Everything you need to know about Charli XCX’s three films at Sundance

Triple feature at Sundance.

Charli XCX has arrived at Sundance just as her most viral era is starting to run out of steam. Instead of celebrating it or trying to stretch it out, she has chosen to turn it into material for fiction through The Moment, while I Want Your Sex and The Gallerist represent the other two sides of her presence at the festival. Taken together, the festival (and cinema itself) becomes a way for her to look back, laugh at herself and gain some distance from her own myth.

The Moment: the end of brat summer as satire

The centrepiece is The Moment, a mockumentary directed by Aidan Zamiri. In it, Charli plays a fictionalised version of herself while preparing for her first stadium tour. At the same time, she faces the pressure of the industry and the difficulty of letting go of an era that has already become a brand. In this sense, the film constantly plays with the line between reality and fiction. Part of the cast appear as exaggerated versions of themselves, including Rosanna Arquette, Rachel Sennott, Julia Fox and even Kylie Jenner.

As Charli explained in Variety, the idea came about after she turned down the offer to make a traditional tour documentary. She saw it as a way of artificially extending the album’s commercial life and only agreed to the project if she could subvert the format. Zamiri also told Variety that the film explores how something deeply personal can become so widely consumed that it ends up as a product for brands.

During the presentation in Park City, Charli said she now wants the brat era to be over. According to Deadline, her intention is to pivot away from it, not out of rejection, but out of creative necessity.

Beyond the screenings, Charli has been documenting her time at Sundance on TikTok, sharing videos of her arrival at the festival with the cast of The Moment. In one of the most talked-about clips, she appears alongside several members of the ensemble, including Kylie Jenner, reinforcing the mix of self-parody and pop culture that runs through the film.

I Want Your Sex: with Gregg Araki, queer indie icon

The second major stop is I Want Your Sex, marking Gregg Araki’s return to feature filmmaking after a decade. Araki is a key figure of 1990s queer indie cinema, known for films like The Doom Generation and Mysterious Skin.

Here, Charli is part of a high-profile ensemble led by Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffman, with additional cast members including Mason Gooding and Chase Sui Wonders. Her role places her in a project far removed from the meta tone of The Moment, closer instead to cult cinema and the erotic imagery that has always defined Araki’s work.

On the red carpet, the director joked about the “shared Sundance” between Charli and Olivia Wilde, highlighting the media weight of both stars at this year’s festival, as reported by Deadline.

The Gallerist: the third part of the triptych

The journey is completed by The Gallerist, directed by Cathy Yan, which marks Charli’s third appearance at the festival. Although her role is not as central as in The Moment, her presence once again places her within an auteur-driven project, this time alongside a top-tier cast.

The film stars Natalie Portman and also features Jenna Ortega in a leading role, as well as Sterling K. Brown and Zach Galifianakis. Sharing the screen with performers of this calibre reinforces the idea that Charli is not at Sundance as a one-off guest, but adding another distinct register to her growing film career.

Rather than repeating the same type of character, she moves between very different creative worlds, consolidating a relationship with cinema that goes beyond the anecdotal.

Next chapter: Wuthering Heights

And her 2026 doesn’t end with Sundance. Charli has composed original music for the new adaptation of Wuthering Heights, directed by Emerald Fennell. The project will be accompanied by an album of the same title, Wuthering Heights, announced for 13 February 2026, coinciding with the film’s cinema release.

In another video shared by Charli XCX, she jokes in front of a cinema marquee showing two films she is involved in: The Moment and Wuthering Heights. A very direct way of playing with her current professional moment and turning promotion into part of the same meta narrative that defines this stage of her career.

Charli XCX shows the other side of fame in The Moment trailer.