Searchlight's "In the Blink of an Eye," from Pixar's Andrew Stanton, Wins Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at Sundance

Searchlight Pictures' In the Blink of an Eye, from Pixar veteran Andrew Stanton, has won the 2026 Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

What's Happening:

• Part of Sundance's Science-In-Film initiative, the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize is selected by a jury of film and science professionals and presented to "an outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character."
• The 2026 jury for the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize included director Sophie Barthes (Cold Souls), Neuroscientist and Clinical Psychologist Dr. Heather Berlin, Astrophysicist and Nobel Prize in Physics winner Dr. Andrea Ghez, producer Ari Handel (The Whale), and screenwriter Nicole Perlman (Guardians of the Galaxy). 
• In addition, the recipients of three artist grants to support projects currently in development were announced: Sonia Kennebeck and Tetiana Anderson received the Sloan Episodic Fellowship for Speak for the Dead: Excited Delirium, Daeil Kim was granted the Sloan Development Fellowship for Stem, and Alan Fischer and Jonathan Cuchacovich were awarded the Sloan Commissioning Grant for Cyborg Beast.

• The jury said they selected In The Blink of An Eye “For its deft, moving depiction of three distinctive time periods separated by thousands of years but linked by an underlying human search for meaning and continuity, and for its expansive portrayal of science and scientists striving for progress and a shared, common humanity."
• Written by Colby Day (Spaceman), In the Blink of an Eye stars Rashida Jones, Kate McKinnon, Daveed Diggs, Jorge Vargas, and Tanaya Beatty and centers on three stories, including one in which a Neanderthal family, displaced from their home, struggles to survive, protect the children, and use primitive tools. In the present day, Claire (Jones), a driven post-grad anthropologist studying ancient proto-human remains, begins a relationship with a fellow student, Greg (Diggs). And two centuries later, on a spaceship bound for a distant planet, Coakley (McKinnon) and a sentient onboard computer confront a disease afflicting the ship’s oxygen-producing plants. The artful, poetic way the film’s storylines intersect creates a profound, philosophical meditation on how we experience love, loss (of parents and children), mortality and the need for connection — with each other, the natural world, and technology — regardless of our time.
• A longtime Pixar veteran going back to 1990, Stanton is best known as the director of Finding Nemo, WALL-E, and Finding Dory and is directing the upcoming Toy Story 5.
• In the Blink of an Eye is Stanton's second live-action feature film, after 2012's John Carter. In the years since, he's also directed several episodes of live-action television for series like Stranger Things, Better Call Saul, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Legion, and For All Mankind.
• In the Blink of an Eye debuts February 27 on Hulu.

What They're Saying:

• Doron Weber, Vice President and Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation: “We are delighted to honor Andrew Stanton’s In The Blink of An Eye, a sweeping saga with three storylines spanning thousands of years that dramatizes the value of science and the abiding human quest for progress and meaning. We are also immensely pleased to award three screenwriting fellowships to outstanding writers — Jonathan Cuchacovich, Alan Fischer, Sonia Kennebeck, Tetiana Anderson, and Daeil Kim — who portray the conflicts and challenges faced by scientists and engineers working outside the mainstream. This year’s winners are wonderful additions to the nationwide Sloan film program and further proof of the vitality of our landmark two-decade partnership with Sundance Institute.”