The latest films by returning Park City alums So Yong Kim, Antonio Campos, Jeff Baena and Chad Hartigan; timely documentaries on gun control, abortion rights and the rise of ISIS; and a romantic drama about Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date are among the 65 features set to make their world premieres in the U.S. dramatic and documentary competitions at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Those titles were unveiled today by Sundance director John Cooper and director of programming Trevor Groth, along with the films in the World Cinema dramatic and documentary slates and Next, a sidebar devoted to cutting-edge, low-budget work. Cumulatively, the lineup — consisting of 120 features, 98 of which are world premieres — is indicative of “a great step forward for independent film,” Cooper said. “Everyone’s understanding craft so much better. There’s a changing face to what a documentary is and what it can do in the end. People are experimenting in genre in really interesting ways.” Several of those genre-bending titles will screen in the always-buzzy U.S. dramatic competition, among them “The Free World,” Jason Lew’s thriller-love story starring Boyd Holbrook and Elisabeth Moss; “Swiss Army Man,” Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan’s two-hander about a drifter (Daniel Radcliffe) who befriends a dead body; “White Girl,” Elizabeth Wood’s film about a young woman trying to bail out her drug-dealer b.f.; and Meera Menon’s boiler-room drama “Equity,” touted as the first movie to focus on the women of Wall Street.

Menon and Wood are two of five female directors selected for the 16-film dramatic competition. Actress Clea DuVall makes her directing debut with the couples therapy movie “The Intervention,” while Sian Heder (a writer on “Orange Is the New Black”) will bring her first feature, “Tallulah,” a comedy-drama starring Ellen Page as a young woman trying to protect another woman’s baby by passing it off as her own. So Yong Kim, previously in the dramatic competition with “In Between Days” and “For Ellen,” will return with “Lovesong,” a relationship drama starring Jena Malone and Riley Keough.

Offering further encouraging signs of diversity in the dramatic competition, in front of and behind the camera, are “The Birth of a Nation,” writer-director-star Nate Parker’s portrait of the slave rebellion leader Nat Turner; “Southside With You,” Richard Tanne’s account of the Obamas’ first date in Chicago in 1989; and “Spa Night,” writer-director Andrew Ahn’s tale of a closeted young Korean-American exploring his sexuality at Korean spas in Los Angeles.

“I think we’re at a place where audiences are really telling us what they’re up for,” Cooper added, “and I think they’re up for a lot more than we’re giving them a lot of the time.”

Also set to screen in the dramatic competition: “As You Are,” Miles Joris-Peyrafitte’s tale of three teenagers as filtered through the prism of a police investigation; “Other People,” Chris Kelly’s drama starring Jesse Plemons as a struggling gay comedy writer returning to the family homestead; and “Goat,” Andrew Neel’s drama of male identity set against the college fraternity scene.

Jeff Baena, in competition last year with his debut, “Life After Beth,” will return with his sophomore feature, “Joshy,” while Chad Hartigan, who scored a critical hit with his 2013 Next entry, “This Is Martin Bonner,” graduates to the big leagues with “Morris From America.” Antonio Campos, in competition with 2012’s “Simon Killer,” will be back with “Christine,” starring Rebecca Hall as Christine Chubbuck, the TV broadcast reporter who infamously committed suicide on the air in 1974.

In a stroke of programming synchronicity, the Chubbuck story is also at the heart of Robert Greene’s “Kate Plays Christine,” one of 16 films making their premieres in the U.S. documentary competition. Due to subject matter alone, the most attention-grabbing nonfiction entries are likely to include “Jim,” Brian Oakes’ portrait of the ISIS-slain American journalist James Foley; “Newtown,” Kim A. Snyder’s look at the people of Newtown, Conn., in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shootings; “Trapped,” Dawn Porter’s film about abortion clinics coming under fire; and “Audrie & Daisy,” Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk’s look at online bullying among teenagers.

The documentary competition will also feature a number of profiles, such as Jeff Feuerzeig’s “Author: The JT LeRoy Story,” about the faux literary personality; Clay Tweel’s “Gleason,” about former NFL player Steve Gleason’s struggle with ALS; and Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s “Weiner,” about the scandal-plagued political career of Anthony Weiner.

Groth said festival-goers should expect a “wild range of tones and styles” in the World Cinema dramatic competition, which will unspool 12 titles including Belgian director Felix van Groeningen’s “Belgica,” about two brothers who start a successful bar; Indian filmmaker Q’s “Brahman Naman,” about a Bangalore U. quiz team taking a cross-India road trip; and “The Lure,” a musical-horror-love story from Polish director Agnieszka Smoczynska.

The announcement of the Sundance 2016 lineup coincides with a flurry of awards buzz for titles from this year’s edition, such as “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” “The End of the Tour,” “Mississippi Grind” and “99 Homes.” Two of the festival’s biggest critical hits, “Tangerine” and “James White,” made their premieres in Next, suggesting that plenty of eyes will be focused on that sidebar in January. Among the titles set to bow there are “Dark Night,” Tim Sutton’s drama loosely based on the movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colo.; “The Land,” Steven Caple Jr.’s portrait of teenage skateboarders in Cleveland, Ohio; and “First Girl I Loved,” a high-school lesbian romance directed by Kerem Sanga (“The Young Kieslowski”).

The festival will forego a single opening-night film and kick off with screenings of three competition titles: “Other People” (U.S. dramatic), “Belgica” (World Cinema dramatic) and Kevin Macdonald’s “S​ky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-­Qiang​” (World Cinema documentary).

The Sundance Film Festival, which runs Jan. 21-31, will announce its New Frontier lineup on Thursday and its Premieres and Documentary Premieres films on Monday. The nine films selected for the festival’s Midnight program were announced on Nov. 22.

The full lineup: