Iron your red carpet outfits and dig out your autograph books; the Toronto International Film Festival is back. The 50th iteration of “the people’s festival” is due to kick off on Thursday, Sept. 4, with a 291-title slate of some of the biggest movies coming to a screen near you.
But there’s more than the Frankensteins, Smashing Machines and Steves — buzzy titles that have already seen debuts at other film festivals around the world.
For those who want to be in the first-ever festival audience, here’s a list of some of the most exciting TIFF offerings making their worldwide premiere right here in Canada.
Rental Family
Returning to TIFF as a performer for the first time since The Whale launched the “Brenaissance” of his career, Brendan Fraser’s newest project Rental Family is building just as much buzz.
Somewhat mirroring his mid-career slump, Fraser plays an out-of-work actor, limping through life in Japan with a serious case of imposter syndrome. His big break doesn’t come from Hollywood. Instead, his life changes when he’s cast as a “sad American” at an actual funeral. From there springs a series of in-person acting jobs with real-life people throughout Tokyo; and “through much trial and error, Philip is forced to face inwards when he realizes that the role of a lifetime is being himself.”
The Hikari-directed offbeat comedy could shape up to be a crowd favourite, an awards season darling, or even an Oscars vehicle for Canada’s one and only recipient of the Academy’s best actor award. Rental Family premieres on Saturday, Sept. 6.
Nuremberg
One of many WWII films premiering at TIFF this year, Nuremberg charts the fallout immediately after Germany surrendered. Dubbed the Nuremberg trials after the city in which they took place, the first-of-their-kind proceedings were designed by Allied countries to decide the legal culpability of military and governmental leaders in dragging the world into the largest international conflict in human history. How successful they were depends on whom you ask.
But instead of using invented characters to probe the mentality of everyday Nazis — as 1961’s Judgement at Nuremberg opted for — James Vanderbilt’s attempt at the story focuses squarely on the high profile Hermann Göring.
Pitting Rami Malek as U.S. army psychologist Douglas Kelley against Russell Crowe’s Göring, Nuremberg documents the Allied effort to expose the Nazis’ true nature to the public. Based on Jack El-Hai’s 2013 non-fiction book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, Nuremberg looks equal parts historical drama and psychological thriller. It premieres Sunday, Sept. 7 at TIFF before a November release.
Bad Apples
On paper, Saoirse Ronan’s TIFF flick may sound tame, but the excitement around Bad Apples is anything but.
Playing a hard-done-by elementary school teacher, Ronan’s Marja is “plagued by the epic bad behaviour of one extremely foul mouthed and disruptive child, Danny.” But when Danny suddenly stops showing up for school, and both his parents and the wider community don’t seem concerned — but actually overjoyed — Marja is seemingly the only one left to wonder what happened to him.
Written by relative newcomer Jess O’Kane and marking the English language debut for director Jonatan Etzler, buzz has been building around Bad Apples since Ronan’s participation was announced back in 2023. It’s set for its world premiere on Saturday, Sept. 6.
Wasteman
A bit of a wildcard pick, Wasteman has been absent from many TIFF primers. But the U.K. prison drama helmed by first-time director Cal McMau has all the markings for a sleeper hit at the festival.
The film stars Alien: Romulus breakout David Jonsson as a low-key inmate forced into an impossible choice by a new cellmate. Dee (Tom Blyth) is a new prisoner who upsets the peaceful order Taylor (Jonsson) has established for himself. With an early parole deal on offer, he has to decide whether or not to follow Dee’s direction into a maelstrom of violence — and along with it, a route to the top of the pile inside.
Given everything from 1979’s Scum to 2013’s Starred Up, the U.K. already has an impressive tradition of prison films. But Wasteman promises to subvert the conventions of the prison drama — all while positioning Jonsson to break out into the mainstream; the British actor has turns in Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk and the Colman Domingo directed Scandalous (also starring Sydney Sweeney) scheduled for release.
Wasteman debuts at TIFF on Friday, Sept. 5.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Just like the first film in 2019 and the second in 2022, Rian Johnson’s third instalment in the Knives Out trilogy is getting its world premiere at TIFF.
Right up there with Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein as the most anticipated movie at the festival, Wake Up Dead Man brings back Daniel Craig as detective Benoit Blanc.
This time, though, the story is apparently a bit darker. Remixing a story from Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in Rue Morgue, it unites Josh Brolin, Josh O’Connor, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner and Kerry Washington in a mystery surrounding murder in a small town.
Otherwise we know basically nothing about this movie — any insight into the actual plot of the movie will drop at its world premiere on Saturday, Sept. 6.
But Johnson did offer a hint on social media — apparently the title offers “a little hint of where it’s going.”
Mile End Kicks
This year one of the most anticipated movies at TIFF is also Canadian.
Former film critic Chandler Levack kind of exploded onto the scene with her debut feature I Like Movies in 2022.
Now she’s back with a movie about a music critic moving from Toronto to Montreal to write a book about Alanis Morissette’s album Jagged Little Pill. Along the lines of Almost Famous, it follows her as she gets an in with a local band, becomes their publicist, and falls for two bandmates at the same time.
Starring Barbie Ferreira, Jay Baruchel and Devon Bostick, it’s already on anticipated lists from the Globe and Mail to Letterboxd, while TIFF head Cameron Bailey pointed to it as an example of how the festival is trying to recentre Canadian fare as the festival’s cream of the crop.
It’s premiering Thursday, Sept. 4, TIFF’s opening night.
Roofman
A based-on-a-true-story film starring Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst, Roofman follows Tatum as Jeffrey Manchester: the “rooftop robber” that spent years on the run, at one point hiding in a Toys R Us.
From the trailer it looks as much comedy as action, as the description might suggest. Manchester was arrested early on in his criminal career for robbing McDonalds, before breaking out of prison and hiding out behind the walls of an open Toys R Us store. Things get more complicated when he falls for one of the store’s employees played by Dunst.
It’s from director Derek Cianfrance, who’s already well known for Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines. If you can’t make the Saturday, Sept. 6 premiere, at least you won’t have to wait too long to see it: it’s already set for a theatrical debut in October.
