More than 100 full-length features are being screened at the 11-day festival and among the stars appearing will be Al Pacino, Katie Holmes, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Spacey, Tobey Maguire, Paul Rudd, Demi Moore and Sigourney Weaver.
Sundance, which takes place in the relatively small winter ski-resort of Park City in Utah, has its own unique charms for stars accustomed to the international film festival circuit.
Paul Giamatti, who'll be starring in the Sundance film Win Win, says what sets the festival apart is "the insanity of it - the fact that everybody is crammed into a little street in the middle of Utah".
With some 20 British films in the line-up there's a strong UK presence at the festival this year - Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Hugh Dancy, Felicity Jones, Alex Kingston and Freddie Highmore are among the British actors in Sundance films.
British directors are making an impact too. Kevin Macdonald, who directed The Last King of Scotland, has masterminded Life in a Day, one of the most ambitious and eagerly awaited Sundance films.
It's a global cinematic project, supported by YouTube, in which a feature film has been built from user-generated content drawn from 80,000 people. All the images seen in the film were shot on a single day, 24 July 2010.
Magical kingdom
Another British director, James Marsh, has also been the subject of pre-festival talk with his documentary, Project Nim.
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I'm excited about our history of seeing a film-maker come with a short, five, 10 years ago, and then come back with a feature”
End Quote John Cooper Sundance programming director
Marsh, who won an Oscar in 2009 for his film Man On Wire, explores an experiment which aimed to prove that a chimpanzee - if raised like a human baby - could communicate through sign language.
There's also interest in Becoming Chaz, co-produced by British film-maker Fenton Bailey. The documentary chronicles Cher's daughter Chastity and her transition to becoming a man through gender reassignment.
Sundance is guided by director and actor Robert Redford - one of the festival's founding fathers.
To many independent film-makers he has created a magical kingdom in the snowy mountains of Utah.
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