10 Picks for TIFF 2025

The 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (or TIFF) runs September 4-14 and marks this annual event’s 50^thanniversary. I will be on the ground for part of the time, as I have been for some years now. With a great variety of films to choose from, it’s difficult to pick what to see. Below, I list 9 movies (and 1 show) for which I have either great hopes (sight unseen) or great respect (courtesy of an advance screener). Each title is linked to the TIFF page for that particular film. Stay tuned for more in-depth coverage (and full-length reviews) once the festival begins.

---

Eleanor the Great (Scarlett Johansson) – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

It’s hard not to get excited about the cast here. 95-year-ild June Squibb, fresh off her success in last year’s Thelma, headlines an ensemble that includes Chiwetel Ejiofor (The Old Guard) and Jessica Hecht (Banana Split), all of them directed by Scarlett Johansson (My Mother’s Wedding), making her feature debut behind the camera. Squibb plays the title role, a fabulist whose lie about being a Holocaust survivor spirals out of control. Sounds intriguing.

---

It Was Just an Accident (Jafar Panahi) – CANADIAN PREMIERE

Embattled Iranian director Jafar Panahi (No Bears), when he is not under arrest or confined to his house by his country’s regime—and sometimes even while suffering such indignities—creates work that challenges our assumptions about the world and our place in it. His latest, It Was Just an Accident, won the Palme d’Or (top prize) at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. It’s a thriller about what happens when one has the chance for a long-sought revenge. Panahi’s films are always worth watching, and this one promises to be as good as any of them, if not better.

---

No Other Choice (Park Chan-wook) – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

The same holds true for the movies of Park Chan-wook (Decision to Leave), a South Korean auteur who never fails to impress. Here, he gives us star Lee Byung Hun (Netflix’s Squid Game series) as a man who loses his job after 25 years and chooses not to take it lying down. Conceiving a plan to dispatch his competitors for a new position, he embraces the true cutthroat nature of modern capitalism. Park is quite adept at mixing action with metaphysics, so prepare for blood and deep thoughts about this unsavory present-day universe of ours.

---

A Pale View of Hills (Kei Ishikawa) – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

Adapted from British author Kazuo Ishiguro’s eponymous 1982 debut novel, Japanese director Kei Ishikawa’s examination of life in post-WWII Nagasaki jumps between the 1950s and 1980s as it follows central character Etsuko (a luminous Suzu Hirose as the younger version) through two separate families and countries. I am unfamiliar with the filmmaker’s previous work but have seen this particular movie (and read the book) and find it poignant and visually exhilarating. Like the source material, however, it rejects simple interpretations of the narrative, refusing to provide easy answers to complex questions of identity and culture. As a result, A Pale View of Hills stimulates the mind as much as the eyes.

---

A Private Life (Rebecca Zlotowski) – CANADIAN PREMIERE

What do you get when you combine the talents of French director Rebecca Zlotowski (Other People’s Children) and American actress Jodie Foster (Nyad)? Cinematic magic (I hope). Joined by equally powerful French actors such as Mathieu Amalric, Daniel Auteuil, and Virginie Efira, Foster plays a Parisian psychoanalyst dealing with the aftermath of a patient’s suicide, a reaction made more complicated by the fact that said deceased may not in fact be dead. Given the brilliance of Zlotowski’s earlier output, I am excited to see this new movie.

---

A Sámi Wedding (Pål Jackman/Åse Kathrin Vuolab) – WORLD PREMIERE

The one episodic series among my picks, A Sámi Wedding, from Norwegian showrunners Pål Jackman and Åse Kathrin Vuolab, follows the misadventures of one Sámi (the indigenous people of the northern Scandinavian peninsula) family as they struggle to put on traditional nuptials in the face of almost overwhelming obstacles. These include their lower social status vis-à-vis their son’s bride’s family and the dysfunction among themselves. Comic and moving in equal measure, it’s an alternately madcap and tearful journey through love and strife. Episodes 1, 2 and 5 (out of 8) are what will screen at the fest (and all I have seen), and though I would like to know what happens in 3 and 4, I still had a good time and can recommend.

---

Sentimental Value (Joachim Trier) – CANADIAN PREMIERE

Sentimental Value offers another Nordic family drama, this one from Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier, who reunites with his The Worst Person in the World lead, Renate Reinsve, in one of the hot-ticket items of the festival. With the great Stellan Skarsgård (Disney+’s Andor series), along with Elle Fanning (A Complete Unknown), joining Reinsve for the ride, Trier crafts a tale of a distant (and absent) father now facing consequences from the long neglect of his daughters. Set squarely in the world of cinema and theater, Sentimental Value should deliver a meta-narrative about the opposition between fame and intimacy. It’s the winner of this year’s Grand Prix (or second-place prize) at the Cannes Film Festival.

---

Steal Away (Clement Virgo) – WORLD PREMIERE

In Steal Away, Canadian director Clement Virgo (Brother) brings together two young actresses, Mallori Johnson and Angourie Rice, as Cécile and Fanny, two teenage girls whose fascination with each other shelters them from the truth about their lives. Hinting at other possibilities beyond the walls of the place they call home, Virgo gives us grounds to suspect a larger mystery. I haven’t seen any other films of his, but since he is a heralded local voice (raised in Toronto), I thought I’d give him a shot, and the premise here intrigues.

---

Steve (Tim Mielants) – WORLD PREMIERE

I met Belgian director Tim Mielants at the 2024 Middleburg Film Festival, where his first feature-film collaboration with Irish actor Cillian Murphy, Small Things Like These, deeply impressed. Now the two are back at it in Steve, an adaptation of Max Porter’s 2023 book Shy. Murphy stars as the head of a reform school for boys, battling against the odds to improve the lives of his charges. Given how much director and actor last wowed me by working together, count me in.

---

The Testament of Ann Lee (Mona Fastvold) – NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

After 2024’s The Brutalist, which Mona Fastvold co-wrote with her creative and romantic partner, Brady Corbet, I’d see anything this writer/director (another Norwegian!) attempts, especially since her own directorial efforts, including The World to Come, have also proved engaging. In The Testament of Ann Lee, Fastvold profiles the life of Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried, Hulu’s The Dropout mini-series), the 18^th-century founder of the Shakers. With original music and dance numbers sung and performed by the cast, the film aims to the make the past both vibrant and present. Christopher Abbott (Wolf Man) and Tim Blake Nelson (Old Henry) are welcome supporting players.

For tickets to these and other films, check out the festival website. Enjoy!