You may still have your air conditioners on full blast, but Starbucks is selling pumpkin spice lattes, Target is bringing out their Halloween candy, and up north our friendly Canadian neighbors are getting ready to launch 2025’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). That means that fall is upon us, and for movie lovers, its time for festival season. With the arrival of Labor Day, the 2026 Oscars race is officially underway with the four major fall festivals, Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York, all launching awards contenders. While Venice and Telluride will premiere their movies first, TIFF is by far the biggest of the four festivals and boasts an impressive lineup of over 200 new movies.
TIFF 2025, which will be the 50th year of the festival, will run from Sept. 4-14, taking over downtown Toronto with cinephiles flying in from around the globe to watch movies alongside droves of Canadians. From big-budget studio fare to tiny indie documentaries, the TIFF selections will be among the best of the year. The 2024 lineup after all included Anora, The Substance, The Wild Robot and The Brutalist so you know that many of this year’s heavy hitters at the Oscars are lurking in the lineup. So what will the hits of 2025 be? Glad you asked.
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To save you the trouble of combing through the expansive list of titles, we’ve scoured the 2025 TIFF lineup and pulled out the biggest and buzziest films. Here are some of the movies to watch.
15 Movies to Watch at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival
Bad ApplesTIFF
Bad Apples
Saoirse Ronan is one of the greatest actors of her generation, and she's back this year in Bad Apples, a thriller about a primary school teacher who must go to extraordinary lengths to deal with an unruly child in her class. Set in a bougie private school, the film is a satire and examines how much a community will overlook in order to maintain the status quo. Directed by Jonatan Etzler, this world premiere is an unknown heading into the festival.
Ballad of a Small PlayerTIFF
Ballad of a Small Player
After making its debut at Telluride, Ballad of a Small Player is now headed to TIFF. It’s hard to overstate how excited I am for this movie. Coming off of Conclave and All Quiet on the Western Front (both of which performed well at previous TIFFs), Edward Berger has proved himself to be one of the best directors in the business, and now he’s back with the tale of an English con-man running amok in Macau. Colin Farrell stars in what seems like a prime opportunity to win an Oscar with Tilda Swinton in a supporting role. It will premiere in select theaters on Oct. 15 before hitting Netflix on Oct. 29.
Related: The 9 Best Movies from the 2024 Tribeca Festival
Carolina CarolineTIFF
Carolina Caroline
It's a tale as old as time. A young woman, in search of herself, finds love and starts robbing banks. This TIFF world premiere stars scream queen Samara Weaving as Caroline, who falls in love with a drifter played by Kyle Gallner only to get sucked into his potentially illegal endeavors. The modern day Bonnie and Clyde story is from writer/director Adam Carter Rehmeier and also includes Kyra Sedgwick in the cast.
Cover-UpTIFF
Cover-Up
Laura Poitras is a three-time Oscar-nominated documentarian with films like My Country, My Country; All the Beauty and the Bloodshed;and the Oscar-winning CitizenFour on her filmography. This year she's teamed up with Mark Obenhaus to detail the career of legendary journalist Seymour Hersh, who reported on the cover-up of the My Lai massacre, the Watergate scandal and the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. The eye-opening doc premiered at Venice, but will be reaching a wider North American audience at TIFF.
Eleanor the GreatTIFF
Eleanor the Great
June Squibb is a national treasure, and the 95-year-old icon is back in Scarlett Johansson's directorial debut, which debuted at Cannes, but is returning to TIFF prior to its release on Sept. 26. Squibb plays a woman who moves back to New York City from Florida after the death of her best friend, only to get embroiled in a messy scheme when she decides to lie about her origin story in a support group. Squibb gives an incredible performance in one of the year’s most heartwarming stories. If you haven’t seen her previous film Thelma, this is also a great opportunity for a double feature.
Related: Jessica Hecht Reveals the Hardest Part of Being a Tony Nominee (Exclusive)
ErupcjaTIFF
Erupcja
2024 brought you Brat Summer, but will 2025 include Erupcja Fall? Charli XCX has been open about wanting to get into acting, and the pop star has seven movies filmed and heading to theaters in the coming years, including two at this year's TIFF (the other being Sacrifice). In Pete Ohs' Erupcja, Charli XCX stars as Bethany, a British tourist who reunites with her childhood friend Nel (Lena Góra), a Polish florist on vacation. What begins as old friends reuniting quickly turns into something more passionate. "Erupcja" after all is the Polish word for "eruption." The world premiere at TIFF will mark Charli XCX's first major acting foray, so all eyes will be on Erupcja to see if she'll jointhe likes of Cher and Lady Gaga as bonafide musicians-turned-actors.
FrankensteinTIFF
Frankenstein
Gothic master and Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro is returning to TIFF with his latest film, an adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. While the book has seen numerous adaptations over the year, this Netflix production is sure to wow with the del Toro touch that he's previously brought to classics like The Shape of Water and Pan's Labyrinth. Frankenstein, which premiered at Venice, stars Oscar Isaac as Dr. Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as his monster, with Mia Goth, Charles Dance and Christoph Waltz in supporting roles. The film will hit theaters on Oct. 17, before arriving on Netflix on Nov. 7.
HamnetTIFF
Hamnet
After earning rave reviews at Telluride, this devastating film is now headed to TIFF. Did you know that William Shakespeare had a son named Hamnet who died when he was 11? And don’t you think it’s interesting that “Hamnet” is basically the same name as “Hamlet”? Maggie O’Farrell's 2020 novel, and now its film adaptation, examine Shakespeare’s relationship with his wife Agnes (also known as Anne Hathaway) and his children. The film is the latest from Oscar winner Chloé Zhao and is a stunning, poignant portrayal of parental love and grief. Keep an eye out for both Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley in the Oscar race for their work as Mr. and Mrs. Shakespeare.
It Was Just An AccidentTIFF
It Was Just an Accident
Coming on the heels of Parasite, Triangle of Sadness, Anatomy of a Fall and Anora, the winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or is THE film to watch coming into the fall. The Iranian thriller was written and directed by Jafar Panahi, who has been imprisoned several times for being critical of the Iranian government. Here, he’s yet again speaking out against political repression, and the Cannes jury saw fit to award it the festival’s top prize. It Was Just an Accident is hitting every festival possible on its awards season push, stopping at Telluride, Toronto and New York along with dozens of smaller festivals.
NinoTIFF
Nino
Théodore Pellerin is one of the world's greatest up-and-coming actors, and if you don't know his name yet, you certainly will soon. The French Canadian star has delivered Oscar-worthy performances in Family First, Solo and Lurker, and now he's helming Nino, which follows a man who learns he has throat cancer on the eve of his 29th birthday and must confront his own mortality. The feature debut from Pauline Loquès played at Cannes Critic Week this summer before its TIFF arrival.
NurembergTIFF
Nuremberg
One of TIFF's splashiest world premieres is this historical drama about the Nuremberg trials that followed World War II. Rami Malek plays psychiatrist Douglas Kelley who is tasked with determining if German officer Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe) is fit to stand trial for the war crimes he committed. Leo Woodall, John Slattery, Richard E. Grant and Michael Shannon also star in the second directorial feature from prolific screenwriter James Vanderbilt. The historical epic feels extremely timely and is sure to cause a stir.
Sentimental ValueTIFF
Sentimental Value
The cool-girl film of the year is undoubtedly Sentimental Value. After all Charli XCX declared that it was "Joachim Trier Summer" during her Coachella set, nodding to The Worst Person in the World director's upcoming film. Sentimental Value earned rave reviews coming out of Cannes with Trier staples Renate Reinsve and Anders Danielsen Lie joining Hollywood stars Stellan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning. It's already been selected as the Norwegian Oscar entry and is one of the toughest TIFF tickets to land.
The Secret AgentTIFF
The Secret Agent
One of my favorite documentaries from 2023 is Kleber Mendonça Filho's Pictures of Ghosts, which details his history with cinema in his hometown of Recife, Brazil. Filho is now back with The Secret Agent, a political thriller set during the final years of Brazil's military dictatorship. Wagner Moura plays a teacher who is fleeing persecution from the regime in a performance that won Best Actor at Cannes. It’s now making a full run of festival stops before a Thanksgiving release.
Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing MachineA24
The Smashing Machine
If you're on film Twitter, you've already seen the video of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson receiving a lengthy standing ovation at Venice for his performance in The Smashing Machine. He plays UFC legend Mark Kerr alongside Emily Blunt in this sports biopic from Benny Safdie. The actor's physical transformation and dramatic turn have made him an early Oscar frontrunner, so TIFF's North American premiere is certain to set social media abuzz yet again.
Wake Up Dead ManTIFF
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Thank god there is a new Knives Out this year, and like Knives Out and Glass Onion before it, Wake Up Dead Man will premiere at TIFF. The Rian Johnson-helmed mystery shot last summer with an ensemble cast that includes Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack and Thomas Haden Church. Let’s start taking bets on who is the murderer now.
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