The Secret Agent (Kleber Mendonça Filho)

The winner of the Best Actor and Best Director prizes at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, The Secret Agent stars Wagner Moura as a technology researcher on the run and seeking refuge in the Brazilian city of Recife in 1977, during the country’s infamous military dictatorship. Auteur Kleber Mendonça Filho’s film has all the makings of a taut, conventional political thriller, but it defies convention at every turn. Instead, The Secret Agent manifests as a cinematic novel, bursting with life, intrigue, and urgency in each carefully curated frame. Shot with vintage Panavision camera equipment, Filho’s film is not only a reclamation of historical and romanticized truth but an ultimate feast for cinephiles.

Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier)

Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value—The winner of the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and a follow-up to his seminal The Worst Person in the World—represents another cinematic triumph for the Norwegian auteur.  Structured in stirring vignettes that range from mere moments to complete phases of life, Sentimental Value unfolds as a textural treatise on hereditary trauma as it follows the members of a family struggling to reckon with their tumultuous personal history.  Starring Stellan Skarsgård, Elle Fanning, and Renate Reinsve, Trier’s epic-in-miniature stands as an intimate monument to healing and, reconciling power of art.

Frankenstein (Guillermo Del Toro)

No TIFF could be complete without Guillermo Del Toro, who is not only a champion of Toronto as a cinema hub but practically an honorary citizen, having received a key to the city earlier this year. A master of all things fantastical and monstrous, Del Toro builds on his work in Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water with an intricate and staggering adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Starring Oscar Isaac as the mad scientist, Mia Goth as his troubled fiancée, and Jacob Elordi as the monster himself, Frankenstein is not only shaping up to be the period epic of the festival but also Del Toro’s magnum opus. Oh, and did we mention it was shot in a gigantic studio in Toronto? If nothing else, it might be the definitive Torontonian exhibition of TIFF’s 50th celebration.

Rental Family (Hikari)

After his big comeback in 2022’s The Whale, Brendan Fraser returns with what is set to be another assured performance in Hikari’s Rental Family—which might just net him that all-elusive second Oscar. Fraser stars as an American actor in Tokyo whose biggest call to fame is an oafish toothpaste commercial. Yet, everything changes when he’s recruited to play a sad token white guy at a funeral. From there, he begins a transformative journey at a company that hires surrogates to help clients through key life challenges and milestones, with each “performance” getting him closer to understanding the unique, important roles we all play in each other’s lives. Echoing the humour and grace of other notable Japan-set films like Lost in Translation, it might just be a shoo-in for the People’s Choice award.

Sacrifice (Romain Gavras) & Erupcja (Pete Ohs)

We know we’re cheating here, but we’ll be hard-pressed to find another festival that has not one but two films starring Brat summer phenom, Charli xcx.  She lends her natural pop star power to Romain Gavras’s star-packed Sacrifice, which features Chris Evans, Anya Taylor-Joy, Salma Hayek Pinault, John Malkovich, and Yung Lean, to name a few, in a tale of Hollywood celebrities taken hostage by eco-terrorists. While Pete Ohs’ Erupcja is far more independent and understated fare, following the instant, sapphic connection between a Polish florist (Lena Góra) and a British tourist (Charli xcx). While an unabashed lover of cinema, as seen in her viral Letterboxd Account, it’s time to see if Charli xcx’s screen presence will be as mythic as her club-pop anthems.

Ballad of a Small Player (Edward Berger)

After captivating audiences with his papal thriller Conclave, Edward Berger returns with a sweaty, swooning character study that centres on a neurotic travelling gambler (Colin Farrell) and the gritty detective (Tilda Swinton) determined to take him down. Taking place in a gorgeous, dream-like Macau, Berger is primed to project his signature sweeping, swirling lens onto a tale of downfall and addiction. Though the main draw is Farrell, whose expressive, delirious performance breathes nervy life into a man hellbent on destroying himself.

No Other Choice (Park Chan Wook)

Any Park Chan-wook film is a cause for celebration, but a twisting, labyrinthine effort from the prolific Korean auteur co-written by Toronto’s very own Don Mckellar is a gift from the cinema gods. No other choice arrives as Chan-wook’s exalted follow-up to his seductive Decision to Leave, which follows the ruthless pursuit of an unemployed man to land a coveted position. Forever a master of satire, Chan-wook’s latest piercing lampoon of chilling workplace politics and our ouroboric desire for status. In a cinematic landscape reeling from the grip of late-stage capitalism, Chan-wook’s singular vision couldn’t arrive at a better time.

The Testament of Ann Lee (Mona Fastvold)

Mona Fastvold, co-writer of The Brutalist along with her partner Bradey Corbet, arrives with yet another historical epic that examines the life and times of Ann Lee, one of pre-revolutionary America’s most influential religious figures and the founder of the Shaker movement.  It’d be natural to assume the cast, featuring Christopher Abbott, Tim Blake Nelson, and Amanda Seyfried as Lee, or the glorious 70mm cinematography, are the biggest draws, but it’s the film’s frenetic, magisterial musical numbers that aim to place Fastvold’s epic a cut above its contemporaries. Much like her work in the Oscar-winning The Brutalist, expect Fastvold to deliver a piercing look into Lee and the tattered heart of American mythmaking.

Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery (Ally Pankiw)

Ally Pankiw’s raucous and rousing new documentary details the three-year run of superstar Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan’s legendary all-women music festival. Seamlessly integrating archival performances, backstage footage, and all-new interviews from festival performers such as Bonnie Raitt, Erykah Badu, Olivia Rodrigo, and Emmylou Harris, Pankiw’s documentary is not only a bastion for music lovers but a tribute to the legacy of a festival that continues to inspire countless artists.

Mile End Kicks (Chandler Levack)

In the great tradition of music films like Almost Famous and High Fidelity, Chandler Levack’s Mike End Kicks follows a young music critic in 2011 Montreal who dedicates herself to writing the next great entry in the 33 1/3 book series. Her book will centre on the now-legendary Alanis Morissette opus, Jagged Little Pill. Scurrying through frenzied concerts, wine-drunk poetry sessions, and a love triangle with members of the same rock band, Mile End Kicks is armed with enough cultural references to become the definitive music-fuelled romantic comedy of our time.