excited: It’s understandable that David Chase would take some time off after ending HBO’s The Sopranos, the television landmark that he created and guided through its monumental eight-year run. But that show’s series finale aired four years ago—where the hell has Chase been all this time?

As it turns out, he’s still on his New Jersey ish, but this time he’s left the Mafia behind in favor of the 1960s and good, old-fashioned rock ‘n’ roll. Written and directed by Chase, Twylight Zones is about an aspiring rock band from Jersey on the hunt for fame and fortune, and features Tony Soprano himself, James Gandolfini, in a small role, as well as Boardwalk Empire standout Jack Huston (better known as half-faced Richard) as one of the leads.

The Sopranos is one hell of an achievement to follow up, so the biggest mystery here is whether Chase has some more stellar Garden State storytelling in him or not.

Director: Antonio Campos
Stars: Brady Corbet, Mati Diop
Release info: Sold at Sundance to IFC Films; no release date has been announced yet

Why you should be excited: The trio of barely 30-year-olds at the helm of indie production company Borderline Films (government names: Antonio Campos, Sean Durking, and Josh Mond) are all about darkening the Sundance Film Festival’s mood. Last January, they premiered Durkin’s directorial debut, Martha Marcy May Marlene, a chilly and mystifying look at a girl’s detachment from a homicidal cult that landed on our 25 Best Movies Of 2011 countdown; this year, they returned with Campos’ sophomore effort as a director, Simon Killer, and things aren’t looking any more upbeat.

Brady Corbet, who co-starred in Martha Marcy May Marlene, headlines as Simon, a sociopathic college graduate who falls obsessively in love with a prostitute (Mati Diop) while visiting Paris. Through sporadic voiceovers, off-kilter sound effects, and strobe lights, Campos translates Simon’s inner psychosis as he deals with a break-up by inserting himself into the pretty hooker’s world, whether she’s ready for it or not. Sounds like good, clean family fun, no? If you’ve seen Martha Marcy May Marlene, then you should easily detect the sarcasm there.

Director: Ben Lewin
Stars: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood, W. Earl Brown, Annika Marks, Adam Arkin
Release info: Sold at Sundance to Fox Searchlight; an Academy Award-qualifying, late 2012 release is expected

Why you should be excited: At the moment, Hollywood’s movers and shakers are suits-deep in the movie awards season, with names such as George Clooney, Viola Davis, and Christopher Plummer dominating all of the acting honors talk. Come this time next year, though, the industry could very well be chatting to no end about John Hawkes, a one-time nominee (for last year’s Winter’s Bone) who took last week’s Sundance Film Festival by storm in the drama The Surrogate.

It’s a role that feels tailor-made for Oscar and his fellow gold statues: Hawkes plays a well-meaning man stricken with polio who, get this, is all about losing his virginity, and hires a sex surrogate to fulfill his dream. What’s most promising about The Surrogate, aside from Hawkes’ supposedly tremendous performance, is the film’s accessibly warm and vibrant tone, handling the largely untouched subject of disability sufferers’ sex lives with crowd-pleasing cheerfulness.

Director: Craig Zobel
Stars: Dreama Walker, Ann Dowd, Pat Healy, James McCaffrey, Bill Camp, Philip Ettinger
Release info: Sold at Sundance to Magnolia Pictures; no release date has been announced yet

Why you should be excited: One of the most talked-about films during the Sundance Film Festival was also its most controversial. According to various reports, screenings of Craig Zobel’s divisive Compliance inspired everything from walk-outs to vitriolic screaming at the filmmakers, cast, and Sundance’s programmers themselves.

So what’s all the fuss about? Alleged cruelty toward women, it seems. Compliance is centered around a crank call to a fast food restaurant, in which the prankster tells the venue’s manager (Ann Dowd) that one of her female employees (Dreama Walker) has stolen cash from a customer. The claim is ultimately believed by the boss, who then detains the young worker and forces her to commit a sexually disturbed act.

Based on a real-life incident that happened in Kentucky, in 2004, Compliance is said to be an incredibly discomforting experience, and not in the sense of eating one too many fast food cheeseburgers.

Directors: Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim
Stars: Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim, Will Forte, Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, William Atherton
Release info: In theaters on March 2, through Magnolia Pictures

Why you should be excited: How to describe the brand of comedy orchestrated by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, they of Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! fame? The fellas themselves have encapsulated Adult Swim’s drug-trippy show as “the nightmare version of television,” and that’s rather spot-on; bewilderingly strange fake commercials, skits that barely look like they’d pass for quality on public access TV, and Photoshop-like graphics that give the impression of one’s tube suffering from a malfunctioning cable box—that’s what we’re dealing with here.

And for the show’s loyal following, Tim And Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie is a long, long time in the making. Like the duo’s TV series itself, their feature debut defies a general synopsis, but just know this: Both Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly co-star as a delusional shopping mall owner and a revolting dude who’s full of visible snot, respectively.

Director: Garrett Brawith
Stars: Barry Bostwick, Lin Shaye, Bruce McGill, Ray Wise, Kevin Sorbo, William Mapother, Paul Ben-Victor, Leri Lynn Pratt, Ross Patterson
Release info: Seeking distribution

Why you should be excited: Last week, the Internet’s film community got slapped upside its proverbial head by a trailer that seems almost too good (and ridiculously over-the-top) to be true. Obviously low-budget, and basking in its cheesy exploitations a la the fake trailers in Grindhouse, the out-of-nowhere first preview for the awesomely titled FDR: American Badass! did exactly what an online sensation is supposed to do: It got people talking about something that’d otherwise go completely unnoticed on its way to a mom-and-pop video store’s dusty shelves.

Now that the world is aware of FDR: American Badass!, though, the question is, when the hell will we see it? And can it live it up to the trailer’s deranged promise? In lieu of over-explaining the premise of a movie with such a goofy name, we’ll just say this: Barry Bostwick plays a cartoonish version of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, our nation’s 32nd president, and, in director Garrett Brawith’s film, an enforcer blows Nazi werewolves away with rockets that shoot out of his wheelchair. And that’s really all you need to know, isn’t it?

Director: Justin Kurzel
Stars: Lucas Pittaway, Bob Adriaens, Daniel Henshall, Louise Harris, Frank Cwiertniak, Matthew Howard, Marcus Howard, Anthony Groves
Release Date: In limited theaters on March 2, through IFC Midnight

Why you should be excited: Something tells us that faint-of-heart moviegoers may want to steer clear away from Australian filmmaker’s Justin Kurzel’s Snowtown when it debuts in a little over a month. The responses from critics and bloggers who’ve caught the serial killer bleak-a-thon already have been uniform: It’s grueling to watch, violent as sin, dark as night, and artistically virtuosic.

Inspired by the real-life Snowtown murders that rocked South Australia in 1994, Kurzel’s film centers on a wayward teen (Lucas Pittaway) and his dealings with his mother’s new friend, John Bunting (Daniel Henshall), a.k.a. the mastermind of the Snowtown murders. Being that Snowtown’s antagonist is an actual convicted slayer, it’s fairly easy to decipher where the movie takes that introductory set-up—the word “protégé” comes to mind. And hopefully “one of 2012’s best genre movies” also apply.

Directors: Youssef Delara and Michael D. Olmos
Stars: Gina Rodriguez, Chrissie Fit, Lou Diamond Phillips, Resmine Atis, Baby Bash, Jorge Diaz, Noel Gugliemi
Release info: Seeking distribution

Why you should be excited: Everyone loves a good underdog story, and when the underdog is played by a gorgeous newcomer with solid MC skills? We’re liable to have a love jones. Well, at least for Gina Rodriguez, the fresh-faced star of Filly Brown, a seemingly conventional drama about a young Los Angeles gal who wants to become a chart-topping rapper in order to stack enough checks to get her mother out of jail.

Reviews out of Sundance so far have been mixed, with the more negative ones citing the film’s heavy-handed script and obvious narrative beats as its main deterrents. Yet, across the board, it’s been a love-fest for Miss Gina Rodriguez, a name we should get used to hearing, because whenever Filly Brown makes its theatrical debut, she might very well be the hip-hop community’s answer to Elizabeth Olsen.

Director: Eduardo Sanchez
Stars: Gretchen Lodge, Alexandra Holden, Johnny Lewis, Ken Arnold, Daniel Ross, Lauren Lakis
Release info: To be determined (2012), through Image Entertainment

Why you should be excited: Yes, Lovely Molly is yet another first-person-shot horror movie. But here’s one case where you can’t immediately chastise the filmmakers, because Eduardo Sanchez, the film’s writer and director, helped to revolutionize the format 13 years ago. As one half of team responsible for The Blair Witch Project, Sanchez knows a thing or two about effectively framing a character’s descent into madness from the fourth-wall-breaking perspective, and reviews from last year’s festival circuit indicate that Lovely Molly is another creepy triumph.

Set inside a house instead of the woods, Sanchez’s latest follows Molly (newcomer Gretchen Lodge, who’s reportedly amazing here), a mentally disturbed woman who becomes even more insane after she moves into her recently deceased daddy’s house. With influences like Roman Polanski’s brilliant Repulsion and plot turns toward the supernatural, Lovely Molly could be scary enough to take any one-hit wonder tags off Sanchez’s résumé.

Director: James Ponsoldt
Stars: Aaron Paul, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Nick Offerman, Octavia Spencer, Megan Mullally, Kyle Gallner, Bree Turner
Release info: Acquired by Sony Pictures Classics for distribution; no release date has been announced yet

Why you should be excited: It’s about time that award-winning Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul received some more feature film love. Having only co-starred in a handful of movies, his accolades have come entirely from the small-screen, which isn’t a bad thing when those props are the result of TV’s best all-around show. But he’s too powerful of an actor to not start taking roles away from lesser-gifted performers who constantly pop up in Hollywood’s fare.

In true credible fashion, though, Paul has opted to ease himself back into movie theaters via a character-driven indie. In Smashed, which garnered unanimously positive reviews from its Sundance premiere, he plays one half of a married couple whose relationship is based around shared alcohol abuse, a dangerous bond that’s disrupted when his better half (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) decides to sober up. Word has it that both Paul and Winstead are excellent, as is Nick Offerman (or, as you should know him, Parks And Recreation’s Ron Swanson) as Winstead’s boss.

Director: Richard Bates Jr.
Stars: AnnaLynne McCord, Traci Lords, Ariel Winter, Roger Bart, John Waters, Malcolm McDowell, Marlee Matlin, Jeremy Sumpter, Ray Wise
Release info: Seeking distribution

Why you should be excited: Anyone who’s up on thier trashy cinema history should be able to comprehend Excision’s campy spirit from its acting credits listed above; specifically, the name Traci Lords. The queen of softcore Skin-a-max films, who infamously became a porn star before she was of legal age, Lords isn’t the kind of actress a credibility-chasing Hollywood executive would hire to play the mother of a teenage loner (played by 90210 sexpot AnnaLynne McCord, doing the “Charlize Theron in Monster” practice of "going ugly" here). Which is, frankly, one of the many reasons why we’re stoked about Excision.

With several Sundance critics pegging it as a John-Waters-esque, darkly funny gorefest, writer-director Richard Bates Jr.’s buzzy genre flick, in which McCord’s character acts on her obsession with performing surgical procedures, has the potential to be one the year’s most politically incorrect horror films. Or, at the very least, one of the genre’s craziest new entries. Perhaps even inspiring a new trend of casting softcore actresses in atypical roles—imagine a slasher movie starring Shannon Tweed as the killer.

Director: Jamie Travis
Stars: Lauren Miller, Ari Graynor, Justin Long, Nia Vardalos, Mark Webber
Release info: Sold at Sundance to Focus Features; no release date has been announced yet

Why you should be excited: Call it the Bridesmaids effect, if you will, but this year’s comedy highpoints at Sundance were predominantly female-anchored. Example: For A Good Time, Call…, co-written by Lauren Miller, a.k.a. Seth Rogen’s wife. Miller and criminally underused scene-stealer Ari Graynor (Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist) play a couple of down-on-their-luck cuties who resort to becoming phone sex operators in order to earn some money.

It’s a simple, provocative set-up, one that seems right in the potty-mouthed wheelhouse of someone who’s funny enough to go toe-to-toe with Rogen in real life. Between Miller’s domestic connections and Graynor’s bubbling stardom, For A Good Time, Call… has all the right chips in place.

Director: Benh Zeitlin
Stars: Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry
Release info: Sold at Sundance to Fox Searchlight; no release date has been announced yet

Why you should be excited: Of all the buzz-worthy films premiering at Sundance, Beasts Of The Southern Wild emerged as the festival’s hottest property, taking home the grand jury prize in the U.S. dramatic competition. Not bad for a star-free and experimental drama that was previously on no one’s radar.

Beasts Of The Southern Wild follows a 6-year-old named Hushpuppy (first-time actress Quvenzhané Wallis), who lives near a levee in Southern Louisiana with her terminally ill father (Dwight Henry) and his stories about her nowhere-to-be-found mother. Much of the praise for Zeitlin’s flick has been cast directly upon his visual sense, specifically on how he renders Hushpuppy’s imagination in abstract and colorfully hypnotic ways. It all sounds like Where The Wild Things Are on a much smaller budget and without giant creatures, and that’s all the tease we need to get excited.

Director: Colin Trevorrow
Stars: Aubrey Plaza, Jake M. Johnson, Mark Duplass, Jeff Garlin, Kristen Bell, Lynn Shelton, Mary Lynn Rajskub
Release info: Sold at Sundance to FilmDistrict; no release date has been announced yet

Why you should be excited: The premise behind Safety Not Guaranteed would be worthy of “best idea for an indie comedy in years” distinction if it weren’t based on a true story. So, get this: Mark Duplass (The League) plays a guy who places a classified advertisement looking for a partner to go time-traveling with (hence the title, “safety not guaranteed”), prompting two magazine reporters (Aubrey Plaza and New Girl’s Jake M. Johnson) to track him down and find out his deal.

OK, so maybe it’s not solely the plot that has intrigued here, but, rather, the slam-dunk cast. Particularly with Plaza and Johnson, two of network TV’s funniest sitcom role players; on NBC’s Parks And Recreation, the former hijacks every scene with her droll, aloof wit and quirky sex appeal, while Johnson’s one-two chemistry with New Girl star Zooey Deschanel is the uneven Fox sitcom’s highlight. If she can forge the same rapport with Plaza here, Safety Not Guaranteed could be a superior funny movie.

Director: Michael Mohan
Stars: Lizzy Caplan, Alison Brie, Martin Starr, Geoffrey Arend, Mark Webber, Timothy Busfield, Melonie Diaz, Jessica Morris
Release info: Seeking distribution

Why you should be excited: Save The Date can really be sold in only seven words: Lizzy Caplan and Alison Brie play sisters. Boom, done. Sign us up. Why, you ask? Clearly you’ve never watched an episode of NBC’s Community (with Brie), and you were one of the many folks who slept on the Starz Network’s short-lived comedy series Party Down.

That’s OK, though, because, if the reviews from Sundance are any indication, Save The Date is on its way to indie breakthrough status, and, if the stars all align, Caplan and Brie, two of the sexiest and most underrated comediennes in the business, could finally get the widespread respect they deserve. The same goes for Martin Starr, Caplan’s fellow Party Down cast member who’s said to be a revelation here, as Brie’s loving rocker husband.

Directors: Adam Wingard, Ti West, Joe Swanberg, Glenn McQuaid, Radio Silence
Stars: Calvin Reeder, Lane Hughes, Joe Swanberg, Sophia Takal, Kate Lyn Sheil, Joe Sykes, Hannah Fierman, Mike Donlan, Drew Sawyer, Drew Moerlein, Jason Yachanin, Helen Rogers
Release info: Sold at Sundance to Magnolia Pictures; a Fall 2012 release is expected

Why you should be excited: Sorry, Dramamine-abusers, but if you’re sick and tired of horror’s recent obsession with found-footage movies, you’re shit out of luck. Now that The Devil Inside has continued the box office domination sent into motion by the Paranormal Activity franchise, the first-person POV style isn’t going anywhere; thankfully, though, a crew of the genre’s most exciting independent filmmakers have banded together to create the impossible: a legitimately great and genuinely terrifying found-footage movie.

Or so says every single person who caught the Sundance premiere of V/H/S, a horror anthology dreamt up by Bloody Disgusting’s webmaster Brad Miska, and directed by, amongst others, Adam Wingard (the buzz-earner behind 2012’s most anticipated horror flick, You’re Next) and The House Of The Devil shot-caller Ti West.

V/H/S progresses as a group of Jackass-like criminals dig up old cassette tapes for a mysterious employer, and on said tapes they see a road trip gone to hell, horny guys (one of whom wears glasses with a hidden camera) propositioning the wrong girls, an extremely haunted house, two long-distance lovers unknowingly Skyping with a ghost, and a serial killer's murder presented in first-person. If done properly, the found-footage approach can yield frightening results (see: [REC]), and, for old-school horror junkies, there’s nothing better than a strong anthology film (see: Creepshow); excitingly, the early word-of-mouth on V/H/S/ is that it combines the best of both templates.

Director: Lee Toland Krieger
Stars: Rashida Jones, Andy Samberg, Elijah Wood, Emma Roberts, Eric Christian Olsen, Ari Graynor, Chris D’Elia, Sarah Wright, Janel Parrish
Release Date: Sold at Sundance to Sony Pictures Classics; no release date has been announced yet

Why you should be excited: Based on plot alone, Celeste And Jesse Forever sounds like countless other romantic comedies that we’ve avoided like the plague: A married couple, who started off as high school sweethearts, get divorced and try to stay on good terms. Nothing too appealing, right? We’d totally agree if not for the delightful pairing of Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg as said divorcees.

Jones, for her part, also co-wrote the screenplay, giving us hope that the film’s potential mainstream success could launch one of our favorite funny (and hot) women into the Kristen Wiig stratosphere; as for Samberg, Celeste And Jesse Forever seems like his first real shot at proving he’s more than the (awesomely) silly and often sophomoric guy from Saturday Night Live and his comedic rap group The Lonely Island. We’re comfortably optimistic.