Your Guide to the Must-See Films of TIFF 2026

Photo by Spring Morris.

It’s an all-you-can-eat buffet, a boundless emporium, a welcome-back-to-the-dance.

Every September, film buffs and industry vets turn their attention to Toronto for the world’s largest film festival by attendance. This year’s program—293 titles encompassing multiple programs, galas, docs, Primetime, et al.—is no exception. It ranges from discoveries to be made (like last year’s Obsession, which premiered at TIFF only to become an indie juggernaut this year at the box office) to a trove of Oscar contenders (American Beauty, Slumdog Millionaire, and La La Land began their journeys here, after all).

What will pop? What will fly? What stars will be born—and careers revived? Based on advance buzz and also just “vibes,” these are 10 titles I have my eye on at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, running September 10 to 20.

A TALENT FOR MURDER

Directed by Anton Corbijn

There have been umpteen adaptations of The Talented Mr. Ripley, but until now, never a biopic of the woman behind him: Patricia Highsmith. Well, a sorta biopic, in how this film reimagines her world, with Helen Mirren playing Highsmith in the winter of her life, as a literary agent (Alden Ehrenreich) tangles with her in Switzerland. Dame Mirren playing the woman who practically created the genre of psychological suspense, in a movie directed by Dutch polymath Corbijn (a filmmaker who is also known for his virtuosic music videos for U2, Nirvana, and Depeche Mode)? Yes, please.

The talk: Misery meets Knives Out is how some are describing this one.

Still from Club Kid (2026).

CLUB KID

Directed by Jordan Firstman

After taking Cannes by storm, and unleashing many happy tears, this is possibly the good-time movie of TIFF: a film with bass and heart, chosen family and second chances. Written, directed, and starred in by Firstman, it swivels around a washed-up gay scenester with a surprise son. Yet it’s party-land New York that is perhaps its main character, cinematographer Adam Newport-Berra deftly nailing a prepandemic nostalgia of city life. Reggie Absolom, Cara Delevingne, Diego Calva, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste co-star.

The talk: A product of the new social media economy, Firstman broke out while making viral comedy videos during the height of COVID-19.

INK

Directed by Danny Boyle

Consider this a kind of Succession prequel: a movie that acts as the origin story of media baron Rupert Murdoch. Ripped from the headlines—literally—it focuses on the game-changing transformation of The Sun newspaper in Britain in the late 1960s. Based on a critically acclaimed 2017 play by James Graham, and directed here by Boyle of Slumdog Millionaire and 28 Days Later fame, it has Jack O’Connell in the role of the paper’s editor Larry Lamb, and Guy Pearce taking up the role of young, break-everything Murdoch. Oscar prognosticators are already panting.

The talk: “1969—the year we first walked on the moon—and the year Rupert Murdoch & Larry Lamb launched a newspaper that was to change the world far more” is how Boyle himself puts it.

Still from Spirit Guardians: The Last Secret of the First Emperor (2026).

SPIRIT GUARDIANS: THE LAST SECRET OF THE FIRST EMPEROR (Hộ Linh Tráng Sĩ: Bí Ẩn Mộ Vua Đinh)

Directed by Nguyễn Phan Quang Binh

Is it Vietnam’s time to shine? Expect this international premiere, happening at Roy Thompson Hall, to make the case. The largest production in Vietnamese history, this epic transports us to the Dinh dynasty, the country’s first unified dynasty after centuries of Chinese rule. Production-wise, it’s said to be the max, with visuals “reminiscent of the grand, engrossing period films of Akira Kurosawa,” according to TIFF. Exquisite costumes? Check. Top-tier martial arts, windswept locations, and pageantry galore? Check, check, and check.

The talk: Could this film do for the Southeast Asian nation what projects like Parasite and Squid Game have done for South Korea?

Still from The Debut (2026).

THE DEBUT

Directed by Jesse Eisenberg

Break a leg! Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti squaring off opposite each other in a character-led drama is the sort of thing festival audiences go gaga over. A24 certainly thinks so, and is rolling out this movie with great promise. It doesn’t hurt that it’s set in the cutthroat world of community theatre in New Jersey, of all places—Moore playing a meek housewife who finds her inner diva, and Giamatti as the domineering director—and that it’s the followup to A Real Pain for triple-threat Eisenberg (which led to an Oscar nom for original screenplay and an Oscar win for Kieran Culkin).

The talk: He writes, he directs, he acts (doing all three again in this film), but did ya know Eisenberg also writes music? He did so for this movie, though he is quick to emphasize that The Debut is “not a musical.”

Still from Low Lies the Land (2026).

LOW LIES THE LAND

Directed by Emanuele Gerosa

Of the 21 features in the documentary lineup at this year’s TIFF, 18 are world premieres—and this looks to be the one with the finest bouquet. Unfolding at first like a sun-dappled fantasy of la dolce vita as it focuses on three winemaking families in Piemonte in Northern Italy, it eventually blurs into a “a slow-burn suspense story” as the families start to ask themselves: “What is the future here? Does the next generation want this job?” What, with both climate change and economic headwinds? Not to mention, foreign buyers on the hunt.

The talk: The movie, shot in widescreen, is said to be stunning visually, and it has a meditative feel. “It’s not a world of people checking their phones every five minutes,” says TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers.

LA BOLA NEGRA

Directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi

Dopamine trigger alert! Big, queer, and luminous, this movie intertwines the lives of three gay men during three eras in Spain—1932, 1937, and 2017—in a way that is kind of like The Brutalist meets The Hours. It’s unabashedly emotional, too. After its reception at Cannes, where it received a 20-minute ovation, Netflix eagerly picked it up. It’s the film with Spanish music sensation Guitarricadelafuente making his acting debut—and the one in which Penélope Cruz sings not once, but twice.

The talk: With a best picture Oscar win having eluded Netflix thus far, it is all in on this one, and the rollout in Toronto is part of the strategy. Recently it announced a 47-day theatrical release for the film—a record for the streamer.

Still from Tender Loving Care (2026).

TENDER LOVING CARE

Directed by Mike Leigh

Not much is known about this film, but it is expected to be Leigh’s film. One of the most consistent filmmakers for half a century, with a style all his own—a kind of British realism—he’s had a profound influence on so many film lovers (me included). The 83-year-old auteur behind such movies as Secrets & Lies and Hard Truths returns here with a cast including Marion Bailey and Kate O’Flynn, and his own specific way of working: a film that may look improvised but actually flows from the weeks that Leigh spends prior to filming, piecing together his characters from the worlds of his actors and somehow stitching them together.

The talk: O’Flynn, whose very first job was on the Leigh film Happy-Go-Lucky, is enjoying fresh fame due to the success of the streaming show Widow’s Bay (for which she is the Emmy front-runner). Might awards-season buzz happen here too?

Still from Babies (2026).

BABIES

Directed by Lauren Miller Rogen

Proudly child-free: that’s long been the stance of Seth Rogen and his wife, Lauren. Well, leave it to the latter to simmer all the ideas around that in her sophomore feature film starring—who else?—her real-life hubby. Breeders, beware. In what’s looking like the comedic breakout of TIFF, with a cast that includes Anna Kendrick, Sharon Stone, David Strathairn, Issa Rae, Dan Stevens, Zach Cherry, and Kate Berlant. The premise: Rogen and Kendrick, playing the lead couple, invite a recently divorced friend (Berlant) and her toddler to move in. Life happens.

The Talk: Might this movie be a kind of companion piece to Knocked Up, a movie Rogen made way back when he was 24?

ELSINORE

Directed by Simon Stone

Andrew Scott’s Oscar run begins here. “It’s one of the finest performances I’ve seen all year,” TIFF honcho Cameron Bailey confirms about this Focus Features true story about Ian Charleson, the Chariots of Fire actor who famously got his dream of playing Hamlet at London’s National Theatre when Daniel Day-Lewis quit. The role of a lifetime? It also happened to coincide with an AIDS diagnosis. And so now this high-wire act: Scott doing Charleson doing Hamlet. To be or not to be, indeed. Olivia Colman co-stars.

The talk: Elsinore is a full-circle moment for TIFF as 1981’s Chariots of Fire, in which Charleson starred, went on to become the festival’s first People’s Choice Award winner to later nab the Best Picture Oscar.

Still from Bitter Christmas (2026).

And finally, some others on my radar…

Wild Horse Nine (Malkovich! Buscemi! Rockwell!)…Prime Facie (a legal tussle starring Cynthia Erivo and derived from the Tony-winning play)…Bitter Christmas (Sí, it’s Pedro Almodóvar)…Tenzing (Tom Hiddleston takes on Sir Edmund Hillary in this Mount Everest period drama)…Your Mother! Your Mother! Your Mother! (Mahershala Ali plays a religious hitman?!))…A Long Winter (because few directors have the emotional range of Andrew Haigh)…Musk (an all-encompassing look at the world’s richest man from one of the world’s greatest documentarians, Alex Gibney)…Onwards and Sideways (a John Madden movie with Laura Linney)…Bedford Park (a Korean American romance that’s giving me all the feels)…Misty Green (Chris Rock’s first directorial effort in a decade)...Bucking Fastard (Werner Herzog brings together sisters Rooney and Kate Mara for their first feature film together)…Bunker (real-life marrieds Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem)…Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney (a Midnight Madness selection that purports to be a delirious take on the former Canadian PM)…Fjord (this year’s Palme d’or winner is an awards-season shoo-in…In the Heart of the South (a psycho-thriller that’s touted as an Indigenous Canadian take on Single White Female)…Possible Love (Lee Chang-dong).

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