LOS ANGELES — What will art house theaters be playing in 2014? Sundance programmers on Wednesday threw their weight behind a cluster of new films that largely explore race and messy families, two tried-and-true indie themes.
But their competition lineup will also include an unusual turn into the horror genre.
The 30th annual Sundance Film Festival, scheduled for Jan. 16 to 26 in Park City, Utah, will showcase 117 movies in a dozen categories, including the rare one aimed at children. That breadth ensures enormous cinematic diversity: The festival includes a drama starring Kristen Stewart as a reluctant prison guard (“Camp X-Ray”), a black-and-white zombie movie shot partly in Persian (“A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night”) and a bawdy middle-aged romp through nightclubs in Reykjavik, Iceland (“Land Ho!”).
But the festival’s heart beats around the 16 American-made features that compete for grand jury and audience prizes. This is where distributors tend to discover potential Oscar contenders like “Beasts of the Southern Wild.” At the very least, Sundance’s competition films can count on finding their way to broader audiences; almost all of them typically sell to distributors.
Entries hoping to hit the jackpot in January include “Dear White People,” a tongue-in-cheek comedy that grew out of a Twitter feed and centers on an African-American-themed party put together by white college students. “Song One” stars Anne Hathaway as a woman who throws herself into the Brooklyn music scene after an accident that leaves her brother comatose.
“The Skeleton Twins” features Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig as estranged twins who coincidentally cheat death on the same day. Aaron Paul (“Breaking Bad”) stars as an emotionally absent young father in “Hellion.”
In all, Sundance’s United States competition lineup includes four films with racial currents and seven that explore family dysfunction. The curve balls are three movies — “The Sleepwalker,” “Jamie Marks Is Dead” and “Life After Beth” (starring Aubrey Plaza as an undead woman in love with a living man) — that pivot on horror, a genre not typically included in the festival’s higher-brow sections.
“Over all, we’re seeing films that are of much higher quality,” said John Cooper, Sundance’s director. “We think a lot of that is coming from technology, which has freed filmmakers from limitations, including financial ones. You can do special effects now.”
“A lot of the films in our earlier years were based on limitations — the look and feel was gritty, the writing is what drove them,” he said, adding, “Now we’re seeing a different kind of visual boldness.”
Mr. Cooper and Trevor Groth, Sundance’s programming chief, will slowly unveil their out-of-competition selections over the coming week. These sections include the more star-driven and commercially minded premieres section; midnight thrillers, horror films and comedies; “spotlight” movies that have already played at other festivals; and resolutely experimental films.
Documentaries are one of Sundance’s strengths, and Mr. Cooper and Mr. Groth on Wednesday named 16 to play in a nonfiction area of competition. One of the most notable comes from Jesse Moss, known for the 2003 film “Speedo,” a look at the world of demolition derbies. In his new film, “The Overnighters,” Mr. Moss examines a pastor’s efforts to help roughnecks working in North Dakota oil fields.
Other competition documentaries will examine the effect of music on Alzheimer’s patients (“Alive Inside”), childhood obesity (“Fed Up”) and the suicide of Aaron Swartz, an online political activist (“The Internet’s Own Boy”).
Many of the narrative competition entries at January’s festival are from people who are new to directing but have significant experience in more populist entertainment.
“God’s Pocket,” a hard-boiled mob movie starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, is the directorial debut of the actor John Slattery, perhaps best known for his role as Roger Sterling on “Mad Men.” “Infinitely Polar Bear,” a ’70s-era drama starring Mark Ruffalo as a bipolar father, comes from a first-time director, Maya Forbes, who wrote the DreamWorks Animation movie “Monsters vs. Aliens.”
As the pre-eminent showcase for American independent cinema, Sundance has worked hard in recent years to provide opportunities to female filmmakers. But sharply fewer projects directed by women were chosen for next year’s United States narrative competition: four, down from eight at the last festival.
Female directors, however, will dominate a relatively new category called Next, which is devoted to 11 experimental and low-budget movies. The roster includes films with more provocative themes: “Obvious Child” is an abortion comedy, and “The Foxy Merkins” focuses on lesbian hookers, a topic that has become a Sundance perennial.
Mr. Cooper and Mr. Groth always warn against scrutinizing their lineup too carefully for trends, noting that they are at the mercy of what is submitted. This time, 4,057 feature-length films were offered, on par with last year.