From handmade props to Stevie Wonder’s drum solo, the Letterboxd Festiville crew celebrate the moments we loved during the 2021 Sundance Film festival.

Most Menacing Line: 
“I’ll get my good stick made of acacia wood. I’ll bash their heads until they bleed.” —90-year-old local woman in Taming the Garden

Corniest Yet Most Loveable Line: 
“Duet. It’s in the word. You must do-it together.” —Bernarrrrrdo Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez), CODA

Scariest Villain: 
Mandrake (Daniel Gillies) in Coming Home in the Dark

Best Argument for Single Shot Action Sequences Keeping the Camera Still and Wide:
The Romani camp attack in Eight for Silver

Best Reclamation of Gangster Film Tropes for the Purposes of Rebalancing America’s Narrative Film History: 
Judas and the Black Messiah

Best Handmade Prop: 
The dream helmet in Strawberry Mansion

Best Acting Debut:
Sofia Kappel in Pleasure

Best Filmmaking Tip: 
“ASL really infiltrated our set in the best way. Our camera operators, our sound guys would start g. We were g on set when there were no actors on set. I would encourage everyone to use ASL as a set language.” —Sian Heder, writer and director of CODA

Best Parenting:
María (Ale Ulman) offering to place a curse on her daughter’s shitty hookup partner in El Planeta

Best Musical Performance (excluding every performance in Summer of Soul): 
Christopher Abbott belting out Papa Roach’s ‘Last Resort’ in On the Count of Three

Best Needle Drop: 
Jim Croce’s ‘If I Could Save Time in a Bottle’ in Sion Sono’s Prisoners of the Ghostland. Heck, every needle drop in Prisoners of the Ghostland.

Most Accidentally Perfect Triple Feature:
Summer of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Judas and the Black Messiah and Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street

Best Letterboxd stan:
Romeo in R#J

Goodest Dog: 
Mother Schmuckers’ January-Jack

Best Dance Performance:
Anna Cobb in We’re All Going to the World’s Fair

Best Reminder of James Earl Jones’ Extreme Handsomeness:
Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street

Most Impressive Directing While Being Hammered by a Fierce Snowstorm:
It’s a tie between Robin Wright (Land) and Mona Fastvold (The World to Come). Somebody get these women a hot chocolate.

Sagest Advice:
“Do you have a list of his films? Without a list it’s going to take a week.” —Elderly clerk in Censor

Best Covid Movie that Didn’t Know it would be a Covid Movie: 
The Pink Cloud

Best Always Sunny Representation:
How It Ends

Best Representation of Scientists Without Resorting to a White Lab Coat:
Son of Monarchs 

Best Pandemic Escapism:
Ma Belle, My Beauty. Specifically: sniffing out the ripest fruit in a provincial French market.

Most Fulfilling Film To Sob Your Eyes Out At:
The World to Come

Best Cuss: 
“I don’t give a four-letter word.” —Stevie Wonder in Summer of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

Best Stevie Wonder drum solo:
Steve Wonder’s drum solo in Summer of Soul

Heck, best Stevie Wonder:
Stevie Wonder in Summer of Soul

Frankly Summer of Soul just needs its own awards ceremony: to celebrate the best outfits, the best hair, the best instrumental solos, the best dance breaks, the best audience close-ups. Just when you think the ‘summer of love’ has been entirely picked over in film, Questlove excavates precious, long-forgotten cans of film and retells America’s history with a fervent, fiery and funky ion. Deserving of its Grand Jury prize.

Pictured: Mavis Staples and Mahalia Jackson in Summer of Soul (...Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised)