Whatever your cinematic taste, there is almost certainly a film or two for you at the forthcoming Toronto International Film Festival – the 49th edition of which runs from Sept. 5 through 15. And while that smorgasbord of hundreds of films is thrilling, it can also be overwhelming and difficult to navigate.
Is the best strategy to get ahead of the pack and see blockbusters now before they open wide in coming months? (Bragging rights!) Or is one better served by focusing on smaller or foreign titles that may never play theatres again?
Both of the above are solid strategies – particularly when salted with some random picks that could yield surprise dividends – though any filmgoing agenda is sure to be partly determined by more prosaic factors like time, money, and access.
With that in mind, we offer a discerning slate of best bets based on reliable insider info and loosely organized by category, from meditations on aging to stories inspired by real life to Canadian and international offerings.
Films Depicting Empowered Aging
The Last Showgirl (Special Presentations, U.S.A.)
Pamela Anderson, 57, has been enjoying a cultural reappraisal, thanks in part to the mini-series Pam & Tommy, which cast her in a highly compassionate light. Could this drama from director Gia Coppola – the grandchild of Francis Ford Coppola, whose long-gestating sci-fi epic Megalopolis is also at TIFF – do for Anderson what The Whale did for fellow Canuck Brendan Fraser? Anderson plays a career Vegas showgirl about to be unemployed and in need of a new life that may or may not include sequins and/or her estranged daughter. Jamie Lee Curtis, 65, and Dave Bautista, 55, co-star.
The Last of the Sea Women (TIFF Docs, U.S.A.)
American director Sue Kim’s documentary spotlights the legendary haenyeo, South Korean fisherwomen – many now in their 60s and 70s – who free-dive to harvest seafood for their communities, but whose way of life is increasingly threatened by pollution and climate change. Urgent and inspiring.
The Salt Path (Special Presentations, U.K.)
When lousy luck befalls a couple of the cusp of retirement, thwarting their plans, they hit the Salt Path, a 630-mile walk along the English coast, in this Wild for the midlife set. Based on the 2018 memoir by Raynor Winn, it stars the redoubtable Gillian Anderson, 56, and Jason Isaacs, 61.
The Room Next Door (Special Presentations, Spain)
Based on a bestselling novel by Sigrid Nunez, The Room Next Door is the brilliant 74-year-old Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut. The complex film follows two old friends at a crossroads – played by Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, both 63 – who reconnect as one battles a life-threatening illness.
Big Names, Big Hype
The Substance (Midnight Madness, U.K., U.S.A., France)
Aging is a privilege, though not if denigrated by a judgmental, youth-obsessed society. When a starlet approaching her 50th birthday (played by Demi Moore, 61) turns to an experimental drug to make herself younger, things seriously do not go to plan. Margaret Qualley plays Moore’s fresher, nastier self in this screamingly unhinged feature from French director Coralie Fargeat, whose 2017 payback thriller Revenge is still spinning heads. See also Max Minghella’s Shell (Special Presentations, U.S.A.) with Kate Hudson, 45, and Elisabeth Moss, 42 in a similar plotline but with a less bananas treatment.
Oh, Canada (Gala Presentations, U.S.A.)
On the cusp of his demise, a mature Canadian-based documentarian and long-ago American draft dodger deconstructs his complicated past as the cameras roll. An all-star ensemble cast of Uma Thurman, 54, Michael Imperioli, 58, and Jacob Elordi support this marquee re-teaming of American Gigolo star Richard Gere, 75, and director Paul Schrader, 78, in a drama based on Russell Banks’ 2021 novel, Foregone.
Nightbitch (Special Presentations, U.S.A)
Could this adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s fabulously original 2021 novel, directed by the mighty Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?), finally be the film that earns Amy Adams, 50, her well-deserved acting Oscar after six previous nominations? Adams plays a woman in love with her kid but ground down by the mechanics and expectations of motherhood who finds unexpected refuge with canines at night. And … it turns out she may be morphing into one.
Keynote Directors, Killer Plots
Conclave (Special Presentations, U.S.A., U.K.)
Conclave, from filmmaker Edward Berger (2022’s shattering All Quiet on the Western Front) is terrifically captivating by just about any metric. When the Pope dies, a cardinal (Ralph Fiennes, 61, also at TIFF ‘24 as Odysseus in The Return) finds himself embroiled in conspiratorial politics amid the highly secretive ritual of selecting the new pontiff. Stanley Tucci, 63, John Lithgow, 78, and Isabella Rossellini, 72, co-star.
Eden (Gala Presentations, U.S.A.)
Not entirely unfairly, director Ron Howard, 70, has been pegged as the go-to guy for sturdy but safe films even if his stuff is immensely watchable (see Backdraft, Cinderella Man, Rush). In what’s intriguingly billed as an un-Howard-like “historical thriller,” we follow the true story of disenchanted Europeans – Jude Law, 51, and The Crown’s Vanessa Kirby – who relocate to an island in the Galápagos in the early 20th century only, as the film’s TIFF write-up notes, “to discover that hell is other people.”
Hard Truths (Special Presentations, U.K.)
English director Mike Leigh, 81, makes extraordinary films about ordinary people. For Hard Truths, he reunites with his Oscar-nominated Secrets & Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste, 57, for a story about a contemporary Black family in London coming apart at the seams, mostly because of the bad-tempered behaviour of its matriarch (Jean-Baptiste) – the roots of which fire the plot.
Worthy of Praise
Queer (Special Presentations, Italy, U.S.A.)
This adaptation of William Burroughs’ second novel, written in the early 1950s but not published until 1985, stars former James Bond Daniel Craig, 56, here fearlessly playing a gay man living in 1940s-era Mexico who decides to journey into the Amazon in search of hallucinogens and maybe some action with his handsome, bi-curious sidekick. Not a martini in sight. Director Luca Guadagnino, 53, makes visually sumptuous films (see Call Me by Your Name, A Bigger Splash, I Am Love). This will be gorgeous.
Bonjour Tristesse (Discovery, Canada, Germany)
Speaking of gorgeous, the feature directorial debut of Montreal writer Durga Chew-Bose, set in the south of France in summertime, is the latest adaptation of Françoise Sagan’s famed novel, previously brought to the screen by Otto Preminger in 1958. When young Cécile seeks to control her widowed playboy father’s love life, things go very south very fast. Chloë Sevigny, 49, Claes Bang, 57, and Lily McInerny star.
All We Imagine as Light (Special Presentations, France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg)
Two nurses working in India – one young, single, and smitten, the other at midlife with an absent husband – leave the city for a seaside holiday where their differences pale against their similarities in the feature debut from Payal Kapadia – who won the Grand Prix award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered.
Inspired by Real-Life
Saturday Night (Special Presentations, U.S.A.)
Ahead of Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary next year, Canadian-born director Jason Reitman sneaks viewers backstage into the frenzied lead-up to the show’s very first episode with actors playing young versions of then-unknowns Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, fellow Canadian Lorne Michaels, et al. Making its world premiere at TIFF, the film opens wide on October 11, 49 years to the day of that game-changing debut.
Will & Harper (Gala Presentations, U.S.A.)
A square-peg road movie – though one threaded with humour and heart, and a hit at Sundance, where it premiered – the doc spotlights pals and Saturday Night Live alumni, actor Will Ferrell, 57, and writer Harper Steele, as they traverse the U.S. following Steele’s gender transition, taking the nation’s temperature along the way.
The Penguin Lessons (Gala Presentations, Spain, U.K.)
Comedian, actor and writer Steve Coogan, 58, plays a British boarding schoolteacher in 70s-era Argentina who befriends a distressed but grateful penguin. This dramedy, which looks charming, is adapted from the 2015 memoir by Tom Michell.
Fabulous and Foreign
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (Special Presentations, Zambia, United Kingdom, Ireland)
The second feature from Welsh-Zambian director Rungano Nyoni — whose debut, I Am Not a Witch, was a breakout hit at TIFF 2017 — arrives on a wave of critical acclaim from Cannes where its black humour and magic realism elevated a complex story about a family’s funeral preparations for an uncle who was a sexual predator.
The Quiet Ones (Discovery, Denmark)
Based on the bananas true story of Denmark’s biggest-ever robbery in 2008 – with US$10 million snatched, sending 14 people to prison – this nail–biter heist thriller from Danish director Frederik Louis Hviid “highlights the steely professionalism of men operating outside the law.” Sign us up.
Harbin (Gala Presentations, South Korea)
Also based on a true story, this epic, lushly–filmed historical drama places Korea’s battle for independence from Japan in the early 20th century in the crosshairs, depicting acts of heroism and colonialism with real-life activist Ahn Jung-geun (played by Hyun Bin) at the centre of the story. Woo Min-ho (Inside Men) directs.
A Winnipeg Triumvirate
Universal Language (Centrepiece, Canada)
When it screened earlier this year at Cannes – where it snagged the inaugural Directors’ Fortnight audience award – Canadian director Matthew Rankin’s deeply surreal comedic drama became the film people couldn’t shut up about … even as they struggled to summarize its plot, which features an alternate Winnipeg where French and Farsi are spoken. This is Canada’s entry for Best International Feature at next year’s Oscars, so see it ahead of others in the office pool!
Rumours (Special Presentations, Canada, Germany)
A starry ensemble cast including Cate Blanchett, 55, and Alicia Vikander highlight co-directors Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson’s satirical and bizarro dramedy about a G7 meeting in Germany that goes savagely sideways. Partly filmed in Hungary and the filmmakers’ Winnipeg hometown, Rumours was co-produced by Ari Aster (Midsommar, Hereditary), buttressing its weird factor.
Takin’ Care of Business (Gala Presentations, U.S.A.)
A late but exciting addition to the TIFF schedule, this documentary about Winnipeg born-and-bred musician Randy Bachman, 80, and his chart-topping career with The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive – propelled by the global search for his beloved lost 1957 Gretsch guitar – is highlighted by personal stories and archival footage. Bonus: the film’s September 12 Roy Thomson Hall premiere features a performance from Bachman and son and Tal Bachman.
This Beat Goes On: Musicians Still Rocking
Elton John: Never Too Late (Gala Presentations, U.S.A.)
It’s hard to believe that never-before-seen archival footage and photographs of Elton John exist. After all, if any rock star life has been forensically examined both in documentary and feature form, it’s his. And yet this entry, co-directed by John’s Toronto-born husband, David Furnish, and documentarian R.J. Cutler tantalizingly promises new content for fans as the 77-year-old songwriting and performing dynamo reviews a career for which the word “spectacular” seems wholly inadequate.
Paul Anka: His Way (Special Presentations, U.S.A.)
At 83, Ottawa-born hitmaker and onetime heartthrob Paul Anka has a whale of a past to dissect, which he does with gusto in this highly candid documentary that unpacks his many songwriting achievements as well as his personal life.
In a similar vein, the documentary Blue Road – The Edna O’Brien Story also at this year’s TIFF, likewise features its protagonist telling their own story – in this case the Irish novelist who died in July at age 93, two months shy of her film’s world premiere.
Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe (Gala Presentations, U.K.)
Most people know the acclaimed Italian tenor as the owner of a massive voice with scant regard for boundaries. Lesser known is Andrea Bocelli’s childhood in Tuscany, which included the congenital glaucoma that claimed his sight at age 12, and his many diverse career victories. Archival and concert footage paint the picture of a man who, at 65, remains at the top of his game.
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