The Sundance Film Festival Comes to Boulder

The biggest film festival in American independent film has a new permanent home, and it is fifteen minutes from our front door. If you are the one planning the trip for a film team, a group of friends, or a family that takes its movies seriously, this page gathers what the Festival itself says: when it runs, where the screens are, how tickets work, and how to think about lodging in a town that is about to be very full.

Updated each year as the Festival posts new details. The current season's guide lives on our Sundance 2027 guide.

What Just Happened to Boulder

In February 2026 the Sundance Institute announced that the Sundance Film Festival will make its Boulder, Colorado debut January 21 to 31, 2027, and that Boulder is its home beginning in 2027 and beyond. This is the first time the Festival will welcome global audiences and artists to its new location, after more than four decades in Utah. The announcement came from the Festival itself, and every fact on this page comes from the Festival's own site, linked where it appears. Read the announcement on sundance.org.

Source: 2027 Sundance Film Festival To Take Place January 21–31 in Boulder, Colorado, Sundance Institute

When It Runs, and How the Week Is Shaped

The Festival runs in person over eleven days each January, with world premieres stacked into the first stretch and encore screenings carrying the second half. Near the end, the Festival holds its awards. For 2027, the Festival has also planned an online program of competition films in the final days, streaming within the United States. The exact shape of each year comes from the Festival's calendar, and we re-check it before every season.

Where It Happens

The Festival's venues sit in a footprint the Festival describes as within about a two-mile radius, clustered around the University of Colorado Boulder campus, the Pearl Street pedestrian mall, and a few spots a short walk or quick drive from both. For the 2027 debut the Festival announced its official venues on sundance.org: on the CU Boulder campus, the Macky Auditorium Concert Hall, Muenzinger Auditorium, Roe Green Theatre, and Old Main; downtown and nearby, the Boulder Theater, eTown Hall, Boulder High School Auditorium, Casey Middle School Auditorium, the Canyon Theater at the Boulder Public Library District, the Boedecker Theater and Gordon Gamm Theater at the Dairy Arts Center, the Chautauqua Auditorium at the base of the Flatirons, and Cinemark Century Boulder for press and industry screenings. Chautauqua is about a mile from the Pearl Street core; the rest are closer still.

Source: 2027 official venues announcement, Sundance Institute; venue footprint from What to Know About the 2027 Sundance Film Festival, sundance.org

Passes, Packages, and Single Tickets

The Festival sells its week in layers. Passes and ticket packages go on sale in the fall, with presales for donors and members earlier still. Single film tickets follow in early January. The product names change a little year to year, so we do not list them here; we send you to the Festival's own ticketing page, which is always current, and we never quote a price that might be stale by the time you read this. See passes and tickets on festival.sundance.org.

Getting Into Town from Sunshine Canyon

The house sits on Sunshine Canyon Drive above town, about fifteen minutes from the Pearl Street Mall by car, which puts the downtown venues close and the campus a few minutes beyond that. Two honest notes for January: it is winter, and the road down the canyon is a mountain road, so give it a little respect on snowy evenings. And during a festival the size of Sundance, parking and rides in town will be tight, so decide your plan before the week starts rather than after the last screening lets out.

Why One House Works for a Film Week

A festival week is a logistics problem as much as a movie problem. The house sleeps up to 14 in five bedrooms, with a full kitchen, four bathrooms, and room to spread out, which is the difference between a team that has a place to land, regroup, and leave a jacket, and a team scattering to hotel rooms across town. Screenings run all day and into the night; having one address for breakfast, midday resets, and late debriefs on the deck under the winter sky keeps the whole thing human.