The TIFF Film Festival unveiled its full lineup of Galas and Special Presentations today.
Normally, when you see lineups, they are long lists. What we have done is broken it up into categories:
Cover Story that breaks down the top films at the festival… and why films at TIFF 2024 underperformed.
TIFF Industry News, which breaks out top distributors.
TIFF Actor Spotlight, highlighting the top talent at the festival.
TIFF Indie Filmmaker Spotlight, showcasing first and second-time filmmakers.
TIFF International News, showing the top international filmmakers at TIFF.
TIFF Platform, an auteur competitive section.
If you know anyone that we mention, we’d appreciate you forwarding it to them.
TIFF Line-up Pt 2 w/ Centrepiece, Docs and Series: https://theindustry.co/p/the-tiff-2025-lineup-pt-2
Below is the full breakdown:
TIFF 2025 has films directed by Guillermo del Toro, Steven Soderbergh, Derek Cianfrance, Gus Van Sant, Brian Cox, Aziz Ansari, and David Mackenzie.
Whoever wins TIFF’s top prize, the People’s Choice Award, has a high chance of being nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. In the past 14 years, 13 TIFF winners were Best Picture nominated, with four winning (Nomadland, Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, The King's Speech).
But TIFF 2024 was an outlier, with its People’s Choice Award Winner, The Life of Chuck, not given an awards season release by Neon (it was released this June and made $10.1M worldwide, Neon’s 18th highest-grossing film of all time), so not exactly a smash hit critically or commercially.
TIFF 2024 had virtually no world premiering films break through. With many of the biggest TIFF 2024 films released 1 year after their premiere or withering on streaming:
Eden
Dir: Ron Howard
Stars: Jude Law, Ana De Armas, and Sydney Sweeney
Release date: Aug 22nd, 2025
Nutcrackers
Dir: David Gordon Green (Halloween)
Cast: Ben Stiller
Release fate: Straight to Hulu
Nightbitch
Dir: Marielle Heller
Cast: Amy Adams
Release fate: Straight to Hulu
The Assessment
Cast: Alicia Vikander, Elisabeth Olsen
Release fate: Magnolia Pictures’ theatrical release generated a low $280K domestic total
The most successful film at TIFF last year was The Wild Robot, which made $334.5M, worldwide and was nominated for 3 Oscars. Heretic also fared extremely well, pulling in $59.8M for A24.
Will this year’s People’s Choice Award winner get back on track and snag Oscar glory?
Here are the highest profile projects rolling into TIFF this year, hopefully destined for awards/high box office returns:
Dir: Hikari (Beef 3 eps)
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Takehiro Hira
Distributor: Searchlight
Synopsis:
Japanese rental company hires struggling American actor (Fraser) in Tokyo. He plays various roles in clients' lives, embarking on an introspective journey through these unlikely experiences.
This feels very akin to Lost in Translation, with Brendan Fraser in the iconic Bill Murray role. It’s self-reflective and evocative because it will force Fraser to come to terms with himself both as a former A-list star and an aging man without his own family. Also, there’s a tinge of Holy Motors in here, my favorite film of the past 15 years.
Dir: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Ian McKellen, Michaela Coel, Jessica Gunning, and James Corden
Synopsis:
Follows the estranged children of a famous artist as they hire a forger to complete his unfinished works so they can be discovered and sold after his death.
Soderbergh excels at making caper films. And this feels like an intimate Ocean’s 11.
Synopsis:
Henrik Ibsen's renowned stage drama from 1891 is reimagined in an epic and emotional way in this production, Hedda Gabler.
Hedda Gabler is one of the best plays ever written in the modern era. So it’s no small task for DaCosta. But the director is used to films that have a high bar for success. Next up, she’s directing 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.
Easy’s Waltz
Dir: Nic Pizzolatto (creator: True Detective)
Cast: Al Pacino, Kate Mara, Vince Vaughn, Simon Rex
First look at a very sad Vince Vaughn
Synopsis:
A down-on-his-luck crooner (Vaughn) is given a chance at a comeback by an old-school Vegas personality, but his brother's schemes and his own penchant for self-sabotage threaten to ruin the deal.
This is Pizzolatto's feature directorial debut. And while he’s only ever directed two episodes of True Detective (Season 3), his voice is a smoldering nihilism that bores into your soul. We’re pegging Pacino as the “old-school Vegas personality,” which could be a great swan song for him.
Dir/Co-Writer: David Michôd (The Rover, Animal Kingdom)
Prod co: Anonymous Content, Black Bear
Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Katy O'Brien, Ben Foster
Synopsis:
Tells the story of Christy Martin, the most successful female boxer of the 90s.
Sweeney looks unrecognizable in this first look image. I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets her an Oscar nomination.
Roofman
Dir: Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine)
Cast: Channing Tatum, Kristen Dunst
Distributor: Miramax
Synopsis:
The story of the rooftop robber, Jeffrey Manchester (Tatum), and his time on the lam evading capture.
Dir: David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water)
Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Sam Worthington
UK/Ireland Distributor: Sky
Synopsis:
An unexploded WWII bomb is discovered on a busy construction site in the centre of London. Chaos ensues as the military and police begin a mass evacuation against a ticking clock.
David Mackenzie is a beast, with his last film, Relay, premiering at TIFF last year. The guy has done over a dozen features. No slowing down his electric storytelling.
There are a number of films having their North American premieres at TIFF that world premiered at Venice, like:
Netflix’s Frankenstein
A24’s The Smashing Machine
Rose of Nevada (starring George MacKay and Callum Turner)
Gus Van Sant’s Dead Man’s Wire
Mona Fastvold’s The Testament of Ann Lee (co-written by The Brutalist’s Brady Corbet)
Or Canadian premieres at TIFF that world premiered at Telluride:
Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet
Netflix’s Ballad of a Small Player
And all the Cannes winners will be playing at TIFF too:
It Was Just an Accident (Palme d’Or)
Sentimental Value (Grand Prix)
Sirāt (Jury Prize), Sound of Falling (Jury Prize)
The Secret Agent (Best Director/Best Performance by an Actor)
Congrats to all the filmmakers.
THE TIFF INDUSTRY NEWS
Both indie and studio distributors came out in force at TIFF. Notably, Neon and Mubi, which went on a buying spree at Cannes, have no films world premiering. Although they are likely to make some buys.
Here’s a breakdown of what is world premiering:
Netflix - 3 films
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery directed by Rian Johnson
Cast: Daniel Craig, Cailee Spaeny, Jeremy Renner, Mila Kunis, Andrew Scott, Josh Brolin, Josh O’Connor
Steve (TIFF Platform)
Dir: Tim Mielants (Small Things Like These)
Cast: Cillian Murphy, Emily Watson
Synopsis:
Follows headteacher Steve battling for his reform college's survival while managing his mental health. Concurrently, troubled student Shy navigates his violent tendencies and fragility, torn between his past and future prospects.
Good News directed by Byun Sung-hyun (Kingmaker)
Synopsis:
In the 1970s, a covert team is determined to land a hijacked plane by any means necessary.
Amazon MGM - 2 films
John Candy: I Like Me, a John Candy doc
Interestingly, archival of Candy will also appear in the TIFF premiering Godspell 2025
Hedda, directed by Nia DaCosta (Candyman)
A24 - 1 films
Eternity directed by David Freyne (The Cured)
Cast: Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, and Callum Turner
Apple TV+ - 1 film
The Lost Bus
Dir: Paul Greengrass
Cast: Matthew McConaughey
Republic Pictures (Paramount subsidiary) - 1 film
Driver’s Ed from director Bobby Farrelly (There's Something About Mary)
Sony Pictures Classics - 3 film
Dir: James Vanderbilt (Truth)
Cast: Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, and Michael Shannon
Synopsis:
American psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Malek) is tasked with determining whether Nazi prisoners are fit to stand trial for their war crimes, pitted against Hermann Göring (Crowe), Hitler’s right-hand man. Chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials court, Justice Robert H. Jackson (Shannon).
This is the sophomore feature of writer/director James Vanderbilt (writer: Zodiac). His previous feature, also for SPC, was Truth starring Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett (trailer). Both films center on truth under scrutiny.
The Choral
Cast: Ralph Fiennes
Scarlet (animated film)
Dir: Mamoru Hosoda
It was originally slated to be distributed by Sony Pictures. Co-financed with Studio Chizu and Nippon TV, it follows a brave princess transcending time and space.
Hulu - 2 films
Swiped directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg (Unpregnant)
Cast: Lily James
Prod Co: 20th Century Studios
Synopsis:
Inspired by the story of Whitney Wolfe Herd (James), founder and former CEO of dating platform Bumble.
The Man in My Basement (TIFF Discovery_
Cast: Willem Dafoe
Lionsgate - 1 film
Good Fortune directed by Aziz Ansari
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Seth Rogen, Keke Palmer, and Ansari.
Synopsis:
A well-meaning but rather inept angel named Gabriel (Reeves) meddles in the lives of a struggling gig worker and a wealthy venture capitalist.
This project was temporarily shut down due to the writer’s strike. Ansari’s previous feature, Searchlight’s Being Mortal, is still on hold after an on-set incident involving Bill Murray.
Searchlight - 1 film
Rental Family (detailed in cover story)
Two films that have found studio distribution in the director’s home countries in Europe:
Warner Bros. (Italy) - 1 film
Synopsis:
A talented violinist, Cecilia, confined in an orphanage, meets Vivaldi who becomes her teacher. Under his mentorship and through his music, she gains courage to break free from the life she was destined for and pursue her passion.
Disney (Spain) - 1 film
The Captive, directed by Alejandro Amenábar (The Sea Inside)
Synopsis:
In 1575, the young Miguel de Cervantes is taken prisoner and sold to the fearsome Hassan, Bajá of Alger. While awaiting a ransom, he discovers an unexpected refuge in the art of storytelling...And he devises a daring escape plan.
One other addition, without any studio attachments, is EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert. Directed by Baz Luhrmann (Elvis, The Great Gatsby). Luhrmann’s films are stylistically bombastic, so we can only imagine that his first doc is going to be just that. Here’s the trailer for his film Elvis, in case you missed it.
TIFF ACTOR SPOTLIGHT
Saoirse Ronan is a bad apple. She stars in Bad Apples, world premiering in TIFF’s Special Presentation section.
Synopsis:
After making some poor choices due to an injury sustained at school, a primary school teacher (Ronan) finds herself and two of her kids in a terrible scenario.
We won’t give away the full synopsis, but Ronan is in over her head in this film as the school teacher, and does something desperate to alleviate herself of her troubles. It’s the type of move we see characters she plays make time and time again, like the classic scene in Lady Bird where she jumps out of the car (clip).
She’ll be great in this: exasperated, snarky, and lovable (first look image).
Kumail Nanjiani is just going to be funny again. He will star in Driver’s Ed, a TIFF Gala world premiere.
After a few years of stretching his legs, being a superhero, a fake Jedi in the Star Wars universe, and getting absolutely ripped, Kumail stars in the teen comedy Drivers Ed to just be a funny guy.
Driver’s Ed is directed by Bobby Farrelly (1 half of the Farrelly Brothers duo), responsible for Dumb and Dumber, Shallow Hal, and Black Sheep, which is kind of a return for him since the brothers decided to go their separate ways.
SNL alum Molly Shannon also co-stars. The film follows a group of teens who steal their school’s driver’s ed car for a road trip.
Ralph Fiennes stars in BBC Films’ The Choral.
Synopsis:
A choral society's male members enlist in World War I, leaving the demanding Dr. Guthrie to recruit teenagers. Together, they experience the joy of singing while the young boys grapple with their impending conscription into the army.
For some reason, these films about boys' schools, be they Dead Poets Society, The Cider House Rules, or more recently The Holdovers, always achieve something magical by cementing an incredibly accomplished actor in the role of a quasi-father figure. Fiennes seems well-suited to handle a gaggle of unruly boys, shaping them into budding young men, and learning something about himself in the process.
Callum Turner double call. I’ve felt this for a while that we haven’t seen Turner at his peak since Netflix’s Tramps (2016). In that film, he’s smooth and wonderfully kinetic.
He’s in two films at TIFF that may return him to leading man glory:
A24’s Eternity
Synopsis:
In an afterlife where souls have one week to decide where to spend eternity, Joan is faced with the impossible choice between the man she spent her life with and her first love, who died young and has waited decades for her to arrive.
Turner seems to have the edge in this trailer.
He also stars in the time travel film Rose of Nevada (North American Premiere). This one seems more reflective and meditative, but we’re curious to see his character.
Mads Mikkelsen is one of the greatest underrated comedy actors of our generation. At Venice, he’s starring in The Last Viking (out of competition). At TIFF he’s starring in Dust Bunny (Midnight)
Synopsis:
A 10-year-old girl procures the services of a hit man (Mads Mikkelsen) to kill the monster under her bed, who she thinks ate her family.
This one is billed as a drama, horror, thriller, but the first look image tilts it to much more zany with its wild color palette. From Bryan Fueller (creator: Hannibal).
Tidbits:
Angelina Jolie is back in another foreign film. Last year, she tore up the screen as Maria. This year at TIFF, she stars in Couture, Alice Winocour's (Proxima) first English-language film. It follows a frenetic Paris Fashion Week that intersects three women grappling with the world’s tragedies: an American film director (Jolie), a South Sudanese model, and a French makeup artist. Distributed by Pathé Films (Emilia Perez). US rights are still waiting to be sold by UTA.
Kit Harrington Time Travel. Harrington stars in Eternal Return as a cartographer who gets mixed up in a love triangle with a young woman and his partner, and attempts to travel back in time to re-awaken her love. There’s a fairytale element to this that seems ripe for Harrington. First look image.
Barbie Ferreira is a 24-year-old music critic who gets romantically involved with members of an indie band (Jay Baruchel), which she decides to publicize. The film is Mile End Kicks set against Montreal's indie music scene in 2011. A punk love story for sure, with great casting.
Charlotte Rampling co-stars in Two Pianos, about Mathias, a virtuoso pianist, who lives an impossible love story. We’re not sure whether this will be hyper-realistic or hyper-stylized. Rampling is wicked in both fields, like Reverend Mohiam in Dune (Timothée Chalamet kneels before her clip) and in Melancholia (steals the wedding speech for Kirsten Dunst clip).
TIFF INDIE FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT
First-time directors at TIFF are usually jumping up and down with excitement. This year, James McAvoy, Brian Cox, and Aziz Ansari have swung around to behind the camera to direct their first feature.
Aziz Ansari:
Lionsgate’s Good Fortune (detailed in TIFF Industry News).
James McAvoy:
A Hip Hop Hoax: James McAvoy directs California Schemin', based on the true story of a Scottish hip-hop hoax. The film, inspired by Gavin Bain's autobiography, follows two Scottish friends who conned the music industry by pretending to be an American rap duo, bagging a record deal and appearing on MTV until their scam unraveled. StudioCanal releases in the U.K. and Ireland.
Brian Cox:
Brian Cox rules the set director’s chair. Although Cox’s TV directing debut was for a single episode of HBO’s Oz (2000). His feature directorial debut is Glenrothan, about two estranged brothers who must confront the past and each other in Scotland when it becomes their duty to take over their family’s whiskey distillery. Cox and Alan Cumming play the brothers (first look still). The intense bile between the two men in the film is immense.
Alex Winter, best known for co-starring in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, has also kicked up a side career directing. His film Adulthood is world-premiering in the Galas section. It is his fourth narrative feature.
Synopsis:
Siblings Megan and Noah (Josh Gad) discover a dead body, long buried in their parents' basement, sending them down a rabbit hole of crime and murder.
His previous three features are all over the place tonally. From Freaked (1993) as a zany sci-fi comedy (trailer) to Fever (1999), a gritty crime drama, to Smosh: The Movie (2015), which has a wild Bill & Ted vibe and some evil techno lord undertones. In Smosh, the characters try to get an embarrassing YouTube video of themselves taken down and dive into a portal, dumping them into YouTube videos (trailer).
Adulthood seems to be a blend of the tone in Fever and Smosh and with Josh Gad helming this should be a fun one. Winter is also well known for his doc work on Deep Web (2015, SXSW premiere) and Magnolia Pictures’ Zappa (2020).
Mini Tidbits:
Ben Wheatley (dir: High-Rise, A24’s Free Fire) is back! After Wheaetley’s latest film Meg 2 pounded $400M at the box office, we thought he was done with arthouse. Welcome back, Ben. He’s screening Normal at TIFF Midnight. Follows provisional sheriff (Bob Odenkirk) against his constituents when the exposure of a small town’s sordid secret sparks a rip-roaring firefight. Written by John Wick writer Derek Kolstad. First look image.
Takahide Hori has created his own universe with Junk World (Midnight), stop motion humanoid clones time-traveling in a subterranean wasteland. Farting, dimension hopping, BDSM, trailer.
Maude Apatow’s directorial debut is Poetic License. The film, produced by Apatow's Jewelbox Pictures, follows Liz, a former therapist, who becomes the center of tension between two best friends as their friendship unravels. Cooper Hoffman and Leslie Mann star. First look here.
Julia Rosenberg (co-prod: 2004’s Being Julia and AP: 1999’s Sunshine) produces Meadowlarks and TIFF Discovery Out Standing.
TIFF INTERNATIONAL NEWS
We can’t wait for Sacrifice to get picked up by A24.
The film has an insane cast:
Chris Evans
Vincent Cassel
Anya-Taylor Joy
Salma Hayek
John Malkovich
Charli XCX
And an even crazier synopsis:
An environmental conference is disrupted — first by vain and self-serving celebrities, and then by a band of eco-terrorists.
That seems marvelously unhinged by a suite of actors that are all well-suited for going well over the top. Sounds a bit like an Opus redo.
Alejandro Amenábar won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film two decades ago. The Sea Inside (2004) was his transcendent picture of a paraplegic, played by Javier Bardem, who yearns for death (trailer). It’s sweeping and beautiful.
Amenábar is now directing a Miguel de Cervantes (writer: Don Quixote) origin story, The Captive. The film centers on 28-year-old Cervantes, a wounded soldier who gets captured by the Ottomans.
Amenábar said:
“I will play with contrasts between the dark reality Miguel de Cervantes was living and the power of fabulation, between the epic escape attempts and the miseries of captivity, and between the cruelty of his captors and the paradise of the hammam and the joy in the streets of Algiers.”
We can’t wait to see what he comes up with.
Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-Ho created one of the most heart-wrenching zombie films of all time when he put a father and his young daughter at the heart of this claustrophobic survival tale (trailer).
Sang-Ho’s new film is The Ugly. TIFF stated that the film:
Trades spectacle for intimacy with a haunting tale of memory and moral ambiguity, about a son’s search for truth and a past that refuses to stay buried.
The trailer seems to be about a blind killer.
Tidbits:
Franz, directed by Agnieszka Holland (Green Border), centers on the life of the writer Franz Kafka, from his birth to his death.
Clement Virgo, who AP’d Bob Marley: One Love (2024) and directed two episodes of The Wire, is world premiering Steal Away, about a teenager who forms an intense bond with a refugee taken in by her family.
Palestine’s official Oscar submission, Palestine 36, has been acquired by Watermelon Pictures (Distr: From Ground Zero) for North American rights. The historical drama is set to premiere at TIFF next month.
TIFF DISCOVERY
First-time Latin artist turned actor J. Balvin will appear in the upcoming film Little Lorraine as an Interpol agent opposite Sean Astin (LOTR).
Here’s the synopsis:
A remote mining and fishing town’s transformation into a hub for a major cocaine smuggling operation.
The film is directed by Andy Hines, who has directed a mini doc about J. Balvin, where he details surviving a plane crash.
Tyler Labine (Dale in Tucker and Dale vs. Evil) stars in Egghead Republic.
Synopsis:
An alternative reality where the Cold War did not end, and Soviet Kazakhstan has been struck by an atomic bomb.
It seems to share the same love of campy sensationalism as Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.
Fran Borgia (EP, Producer: Venice’s Stranger Eyes) will EP/Produce Amoeba.
Synopsis:
In a repressive city-state, a tomboy schoolgirl persuades three classmates at an all-girls school to rebel by forming a triad gang.
Borgia films’ focus on voyeurism in repressive states. Trailer.
Mini Tidbits:
Do not rent Willem Dafoe your basement. In Hulu’s The Man in My Basement, Dafoe makes an offer to Corey Hawkins (The Color Purple) to pay him $65K to rent his basement for 2 months. The catch is that Dafoe starts engaging in some crazy, cult-like behavior. Cue the trailer. In theaters later this year. On Hulu this fall.
The Son and the Sea has a strong producing team, Kelly Peck (EP: The Brutalist), Eva Yates (EP: Aftersun). The film follows an English man-child type. Given the talent on the producing side, we imagine it’s a bit more elevated than that.
John Early, who played the wacked out hyper self-centered character, Elliot in Search Party, makes his directorial debut with the comedy Maddie's Secret.
Diana Bustamante, who produced the beautiful, still and sonically aggressive film, Memoria (dir: Apichatpong Weerasethakul) is producing Noviembre.
We love the poster for Our Father, about a drug addict who lands in a monastery and faces a very harsh father (poster).
Full list of TIFF Discovery projects here.
TIFF PLATFORM
Cillian Murphy once again teams up with director Tim Mielants (Small Things Like These).
Synopsis:
Follows headteacher Steve battling for his reform college's survival while managing his mental health. Concurrently, troubled student Shy navigates his violent tendencies and fragility, torn between his past and future prospects.
The script is written by Max Porter (author: The Thing With Feathers). Porter’s work is dark and he makes the psychological visceral.
Winter of the Crow, directed by Kasia Adamik.
Synopsis:
A British professor witnesses a student's murder by secret police in 1981 Warsaw under martial law. She becomes a target while running through the city's streets, eventually forced to stop and take a stand.
Stars Lesley Manville, Zofia Wichłacz, and Tom Burke. HanWay Films is the sales rep.
Tidbit:
We love films like Eo and White God, dark, gritty, indie features with political undertones that put us in the POV of an animal. Hen, directed by György Pálfi, follows the same style, with a Hen escaping from her grisly fate, finding refuge in the courtyard of a crumbling restaurant. First look photo of the Hen.
Full list of Platform programme lineup here.
See the full list of 2025 TIFF films here, including the closing night film.
Written and edited by Gabriel Miller.