Grand Jury Prize Dramatic

This is the list of the winners of the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for dramatic features.

Winners

Year	Winner	Director(s)	Ref.
1978	Girlfriends	Claudia Weill	[1] [2]
	The Whole Shootin' Match (second place)	Eagle Pennell	[3]
1982	Circle of Power	Bobby Roth	[4]
1984	Old Enough	Marisa Silver	[5] [6] [7]
1985	Blood Simple	Joel Coen	[8] [9]
1986	Smooth Talk	Joyce Chopra	[10] [11]
1987	The Trouble with Dick	Gary Walkow	[12]
	Waiting for the Moon	Jill Godmilow	[7]
1988	Heat and Sunlight	Rob Nilsson	[13] [7]
1989	True Love	Nancy Savoca	[14] [7]
1990	Chameleon Street	Wendell B. Harris Jr.	[15] [16]
1991	Poison	Todd Haynes	[17] [18]
1992	In the Soup	Alexandre Rockwell	[19] [7]
1993	Public Access	Bryan Singer	[20]
	Ruby in Paradise	Victor Nunez	[7]
1994	What Happened Was...	Tom Noonan	[21] [22]
1995	The Brothers McMullen	Edward Burns	[23]
	The Young Poisoner's Handbook	Benjamin Ross	[24]
1996	Welcome to the Dollhouse	Todd Solondz	[25] [26]
1997	Sunday	Jonathan Nossiter	[27] [7]
1998	Slam	Marc Levin	[23] [28]
1999	Three Seasons	Tony Bui	[29] [7]
2000	Girlfight	Karyn Kusama	[30] [31]
	You Can Count on Me	Kenneth Lonergan	[32] [7]
2001	The Believer	Henry Bean	[33] [34]
2002	Personal Velocity	Rebecca Miller	[35] [7]
2003	American Splendor	Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini	[36]
2004	Primer	Shane Carruth	[37]
2005	Forty Shades of Blue	Ira Sachs	[7]
2006	Quinceañera	Richard Glatzer	[38] [7]
2007	Padre Nuestro	Christopher Zalla	[7]
2008	Frozen River	Courtney Hunt	[7] [39]
2009	Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire	Lee Daniels	[40] [41]
2010	Winter's Bone	Debra Granik	[42] [39]
2011	Like Crazy	Drake Doremus	[7]
2012	Beasts of the Southern Wild	Benh Zeitlin	[43] [44]
2013	Fruitvale Station	Ryan Coogler	[45]
2014	Whiplash	Damien Chazelle	[46] [7]
2015	Me and Earl and the Dying Girl	Alfonso Gomez-Rejon	[7]
2016	The Birth of a Nation	Nate Parker	[7]
2017	I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore	Macon Blair	[7]
2018	The Miseducation of Cameron Post	Desiree Akhavan	[7] [47]
2019	Clemency	Chinonye Chukwu	[7]
2020	Minari	Lee Isaac Chung	[48] [49]
2021	CODA	Sian Heder	[50] [51]
2022	Nanny	Nikyatu Jusu	[7] [52]
2023	A Thousand and One	A.V. Rockwell	[7]
2024	In the Summers	Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio	[53] [54]
2025	Atropia	Hailey Gates	[55]

International winners

• 2023: Scrapper
• 2024: Sujo
• 2025: Cactus Pears

See also

• Palme d'Or
• Academy Award for Best Picture

References

1. Sundance's spirit found in 'Whole Shootin' Match' - Deseret News
2. Out on DVD: 'The Whole Shootin' Match', 'Akira' and 'FTA' - The New York Times
3. Chris Hicks: Sundance Film Festival's roots go back more than 30 years - Deseret News
4. Sundance Film Festival (1982) - IMDb
5. 1984 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
6. Sundance Film Festival (1984) - IMDb
7. Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize Winner Gallery - Deadline
8. "Coen brothers release debut film, "Blood Simple"". HISTORY. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
9. Matthew Ross. "Sundance Film Festival milestones". Variety. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
10. 1986 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
11. "Smooth Talk (1985) | The Criterion Collection". criterion.com. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
12. 1987 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
13. 1988 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
14. 1989 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
15. 1990 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
16. "Wendell B. Harris Jr.'s Top 10 | Current | The Criterion Collection". criterion.com. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
17. 1991 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
18. "The 10 Most Underrated American Independent Films of The 1990s – Taste of Cinema – Movie Reviews and Classic Movie Lists". tasteofcinema.com. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
19. 1992 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
20. 1993 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
21. 1994 Sundance Film Festival Archived 2012-11-07 at the Wayback Machine sundance.org
22. "'What Happened Was,' "Freedom on My Mind" Win Top Honors at Sundance Festival". AP News. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
23. "'Slam' Locks up Sundance Prize". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
24. "1995 Sundance Film Festival". Sundance Institute . Retrieved August 7, 2022.
25. "The 10 Most Underrated American Independent Films of The 1990s – Page 2 – Taste of Cinema – Movie Reviews and Classic Movie Lists". tasteofcinema.com. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
26. 1996 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
27. 1997 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
28. 1998 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
29. 1999 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
30. 2000 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
31. ""Sex, Lies, and Videotape" and "Girlfight" Among Sundance Films Celebrating September Anniversaries". sundance.org. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
32. "'Girlfight' gets a Sundance KO". Deseret News. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
33. "Sundance: 10 Acclaimed Festival Movies That Have Been Forgotten By Time - Screen Rant". screenrant.com. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
34. 2001 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
35. 2002 Sundance Film Festival sundance.org
36. 2003 Sundance Film Festival Archived July 25, 2019, at the Wayback Machine , Sundance Institute Digital Archive. Accessed July 25, 2019.
37. "'Primer' surprise grand winner at Sundance". today.com. Retrieved December 28, 2022.
38. Kay, Jeremy (May 21, 2006). "Sundance favourite Quinceanera lands at SPC". Screen International . Retrieved February 11, 2015.
39. Sundance falls for another strong woman in Winter's Bone|Winter's Bone|The Guardian
40. Sundance 2009: Precious proves triumphant|Precious|The Guardian
41. NYWIFT at Sundance: In Conversation with Lisa Cortés - New York Women in Film & Television
42. 'Winter's Bone' tops Sundance - The Hollywood Reporter
43. "2012 Sundance Film Festival Announces Awards". Sundance Institute. Archived from the original on January 29, 2012. Retrieved November 13, 2012.
44. Sundance film festival hands prizes to "dark and grim" films|Sundance film festival|The Guardian
45. Olsen, Mark (April 17, 2013). "Sundance winner "Fruitvale" changes name to 'Fruitvale Station'". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved January 11, 2019.
46. "2014 Sundance Film Festival – Archives – Sundance Institute – Awards". sundance.org. Retrieved January 24, 2015.
47. The Miseducation of Cameron Post: Sundance Winner Gets Summer Release|IndieWire
48. Hipes, Patrick (February 2, 2020). "Sundance Film Festival Awards: "Minari" Scores Double Top Honors – The Complete Winners List".
49. Sundance Boosts Women Directors|Current|The Criterion Collection
50. D'Alessandro, Anthony (February 2, 2021). "Sundance Film Festival Awards Winners List: CODA Takes U.S. Grand Jury Prize & Audience Award". Deadline Hollywood . Archived from the original on December 4, 2021. Retrieved February 3, 2021.
51. CODA Is The First Sundance Premiere To Win Best Picture, But Others Have Won Oscars Too|/Film
52. Nanny (2022)|The Criterion Collection
53. Buchanan, Kyle (January 26, 2024). "'In the Summers,' a Father-Daughters Tale, Wins the Top Prize at Sundance". The New York Times .
54. Olsen, Mark (January 26, 2024). "Sundance's top prizes go to 'In the Summers' and 'Porcelain War'". Los Angeles Times.
55. D'Alessandro, Anthony (31 January 2025). "Sundance Film Festival Awards Winners List: 'Atropia' Wins U.S. Grand Jury Prize Dramatic". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved 31 January 2025.