The Eccles Theatre in Park City hosted its final Sundance Film Festival fiction premiere in January 2026, a milestone revisited in a new Sundance Institute recap.

The Oct. 22 Sundance Institute retrospective recounts the premiere of "The Only Living Pickpocket in New York," directed by Noah Segan and produced by Rian Johnson. The screening brought together John Turturro, Steve Buscemi and Giancarlo Esposito, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt also stopping by.

The screening marked one of the last premiere milestones in Park City's decades-long relationship with Sundance. The festival moves to Boulder, Colorado, in 2027.

Segan and Johnson have a history at Sundance stretching back 21 years. Segan attended the festival with the cast and crew of Johnson's debut feature, "Brick," and has appeared in each of Johnson's subsequent films.

At the Eccles lectern, Segan reflected on his return to the festival. "You really can go home again, huh?" he said, according to the institute. Johnson photographed his longtime collaborator from the audience.

During the post-screening discussion, Buscemi, Turturro and Esposito recalled films they had worked on together in New York.

Buscemi also remembered bringing "Reservoir Dogs" to the Sundance Labs with Quentin Tarantino. The film later appeared at the 1992 festival alongside "In the Soup," which won the Grand Jury Prize.

Esposito, a Sundance Labs alumnus, turned the conversation toward the late Robert Redford, the festival's founder, who died in September 2025.

"This festival has changed my life," Esposito said, according to the recap.

He credited Redford with encouraging filmmakers to tell their own stories and experiment with their work. Esposito described the importance of sharing independent films with audiences who could recognize their own lives on screen.

The audience applauded before Esposito continued reflecting on how Redford's vision had influenced his creative life.

The evening also brought together several generations of filmmakers whose careers have intersected with Sundance. For Segan and Johnson, the screening linked their early festival experience with a return to the same event more than two decades later.

The 2027 Sundance Film Festival will run Jan. 21–31 in Boulder, according to the Sundance Institute's festival announcement. Its departure ends more than four decades of the festival's presence in Utah.

Park City's independent film community is beginning another chapter. The nonprofit Park City Film is organizing an inaugural Park City Film Festival from Oct. 23–25 at the Jim Santy Auditorium in the Park City Library.

The new event features independent films and discussions with filmmakers, continuing film programming in a venue that also served Sundance audiences for decades.