It was our pleasure to return to TIFF 2026 for the 51st edition of the film festival. Here are 18 films we saw 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.
A Talent for Murder
This Helen Mirren led piece has her playing The Talented Mr. Ripley author Patricia Highsmith and facing off against Alden Ehrenreich as a literary agent come to convince her to deliver a new novel featuring her most famous creation. Mirren’s acerbic and American accented take on Highsmith often feels one note. Ehrenreich is given more to do through the course of the film and rises to the occasion. However at the end of the day neither performer can salvage the uneven story.
Babies
Writer / director Lauren Miller Rogen takes on a question nearly every long term partnered pairing is likely to get asked: “do you want to have kids?” Heavily inspired by her and husband / star Seth Rogen’s own real life perspective on the topic, Miller Rogen manages to navigate the complex and highly personal conundrum with an elegance that seems sharpened by years of having to answer the question herself. The result is a well thought out and non judgemental examination of that question that keeps the human race going. Anna Kendrick, Issa Rae, Dan Stevens, Sharon Stone, Kate Berlant, and David Stratharin also star.
Being Heumann
CODA director Siân Heder is back in the directors seat and shining a spotlight on real world disability advocate Judy Heumann, considered “Mother of the Disability Rights Movement.” For those unfamiliar with the history of Section 504 (which laid the groundwork for the current Americans with Disabilities Act) this will certainly serve as an important educational piece. While Ruth Madeley gives a brash performance as Heumann, the dialogue and story pacing feel unexceptional. While the message of the film is inarguably important, the delivery is merely adequate.
Closing Night
A quartet of actresses are the high point of this oft frustrating (intentionally) and fraught tale of a family dealing with facing each other. In the hands of lesser performers, first time feature writer / director Cody Fern’s story might have fallen into purely melodramatic territory.
Club Kid
Jordan Firstman writes, directs, and stars in this ode to New York’s queer club scene and the personalities that frequent it. Firstman’s Peter Green is forced to go from untethered party animal to instant father when he’s surprised with the existence of a 10- year old son. The dynamic between Firstman and Reggie Absolom (playing his surprise son Arlo) is unexpectedly tender and endearing. The film feels very accurately gated to presenting a hyper specific time and culture and flirts with feeling two dimensional at times. However, it was still an enjoyable and chaotic ride.
Elsinore
Consider Andrew Scott a major awards contender this year with his laser focused performance as fellow actor Ian Charleston in Elsinore. Charleston was in the throes of late stage AIDS when he took to the stage of London’s National Theater to appear as Hamlet. Scott inhabits the role with a drive that likely mirrored Charleston’s own.
The film also manages to trojan horse in at least ¼ of the actual material of Hamlet and those parts are where Scott actually shines the most. Having had his own run at the Danish prince in 2017/18 at the Almeida Theatre. While sometimes it feels like the film is leaning on audience foreknowledge of the AIDS crisis and a likely existing affinity for Scott to smooth over some of the bumpier storytelling, ultimately its worth seeing for his performance alone.
Fjord
A film that will require time to digest, Fjord is perhaps the exploration that has haunted us the most since the festival. Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve play a conservative Christian Romanian couple who relocate to a remote Norwegian town. Their family beliefs and traditions end up causing friction with their neighbors and community. Ultimately a battle ensues with religious freedoms and expression at the center. The film does an incredible job of forcing one to question: “is there a point when imposing liberal values actually becomes antithetical to those exact espoused values?”
Excellent performances and a truly thoughtful approach to the conflict at the center made this film standout.
Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!
A vibrant meditation on grief, we had no idea what to expect with Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! Rinko Kikuchi stars as ballroom dance obsessed Haru. She has the perfect partner in husband Luis, but when his life is tragically cut short she must navigate the ensuing sorrow. Life gains meaning again when eventually a new dance instructor enters the scene, but sometimes the healing process doesn’t take the form we expect. Full of surrealist flourishes and comedic punctuation, it was ultimately a somewhat healing watch.
I Play Rocky
A feel good telling of an at the time unknown Sylvester Stallone’s path to get the film Rocky made. Peter Farrelly directs Anthony Ippolito as Sly, and he’s a near visual doppelganger (and certainly an auditory one). If you’re already familiar with how Rocky was an underdog story about an underdog that went on to be nominated for 10 Academy Awards (including a Best Actor AND Best Original Screenplay nod for Stallone), and win 3 (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing), then there won’t be much new for you in this tale.
Some of the strongest moments in the film are actually just recreations of the source material… While there’s entertainment value here it could be argued for those in the know they might as well just re-watch the original. The journey is told in a solid but risk-averse way.
Ink
Director Danny Boyle takes on notorious publishing titan Rupert Murdoch in Ink. With Guy Pearce as Murdoch and Jack O’Connell as editor Larry Lamb, Ink tracks the rise of The Sun. Our biggest frustration with the film is that while it doesn’t come off as pro-Murdoch, it’s certainly not critical enough on a man whose ultimate weaponization of his multimedia monopolies has had a catastrophic effect on not just on media but the political state of the world.
By focusing on the rise in popularity of The Sun the film almost frames the team as underdogs who in theory you should be rooting for. It also tries to use the one female character, played by Claire Foy, as a further humanizing of this pretty despicable founding team. Unfortunately Ink left us with a strong sense of wanting a perspective on the characters.
La Bola Negra
Los Javis (Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi) give us a queer love story and exploration that weaves across decades. Following characters navigating their identities during: the Spanish Civil War, pre-dictatorship Spain, and modern day – La Bola Negra shows us how owning one’s true self in the face of adversity is a timeless dilemma.
Possible Love
Lee Chang-dong continues to scrutinize class distinction through two couples of different status in Possible Love. Cho Yeo-jeong plays Ye-ji, an eager documentary filmmaker, who seeks to follow the lives of labor workers who have been displaced from their workplaces. She finds a seemingly perfect but reticent subject in Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu) and in an attempt to gain his trust ends up befriending his wife, Mi-ok (Jeon Do-Yeon). As their lives become entangled the boundaries of filmmaker and subject blur and tensions are only exacerbated by Ye-ji’s handsome and successful entrepreneur husband, Sang-woo (Zo In-sung). Director Lee masterfully plays with resentment and trauma all while walking a tonal tightrope.
Possible Love streams on Netflix starting November 6.
Tangles
Get your tissues ready. Tangles is a 2D, black and white animated journey of grief, loss, and catharsis. Based on the graphic novel memoir by Sarah Leavitt, the story follows a young woman who has set out on her own to pursue her dream of being a professional illustrator. She’s forced to confront family obligation when her mother is handed an aggressive Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Having to balance prioritizing her individual success with the decline of her mother, Tangles forces you to confront what for many is an eventual reality.
What could just be trauma exploitation ends up being a meaningful (if not painful) coming to terms of what makes a life lived.
Tenzing
This biopic centers on Tenzing Norgay, the first to ascend to the peak of Everest. Norgay, a Nepalese-Indian Sherpa, along with New Zealander Edmund Hillary, were the first to summit Mount Everest in 1953. While history tends to center Hillary, Tenzing gives a deeper look into the life of the man who was actually responsible for the success of the expedition. Norgay served both as a full mountaineer team member AND had to serve as lead Sherpa.
A beautifully shot film that academically understands its trying to center the unsung hero of the story, yet oftentimes does drift towards feeling glossily defensive of the white characters. Genden Phuntsok gives such a winning performance as Norgay it’s worth seeing to support his role alone.
The Debut
Amongst our favorite films of the festival, this brainchild of Jesse Eisenberg is a savage skewering love letter to community theater and acting. Julianne Moore turns in a stellar performance as housewife and aspiring thespian Mona Friedman. When cast in a local production of Nosy Neighbors (a fictional but frighteningly on point fictional musical) she finds herself artistically challenged by theater director Jerry (Paul Giamatti).
Moore’s Freidman dedicates herself to this local production and role with a zest and fervor that would make Daniel Day-Lewis proud. Watching Moore inhabit the role is watching a mesmerizing descent into madness. Eisenberg’s familiarity with the source community and actors’ dispositions made The Debut beautifully calibrated chaos and a peak moment at TIFF 2026.
The Julia Set
Chase Infiniti stars as a young collegiate math whiz who gets swept up in a romance with her teaching assistant. While advanced mathematics might be generally considered elegant, the film treats its audience as if it only has the capacity for basic arithmetic. Everything feels dumbed down in order to make sure the already pretty obvious messaging is without room for interpretation.
While generally we’re supportive of what the film was trying to ultimately communicate and explore regarding gender expectations, red flag relationships, and the importance of support networks – the distribution method left us wanting more nuance. Infiniti is still charming enough to make it palatable but her talent along with the talents of Gillian Anderson, Chloe Bailey, Nina Hoss, and Jason Isaacs feel somewhat squandered here.
The Surgeon
Is there anything Michelle Yeoh can’t do? The Surgeon has us convinced we’d be in good hands if your life depended on the skills of the global icon. Director (and real life Oncologist) Roshan Sethi does a tonal 180 from his previous film the romantic comedy, A Nice Indian Boy, and brings us an action packed medical thriller. Yeoh stars as a recently retired surgeon who gets kidnapped and forced to resume practice by an ominous criminal organization. The use of scientific accuracy to generate some truly creative and horrifying action scenes gave it the feel of an instant cult classic.
Wild Horse Nine
One of the highlights of the festival, Martin McDonagh reunites with Sam Rockwell and adds the singular spice that is John Malkovich to the equation. Rockwell and Malkovich play a mismatched pair of CIA agents on a jaunt to Easter Island / Rapa Nui in the 1970s. Set against the heels of the coup that overthrew Allende’s Chile, the film is another of McDonagh’s dark duo masterpieces. With a stellar supporting cast of Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits, Parker Posey, and Mariana di Girolamo, gorgeous cinematography, and a lively pace we enjoyed every minute of the film.
We had a tremendous time at TIFF 2026 and congratulate all the folks who put it on or had projects there.