Tag Archives: TIFF 2026

2026

Silver Screen Capture Ranks 25 Movies Reviewed at TIFF 2026

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Here are the 25 movies I saw at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival, ranked by favorites. I also enjoyed the “victory lap” presentation of Obsession, conversations with Seth Rogen and Andrew Scott, mystery screenings, the new market and some incredible A24 parties. Here are the main new films I was able to see and review.

#1: Josephine⁠ (A): “Absorbing, devastating and never remotely dull, Josephine finds Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan as flawed parents searching for a way forward when innocence can no longer lead the way.”

#2: Being Heumann⁠ (A): “Siân Heder’s follow-up to her Oscar-winning CODA does not merely reclaim an essential chapter of history about the fight for disability rights; it throws open the doors and invites everyone to the party.”

#3: La Bola Negra⁠ (A): “Blending poetry, art and cinema, this is a gorgeous love letter to all three…an historic Spanish queer masterpiece.”

#4: The Debut⁠ (A-): “Jesse Eisenberg’s comedy is wise about the unexpected effects of an artistic calling, and it is wonderful watching Julianne Moore’s heroine’s growing confidence as she goes method for a musical.”

#5: Tangles⁠ (A-): “The animation allows memories to bend, disappear and spring playfully to life, transforming Alzheimer’s caregiving into something inventive, funny and deeply moving.”

#6: The Devils⁠ (A-): “Remastered from the banned 1971 original, this religious fever dream starring Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave remains audacious and impossible to forget.”

#7: Babies⁠ (B+): “Anna Kendrick has rarely been better as a woman contemplating not having kids.”

#8: Thirteen in Gaza⁠ (B+): “The filmmakers choose humanity over destruction and survival over despair in this poignant father and daughter tale.”

#9: Elsinore⁠ (B+): “It’s a celebration of the indomitable power of the human spirit and of theatre as a balm, buoyed by an incredible Andrew Scott in the commanding center.”

#10: Wild Horse Nine⁠ (B+): “It is talky and smart and bursting with furtive flourishes. John Malkovich is superb.”

#11: Fjord⁠ (B): “Empathy matters most when every side believes it has already won the moral debate.”

#12: Le Corset (The Iron Boy)⁠ (B): “Its lively, hand drawn watercolor style makes the adventure artistic and accessible without sanding away its idiosyncrasies.”

#13: I Play Rocky⁠ (B): “Anthony Ippolito delivers a magnetic performance that transcends his uncanny mimicry in the making of the boxing classic.”

#14: Club Kid⁠ (B): “Two lost souls find one another and create a little magic when they do in Jordan Firstman’s crowd pleaser about a nightclub promoter who inherits a 10-year-old.”

#15: Love of Your Life⁠ (B): “Margaret Qualley is captivating in a stirring story of hope and healing.”

#16: Bunker⁠ (B): “Like Eyes Wide Shut, the presence of a real life couple, Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz, adds another layer of intrigue to this formidable power play.”

#17: Magazine⁠ (B-): “Glossy, giddy and affectionate, the film nevertheless could have benefited from a ruthless copy editor.”

#18: The Face of Horror⁠ (B-): “Anna Biller’s Technicolor style palette is a wonder to behold, particularly the painterly red blood splashed across its brightly illuminated imagery.”

#19: Ink⁠ (B-): “Danny Boyle and charismatic star Jack O’Connell make the rise of tabloid journalism in the UK look a little too fun.”

#20: Always Lalisa⁠ (B-): “For all its polish and access, this music documentary about a legendary KPop star offers less discovery than one might hope.”

#21: Stuffed⁠ (B-): “The enjoyable songs in this macabre movie musical leave little lasting imprint, but its beautifully bizarre heart is preserved in exactly the right place.”

#22: Bucking Fastard⁠ (C+): “Although Werner Herzog’s film is an original oddity, it is never clear what motivates two eccentric sisters played by Kate and Rooney Mara.”

#23: All That She Wants⁠ (C): “The extremely game Annie Murphy is cursed with an aimless contemporary comedy.”

#24: Misty Green⁠ (C-): “Chris Rock’s film remains eminently watchable because of Rosalind Eleazar, yet its many interesting pieces never assemble into a cogent portrait.”

#25: Prima Facie⁠ (D): “Despite its vital message about the systemic bias confronting women who report sexual assault, director Susanna White’s adaptation of a hit stage play with lead Cynthia Erivo is misbegotten in nearly every dramatic respect.”

2026

TIFF Assassin Hangout Comedy “Wild Horse Nine” Gallops Into Oscars Race

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Writer/director Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic political drama Wild Horse Nine (B+) gives John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell two meaty roles as CIA officers who retreat to Easter Island after helping orchestrate Chile’s 1973 coup. When Malkovich’s terminally ill operative begins divulging incendiary secrets, the island refuge becomes a reckoning with mortality, complicity and regret and the setup for an increasingly volatile shakedown. Malkovich, back in a showcase worthy of his singular talents, is operating at the top of his game, while Rockwell proves an ideal sparring partner. Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits and Parker Posey are among the formidable performers enriching McDonagh’s eccentric ensemble. The humor can be blunt and conspicuously boomerish, and the screenplay remains talky, smart and bursting with furtive flourishes. Part assassin hangout comedy, part political confessional, the film gives its thoroughbreds plenty of room to run and could carry Malkovich all the way into the Oscars race.

2026

Sassy Sitcom Veteran Can’t Redeem TIFF Romcom “All That She Wants”

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The extremely game comic actress Annie Murphy is cursed with a “schitty” screenplay and “creaky” craftsmanship in Andrew Rhymer and Scarlett Bermingham’s All That She Wants (C), a pedestrian romantic comedy that squanders an appealing premise. Murphy plays a newly single Toronto woman who rebounds with the considerably younger man she once babysat, played by Cooper Raiff. What begins as a college-dorm one-night stand evolves over several years into a messier, more realistic relationship, but precious little about their journey feels new, surprising or emotionally revealing. Murphy and Raiff generate scant chemistry, while the film’s conflicts arrive fleetingly and resolve too conveniently to create much dramatic tension. Even formidable comic talents including Zosia Mamet and Christine Baranski are stranded in supporting roles that give them little of consequence to do. Of all the films vying for attention at TIFF, this agreeable but thoroughly ordinary production feels among the least deserving of a festival spotlight.

2026

Acting Angels Take Flight with Andrew Scott in “Elsinore” at TIFF

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To be an awards showcase or not to be satisfied until the whole cinema audience is sobbing? These are indeed the questions of Simon Stone’s Elsinore (B+), but it’s such a stirring celebration of the indomitable power of the human spirit and of theatre that any calculated designs quickly become inconsequential. Scott plays closeted Scottish actor Ian Charleson, best known to moviegoers for Chariots of Fire, who steps into the role of Hamlet at London’s National Theatre just as he is diagnosed with AIDS at the height of the epidemic. The film follows Charleson’s determination to deliver a defining performance during the final months of his life, even as his failing body threatens to betray him. Olivia Colman is a formidable foil as the doctor who warns him of the punishing demands Shakespeare’s great role will impose. Scott gives a magnetic, sensitive and occasionally very funny performance, lending the actor’s private struggle the same grandeur as Hamlet’s public anguish. Soaring soliloquies about life upon the stage are complemented by inspired flourishes, including a hospital-wing dance break set to techno-infused Ethel Merman. In Elsinore, show business becomes both refuge and rebellion in the face of tragedy. Fans of Shakespeare, Scott and unabashed sentimentality will want to seek out this film.

2026

“Love of Your Life” Pandemic-Set Drama Lights Up TIFF

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In Love of Your Life (B), Rachel Morrison sensitively directs Margaret Qualley as Maya, a Boston nurse whose sweeping romance with Charlie (Gabriel Basso) is shattered during the pandemic. Our protagonist’s grief carries her through Portugal, England and beyond as she attempts to rediscover a life and reconnect with herself after devastating loss. The story moves with purpose, buoyed by Qualley and Basso’s natural romantic chemistry and a fabulous music catalogue curated by Jack Antonoff. Qualley is particularly luminous against the film’s picturesque travelogue backdrop, while Basso brings an easy warmth and authenticity to their love story. Patrick Schwarzenegger, Aaron Pierre and Catherine Keener effectively round out the cast in supporting roles. Although the film follows a familiar emotional itinerary, it finds genuinely moving insights within its well-traveled formula. Ultimately, this is a stirring story of hope and healing elevated by relatable performances.

2026

TIFF’s “Club Kid” Makes the Party Scene a Family Affair

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Get your juice boxes and YA books ready, because a social life typically sponsored by generous doses of G and K is about to become surprisingly kid-friendly. Jordan Firstman writes, directs and stars in Club Kid (B), a sharp contemporary dramedy about a New York nightclub promoter whose chaotic, self-absorbed existence is interrupted by the arrival of the 10-year-old son he never knew he had. In pristine 35 mm cinematography, Firstman captures the hedonism and hilarity of his after-hours Manhattan milieu while developing a genuinely affecting rapport with winning young actor Reggie Absolom. Diego Calva enjoys a plum role as both child therapist and potential adult love interest, while Miss Benny and a lively LGBTQIA+ ensemble keep the party buzzing. What distinguishes the movie most is its refusal to make its unconventional journey toward parenthood remotely saccharine. These lost souls may not resemble a traditional family, but they find a place to belong and create a prescient playlist when they do.

2026

TIFF Premiere of “I Play Rocky” Slyly Packs a Punch

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Peter Farrelly directs Anthony Ippolito as a young Sylvester Stallone, the impoverished, perpetually rejected actor who refuses to sell his Rocky screenplay unless he can play the title role himself. The aptly named behind-the-scenes drama I Play Rocky (B) offers a nostalgic, crowd-pleasing account of how Stallone’s real-life tenacity came to mirror Rocky Balboa’s. Ippolito delivers a magnetic performance that transcends his uncanny mimicry, while AnnaSophia Robb is quietly effective in the underwritten role of Stallone’s wife, Sasha Czack, and Stephan James brings confidence and charisma to co-star in the movie-within-the-movie Carl Weathers. Tracy Letts frequently steals the show with biting humor and cynicism as a representative of the studio brass. Though the film rarely strays from the familiar making-of formula, it remains a contender, fleet-footed and flying high through the final bell.

2026

TIFF Premiere “Babies” Finds Big Laughs in Life’s Biggest Decision

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Anything worth doing with one’s life requires careful study followed by a lunging leap into the unknown, and so it is with starting a family. Lauren Miller Rogen’s Babies (B+) is a funny, tender and remarkably truthful examination of the practical and emotional chaos surrounding bringing children into the world. Anna Kendrick and Seth Rogen play a couple uncertain about parenthood who receive an unexpected trial run when a newly divorced friend (Kate Berlant) moves in with her young daughter in tow. Kendrick has rarely been better, locating both the humor and genuine anxiety in a woman confronting a choice for which no amount of preparation can fully suffice. Always a joy, Issa Rae is another standout as an artistic business partner and mother of a growing brood who is striving to juggle it all. Miller Rogen’s observations are consistently spot-on, even when delivered through interior monologues that should feel artificial but somehow work beautifully. Both uproarious and poignant, Babies understands becoming a parent means accepting the biggest decisions sometimes arrive long before certainty does.

2026

Prepare to See Why Telluride and TIFF Audiences are Raving About “The Debut” 

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Escaping into the performing arts proves a winning formula for everyone involved in Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut (A-), a warm, wildly funny crowd-pleaser that fortifies the gifted auteur’s reputation as a formidable writer/director/actor while gifting Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti career-best showcases. Moore throws herself into the role of a kindly New Jersey housewife who auditions for a historic theater’s production of a fictional musical and lands a featured supporting role, only to fall increasingly under the spell of both the stage and its strong-willed director, played with comic ferocity by Giamatti. Musical-theater royalty Halle Bailey, Colton Ryan, Bonnie Milligan, Lilli Cooper and Bernadette Peters fill out the stacked ensemble, lending delicious authenticity to the film’s show-within-a-show world. Eisenberg is wise about the intoxicating effects of an artistic calling, and watching Moore’s heroine gain confidence as she tries on a new “mask” is as exhilarating as her escalating battles with Giamatti are hilarious. It’s rather astonishing how far she’ll go to get into character, and as she begins floating free of her former obligations, the film makes it difficult to blame her for choosing the glow of the ghostlight over the bleak rut she occupied before. Eisenberg even pens the musical’s songs, including Moore’s terrific 11 o’clock number, “This City May Have Chewed Me Up (But It Hasn’t Spit Me Out)” within a gloriously half-sketched fever-dream fantasia. Theater devotees will especially feel seen, and the movie’s larger celebration of rediscovering purpose and possibility should play far beyond the footlights. The Debut is a hoot with a heart and one of the year’s best.

2026

TIFF Premiere “Thirteen in Gaza” a Harrowing and Humane Family Drama

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Beyond its significance as a historic production, Hosam Abu Dan’s Thirteen in Gaza (B+) is an intensely moving one. A widower (the quietly wonderful Feras Al Masri) and his teenage daughter (a superb Mary Ziyara) struggle to maintain the rhythms of ordinary life inside a Gaza refugee camp, their relationship providing an intimate lens on adolescence, grief and moral choices under extraordinary circumstances. Ghassan Salem is also powerful as an industrious and morally dubious power broker who may hold the keys to lifting the surviving family out of poverty. Ziyara is pitch-perfect as the titular adolescent, fiercely trying to retain her dignity and discover who she is on the cusp of womanhood. Abu Dan and his Gaza-based crew focus their camera on humanity rather than destruction and survival rather than despair, as a father strives to protect his daughter amid the deprivations of prolonged conflict. Simple acts of securing food, water and basic supplies take on profound resonance when played out against the reality of a displacement camp. Most powerfully, the film refuses to define its characters by their suffering, finding pride, resourcefulness and familial love amid circumstances that threaten these values. In celebrating that humanity, the film becomes both a tribute to people enduring intolerable conditions and a haunting challenge to a world that has failed to adequately protect its most vulnerable.

2026

Herzog’s “Bucking Fastard” a Curiosity at TIFF

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It’s hard to argue Director Werner Herzog isn’t being true to the themes defining his peculiar brand of cinema: obsessive characters chasing impossible dreams, hostile natural landscapes and a persistent blurring of truth and fiction. Herzog’s Bucking Fastard (C+) checks all three boxes and still qualifies as a double head-scratcher. Real-life sisters Kate Mara and Rooney Mara, both extremely game for an unusual assignment, play twins who speak, move and even dream in unison while pursuing their eccentric conception of love and belonging. Their extraordinary bond inspires fascination as their shared obsessions range from an unrequited love affair with Orlando Bloom to the seemingly impossible task of digging a tunnel through a countryside mountain. Herzog finds strange beauty and flashes of humor in their singular existence, and the Maras commit so completely that the sisters never become mere caricatures. Yet for all the film’s intriguing eccentricity, it remains frustratingly opaque about what motivates these women, why their obsessions consume them or what Herzog ultimately wants us to understand about their extraordinary bond. Bucking Fastard is unquestionably an original curiosity, but being fascinated by its characters isn’t quite the same as being invested in them.

2026

TIFF Animated Feature Shows “Tangles” of Mother/Daughter Caregiving Bond

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Leah Nelson’s black-and-white hand-drawn animated feature Tangles (A-), adapted from Sarah Leavitt’s graphic-novel memoir, is as funny and dramatically affecting as a traditional narrative film, while cleverly using illustration in motion to make memories bend, disappear and spring playfully to life. A young queer San Francisco artist and magazine staffer in the 1990s returns to her East Coast family as her mother’s Alzheimer’s progresses, forcing everyone to reckon with a woman gradually losing pieces of herself. Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Abbi Jacobson are excellent as mother and daughter, with especially tender moments paralleling childhood scenes with their echoes years later. The mother who once dressed, comforted and cared for her little girl increasingly needs tending herself, creating a poignant reversal as familiar gestures of maternal love pass from one generation to the other. Nelson never lets Alzheimer’s reduce this heroic mom to her disease, preserving her humor and personality even as memory slips away. The movie finds abundant fun in its protagonist’s burgeoning love life and cross-country juggling of romance, work and family, while airplane announcements provide hilarious interludes like a sassy Greek chorus for a life perpetually in transit. With Bryan Cranston, Beanie Feldstein and Seth Rogen rounding out the voice cast, Tangles transforms the pathos of Alzheimer’s and caregiving into something inventive, funny and deeply moving: a stunning tribute to a mother and the daughter learning how to mother her in return.