TIFF 2025

It was our pleasure to attend TIFF 2025 for the 50th iteration of the festival. We saw 20 films at the Toronto International Film Festival (and again a special thanks to the TIFF and Rotten Tomatoes Grant Program for helping us participate). We weren’t able to screen everything there, but here’s a glimpse at what we saw. Here they are in alphabetical order.

TIFF 2025

Adulthood

Director Alex Winter does a great job of painting how a situation could easily spiral out of control. Josh Gad and Kaya Scodelario are a pair of adult siblings who find themselves in over their heads in a family conundrum. While there’s considerable promise to the film, it never quite gels in the way we’d hoped.

Bad Apples

Saoirse Ronan plays a beleaguered small town school teacher who goes to extreme measures to deal with a problem student in this strange satire. Thematically it shared a surprising amount of DNA with Steve and Good Boy (and left us wondering are the TIFF programmers okay?). In another actress’s hands this role would’ve been utterly unbelievable but the star continues to prove she’s one of the most consistent out there. 

California Schemin’

James McAvoy steps behind the camera to direct this inspired by real life story of two Scottish rappers who pretended to be American in order to reach hip-hop notoriety. Séamus McLean Ross and Samuel Bottomley play the poser performers admirably. McAvoy was smart to make his debut with a story squarely placed in his homeland, as you can feel the national pride and frustration in every frame. 

Charlie Harper

Weaving throughout the course of one couple’s relationship, Charlie Harper is reliant upon the chemistry between leads Emilia Jones and Nick Robinson. Unfortunately while the leads are individually fine, something about their dynamic together fails to fully click in a way that the story demands in order for them to sell the otherwise average script.

Driver’s Ed

A modern coming of age comedy that manages to be diverse without performative, however it’s certainly nothing we haven’t seen before. Bobby Farrelly brings together a group of high schoolers on a road trip adventure. In the grand scheme it felt like a pretty tame but stable film. 

Eternity

A24 is on a love triangle kick this year with this Defending Your Life meets Materialists romance / drama / comedy about three souls having to decide on their forever afterlife. Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, and Callum Turner all sell the heck out of definitely not hell. With a creative conundrum for the characters to face and what felt like a fresh take on the beyond, Eternity was one of our standout films at TIFF 2025.

Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro has said he’s been dreaming of making Frankenstein for over 30 years and it seems he got to make the exact film he wanted to. Unfortunately a lack of external pressure or influence may have dulled the edges of his dream project. Jacob Elodri gives a physically formidable performance as the monster, and the film is a visual feast. However at two hours and thirty minutes it did start to feel bloated at times. There will certainly be an audience who becomes obsessed with this version of the classic, for others it might be a lesson in the consequences of unbridled power in decision making.

Good Boy

Not to be confused with the upcoming horror film from a dog’s perspective, this Good Boy features recent Emmy winner Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough as a dysfunctional couple forcing a hooligan into rehab. Everyone is committed to their portrayals, and this one is more about the performances than the plot. The ending left a bit of something to be desired but overall we were pleasantly surprised by the film. 

Good Fortune

Keanu Reeves is perfectly cast in this Trading Places inspired satire. Though it’s unclear if it was necessary for Aziz Ansari to star in his own directorial debut, the buddy duo of Seth Rogen and Reeves more than makes up for it. Though very inside baseball to the gig economy of Los Angeles, and with an utterly farfetched ending, Reeves alone makes this worth the watch.

Good News

Seemingly loosely inspired by true events, this Korean satire about a hijacking gone wrong is a stunning display of bad decision making. While it makes you want to crawl out of your skin in frustration it is also incredibly watchable. In a time when anything politically charged can feel draining this was refreshingly enjoyable.

Hedda

While a valiant attempt from Nia DaCosta to adapt the Ibsen classic, something fails to translate from stage to screen. While DaCosta tries to add in additional modern layers with the casting of Tessa Thompson, the character manages to come off one note. She’s at an eleven and stays at an eleven the whole time. The queer motifs end up being too on the nose and the racial ones not explored enough. 

Normal

If you’re a fan of Nobody, look no further than Normal for your dose of Odenkirk kicking ass. While it’s not reinventing the wheel plot wise, Odenkirk’s even tempered portrayal of interim sheriff in a small town helps balance the over the top violence. 

Poetic License

Given her comedic lineage it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Maude Apatow’s directorial debut is rife with laughs. Cooper Hoffman and Andrew Barth Feldman have a delightful chemistry that keeps the film from descending into some sort of self indulgent nightmare (though to be fair it does occasionally dip into that territory). Leslie Mann (real life mother of Apatow) also gives us a more nuanced shade of the housewife character she’s so often seen fulfilling. 

Rental Family

Director / Writer HIKARI continues the Breandanssance with this gentle story of an American expat in Tokyo who finds himself tangled up in the lives of other denizens of the city. A meditation on loneliness, connection, and what truly is a cultural experience – there’s a softness to Fraser’s performance that reminds us why we adore him so much. The supporting cast also provide stellar punctuation to an already delightful film and emotional.

Roofman

Channing Tatum does an excellent job as real life criminal Jeffrey Manchester – who robbed a bevy of fast food chains, escaped from jail, and proceeded to live in a Toys “R” Us for 6 months while on the lam. The absurdity of the situation is played with a surprising amount of nuance, and Tatum’s charm leaves you rooting for the Roofman. 

Steve

Cillian Murphy reunites with Peaky Blinders director Tim Mielants to tell this story of beleaguered reform school head Steve. Emily Watson, Tracey Ullman, and a bevy of young actors round out the cast and all give strong performances. However the film feels like it belongs to Shy, one of the troubled students (the novella Steve is based on is actually titled Shy). Shifting the focus to Murphy’s character gives it a touch of white saviorism that might’ve been mitigated if he’d been in more of a supporting role.

The Furious

Comparisons to The Raid are inevitable, as Joe Taslim continues to prove an action superstar who should be getting more attention. Creative fights abound and while the writing and acting isn’t Shakespeare, it’s certainly one of the more entertaining films we saw at the fest.

The Lost Bus

While Paul Greengrass is excellent at capturing the stress and terrifying circumstances of the Camp fire in Paradise, CA – it’s actually the Matthew McConaughey storyline that’s the weakest. Though inherently emotional, the film bogs itself down by trying to inelegantly weave in the personal  woes of McConaughey’s bus driver hero when the larger circumstances would’ve been plenty to grapple with. For those who have lived through California wildfires – it definitely accurately captures the unimaginable escalation of these disasters accurately.

The Smashing Machine

While the film contains solid performances from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Emily Blunt (though the most surprisingly grounded performance comes from actual MMA fighter Ryan Bader’s acting debut), the story itself is underwhelming and the writing at times can be chaotic. Unfortunately for the TIFF experience the film was hot off of some extreme hype, and this likely overinflated expectations. If one were to approach it as a simply a run of the mill sports biopic then one might have a better experience than we did. 

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

These Benoit Blanc mysteries continue to delight. Tonally this one takes its darkest turn yet as Daniel Craig’s investigator extraordinaire teams up with Josh O’Connor as a young clergyman. More similar in style to Knives Out than Glass Onion, this might be the strongest outing of the trio of films. 

We had a tremendous time at TIFF 2025 and congratulate all the folks who put it on or had projects there.