The full picture: London’s 2018 Sundance Film Festival lineup

London’s Sundance Film Festival returned to Picturehouse Central in 2018 with a slate of UK premieres drawn from the Park City edition. The four-day run from May 31 to June 3 offered local audiences a first look at titles that had already generated heat in the mountains, and several of those films have since carved out lasting places in contemporary cinema conversations. The lineup mixed intimate dramas, sharp comedies, and one of the year’s most unsettling horror entries, all screened in the same central London venue that continues to host later editions of the festival.

First Reformed

Director: Paul Schrader First Reformed will be making its UK Premiere at this year’s London Sundance with an extended introduction from star Ethan Hawke (Training Day), who plays a pastor of a small church in upstate New York undergoing a crisis of faith after an encounter with an unstable environmental activist and his pregnant wife. The film went on to earn widespread critical praise and an Academy Award nomination for Schrader’s screenplay, while the National Board of Review and AFI both placed it among their top ten films of the year.

Yardie

Director: Idris Elba Elba’s directorial debut is set in 1973 and based on Victor Headley’s novel, following a young boy who, after witnessing his brother’s assassination, is given a home by a powerful Don. Ten years later, he is sent to London where his quest for retribution brings him into conflict with a vicious local gangster.

Skate Kitchen

Director: Crystal Moselle The Wolfpack director made her narrative feature debut at this year’s Sundance with this story about a girl whose life as a lonely suburban teenager changes dramatically when she befriends a group of badass girl skateboarders in New York City. The project later expanded into the HBO series Betty, which premiered in 2020 and followed the same crew of skaters into new storylines.

Half the Picture

Director: Amy Adrion Adrion’s first feature explores the question on the entertainment industry’s lips at this pivotal moment for gender equality in Hollywood: why are there so few female directors? The documentary focuses on successful female directors as they tell the stories of their art, lives, and careers.

An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn

Director: Jim Hosking Making its UK premiere in London next month is Hosking’s comedy about a woman named Lulu Danger (Aubrey Plaza) whose unsatisfying marriage takes a turn for the worse when a dude from her past comes to town to perform at an event called “An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn For One Magical Night Only”.

Never Goin’ Back

Director: Augustine Frizzell Frizzell’s girls-gone-wild flick will make its international premiere at the London Sundance, about two high school dropout BFFs turned waitresses who plan a trip to the beach. However, their house gets robbed, rent’s due, and they’re about to be fired – to avoid eviction, stay out of jail, and get to the beach, they’ve gotta hustle the only way they know how.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Director: Desiree Akhavan Adapted from Emily Danforth’s coming-of-age novel, The Miseducation Of Cameron Post centers around a girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) who is sent to a conversion center after being caught hooking up with the prom queen and goes on to develop mutual feelings for a girl she meets at Sunday school. The film won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Drama at Sundance and later earned an 86 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Hereditary

Director: Ari Aster By far the most talked about horror movie of 2018 is Aster’s terrifying exploration into a family suffering from a fate worse than death as they try to escape the dark fate they’ve inherited. The film has since been recognized as a modern horror classic, and in 2026 Aster confirmed he had written a prequel script that has not yet entered production.

The Tale

Director: Jennifer Fox Following its success across the pond, Fox’s The Tale is headed to Blighty for its UK premiere. Hailed “the mother of all #MeToo movies”, Laura Dern (Jurassic Park) stars as a woman coming to terms with sexual abuse, in this film that is as harrowing as it is touching. Fox later identified her abuser in a 2023 New York Times interview.

Eighth Grade

Director: Bo Burnham Burnham’s dramedy follows an eighth-grader – played by Elsie Fisher (McFarland, USA) – who endures the tidal wave of contemporary suburban adolescence and thus struggles to finish her last week of classes before heading to high school. The debut earned Writers Guild and Directors Guild awards for Burnham and appeared on top-ten lists from both the National Board of Review and AFI.

Critical and Audience Reception Across the Lineup

Several titles from the 2018 London program have maintained strong reputations with both critics and viewers. Skate Kitchen sits at 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes while The Miseducation of Cameron Post reached 86 percent, reflecting broad approval for the coming-of-age stories that anchored the slate. Hereditary quickly became a benchmark for contemporary horror, and both Eighth Grade and First Reformed appeared on multiple year-end top-ten lists that continue to surface in retrospective coverage.

Awards and Accolades

The London screenings previewed films that would collect notable honors in the months and years that followed. The Miseducation of Cameron Post claimed the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, First Reformed earned an Oscar nomination for Paul Schrader’s screenplay, and Eighth Grade brought Writers Guild and Directors Guild recognition to Bo Burnham. These achievements placed the 2018 selection among the stronger Sundance London lineups in recent memory.

From Sundance to Streaming and Series

A handful of the titles found extended life beyond their initial theatrical runs. Skate Kitchen directly inspired the HBO series Betty, which carried the same characters and world into new episodes in 2020. The Tale received an HBO broadcast, and Hereditary has remained widely available on streaming platforms where it continues to draw new viewers and online discussion.

Directors' Later Careers and Reflections

Several filmmakers represented in the 2018 program have kept active profiles since their London premieres. Ari Aster confirmed in 2026 that he had completed a Hereditary prequel script, while Bo Burnham’s success with Eighth Grade opened doors for further projects that built on the observational style introduced in his debut. These trajectories show how the Sundance London slate captured directors at early turning points in their careers.

The 2018 London edition captured a moment when Sundance titles were moving from festival buzz into wider cultural conversations. Many of the films screened at Picturehouse Central have since been revisited in awards roundups, streaming catalogs, and director retrospectives, giving the short run a longer shelf life than its four-day schedule suggested at the time.