18 Movies That Could Sell Big

On a recent Screen Talk podcast, producers Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman said they specifically tried to avoid overhyping T-Street’s film “Fair Play” before it sold to Netflix for $20 million and became Sundance 2023’s biggest sale. Elsewhere, Lily Gladstone took time at the IndieWire Honors gala to champion her competition title “Fancy Dance,” which to this day inexplicably hasn’t sold despite all the praise around it in last year’s competition slate.

Turns out, it was “Fancy Dance,” not “Fair Play,” that we included in last year’s Hot Sales Titles gallery. That shows how unpredictable Sundance can be, and why it’s so exciting. Surprise breakout hits pop every year. Movies with big star power don’t get scooped up by a streamer and give the little guys a chance to make a bid. And titles with all the buzz lose a lot of steam once audiences have finally seen them, or because of financial complications that reveal the cold, hard truth of the business.

We don’t have a crystal ball for what will sell big (or at all), but we can report on the movies that agents, publicists, producers, and distributors — all of whom have a vested interest in what they’re drumming up excitement for — keep telling us about. It’s another robust year, in which over 60 movies making their premieres are coming in without distribution. Still, that could lead to a lot of sales and a lot movies that never find homes.

Some will seem obvious, like…