As Sundance Plots Its Move to Boulder, 64 Enchanting Throwback Photos From the Festival

Since Robert Redford founded the Sundance Film Festival—the free-thinking, boundary-pushing showcase that takes over Utah’s snowy, picturesque Park City every January—some four decades ago, it has attracted some of the world’s most lauded independent filmmakers, as well as the Hollywood heavyweights who populate their releases. However, unlike its glitzier European rivals, Cannes and Venice, Sundance is gloriously laid-back—think bare faces, chunky knits, and puffy coats instead of all-out glamour and floor-length ballgowns, and skiing and snowball fights in lieu of glittering galas.

But after 40 years in the mountains, news has arrived that Boulder, Colorado, is to be the festival’s new home beginning in 2027. It’s been a little while coming, what with Sundance bringing more than 20,000 people a year to Park City, an otherwise sleepy ski town. Both bigger and more walkable, Boulder also has the benefits of a “small-town charm with an engaged community, distinctive natural beauty, and a vibrant arts scene,” as per a Sundance press statement. (Salt Lake City, which already hosts a few events for Sundance every year, and Cincinnati had also been considered for the move.)

Park City will be left with the memories of countless notable premieres, from Get Out to Reservoir Dogs and Call Me By Your Name, as well as some of-their-era celebrity moments, fashions, afterparties, and team-ups we forgot. Below, we revisit the best throwback photos from Sundance in the ’90s and early aughts.