What will surely be a flurry of festival announcements in the coming week ahead, we now shift our attention to the 2026 fall festival season. With Toronto serving as the primary focus, we’ve assembled fifty titles that could potentially make their world premieres at TIFF, though the list naturally overlaps with films likely to surface at the 83rd Venice Film Festival, the 52nd Telluride Film Festival, and the 74th San Sebastián International Film Festival.
As always, the fall corridor has anticipated titles migrating between Venice, Telluride, Toronto and San Sebastián before ultimately finding their place on the awards-season calendar. We’ve avoided discussing films that we firmly believe are Lido competition selections first (e.g. Wild Horse Nine, The Debut), and yes the big question mark remains: how will things pan out for Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Digger? We’ve packed a mix of distributor-backed titles and acquisition hopefuls, and for the purposes of this exercise we’re focusing primarily on English-language projects with recognizable actor and actress attachments that are likely to generate the strongest festival and industry interest.
Ben Affleck won’t forget the awards route that was traced back at TIFF in 2012 when Argo premiered at the fest. He has the Netflix bankrolled action crime thriller Animals with Affleck leading Gillian Anderson, Kerry Washington and Steven Yeun in a ransom-fueled moral collapse kidnapping drama in the docket.
Searchlight have two key horses in the awards race, Behemoth! is currently undated and chances are still high for a Venice showcase, but we do feel that Tony Gilroy had a better launch in Toronto for 2007’s Michael Clayton. Pedro Pascal, Will Arnett, Eva Victor, Olivia Wilde, and Matthew Lillard star in the drama about a musician from a family of musicians who returns to Los Angeles.
An acquisitions title that has been in the works since the pandemic, it is finally Russell Crowe who landed the role of the secret agent featured in The Billion Dollar Spy by frequent TIFF visitor filmmaker Amma Asante. A book-to-film project, Vera Farmiga, Harry Lawtey, Tony Goldwyn, Willa Fitzgerald, Rufus Sewell, Justin Theroux, and Claes Bang are all part of the cast.
NEON will have a tone of titles heading to TIFF, and perhaps they could be packing Brides — the American gothic horror film by Chloe Okuno. This stars Olivia Cooke, Harry Lawtey and Jodie Turner-Smith in a set in 1960s Italy tale about a married couple, a mysterious count and vampire brides. Okunuo’s debut film Watcher was selected for the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
With both his 2020 film The Father, and 2022 film The Son premiering at TIFF, we think that the third feature film by Florian Zeller will hit pay dirt. Bunker stars Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Stephen Graham, Paul Dano, and Patrick Schwarzenegger in a psychological thriller about an architect’s marriage that is tested after he accepts a project to build a bunker for a billionaire. Sony Pictures Classics acquired the title.
Big Time Adolescence filmmaker Jason Orley is now on feature film number three with the comedy Close Personal Friends all wrapped up. The ensemble features Brie Larson, Jack Quaid, Lily Collins, Melissa Villaseñor, Henry Golding and some royalty in Meghan Markle. A couple’s chance encounter with a celebrity couple results in awkwardness. Amazon MGM Studios own this one.
English actress, and now director Emily Mortimer set sail on her feature debut last summer with Alison Oliver and Yura Borisov with the backing of the A24 folks. Dennis follows a British student and a Russian poet who fall in love in 1990s Moscow. Emma Stone and Dave McCary produced the film.
Piggy filmmaker returns to the horror genre well with her latest film — a possible Midnight Madness selection. Carlota Pereda‘s fourth feature film (her first in English) is a proposed serial-killer thriller with Chloë Grace Moretz as the lead. The Edge Of Normal is about what happens when you get pulled back into the traumatic past.
Having premiered 2013’s The Summer of Flying Fish and 2017’s Los perros at the fest in the past, Chilean filmmaker Marcela Saïd‘s El Puma follows a Franco-Chilean couple whose fractured lives, shaped by the loss of their son, unravel further when a puma hunt with British friends becomes a perilous journey of survival. Antonia Zegers, Luis Tosar, Roger Casamajor and Gastón Salgado star.
Set in 1974’s Texas, Peter Landesman‘s acquisition title Eleven Days is about a prison warden who faces off against a drug dealer whose failed escape attempt turns into a tense 11-day hostage crisis. Jeffrey Donovan, Jennifer Carpenter, Lola Kirke, John Gallagher Jr. and Tenoch Huerta star. Landesman was at the fest with Parkland in 2013.
Focus Features just landed this title and we think it may drop at Telluride with TIFF has a second North American premiere. Simon Stone‘s Elsinore sees Andrew Scott step into the shoes of actor Ian Charleson who faced incredible odds while preparing to give the performance of his life in Hamlet at the National Theatre in London. Olivia Colman is also being discussed in the award chatter. The Aussie filmmaker saw his directorial debut The Daughter get spotlighted in Toronto.
Starring Taron Egerton, Jessica Henwick and Mia McKenna-Bruce, Everybody Wants To Fck Me by Jonathan Schey is being coined as a wild and original razor sharp comedy thriller set in London and the world of modern dating. This is a directorial debut and acquisitions title.
A Netflix biographical sports drama that is currently undated, Fight for 84 is set during the devastating 1980 plane crash claims America’s Olympic boxing team, a determined coach takes on the monumental task of assembling and training new fighters for glory at the 1984 Summer Olympics. Known for his television work, Colombian filmmaker Andrés Baiz has Jamie Foxx topline.
After TIFF preemed The Seen and Unseen (2017) and 2021’s Platform section winning Yuni, Indonesia’s Kamila Andini‘s latest offering is Four Seasons in Java about a woman (Putri Marino) who returns to her village after being imprisoned for the murder of a man who tried to rape her.
With one memorable TIFF moment back in 2018 for Skin (which won the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Film in the Special Presentations section), Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv had a solid year in 2023 campaign with Golda and Tatami. Set in 1980, Carrie Coon, Bella Ramsey, Odessa Young, and Lily James star in Harmonia — which is about what happens when you break away from a cult. This is Bleecker Street release.
He shored up in Toronto with 2012’s End of Watch, and seeing that his latest feature is dated for a September 25th release via Paramount Pictures. Brad Pitt toplines David Ayer‘s Heart of the Beast – which follows a Special Forces officer and his retired combat dog Odin after a plane crash in Alaska. The elements make this a non vacation.
Another Netflix film that isn’t dated, Jessica Chastain stars as Misty Jones — a former country music star searches for her missing niece in the underbelly of Nashville. Shane Feste‘s mystery thriller Heartland also includes John Hawkes, Carter Faith, Garrett Hedlund, Jennifer Nettles, Ross Lynch, and Ben Dickey. Feste was at TIFF once with her Sundance preemed The Greatest back in 2009.
Industry folks are mentioning Venice, but Here Comes the Flood by Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles is nearly a sure bet for Toronto with Denzel Washington, Robert Pattinson, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Danai Gurira and Sean Harris in the tale of a bank guard, a teller, and a master thief get caught in a deadly game of cons and double crosses. Meirelles has been to TIFF on three different occasions.
Amazon MGM Studios have I Play Rocky dated for November 13th – and though its a long lead until regular eyeballs get to see the film anything is possible for Peter Farrelly — 2018’s Green Book launch in Toronto was a huge deal for the film’s success. This is about the tumultuous production of the 1976 film Rocky with Anthony Ippolito as Sylvester Stallone. This is Farrelly’s third time working with the great cinematographer Sean Porter.
Technically it might be considered a self-dealing type of proposal seeing that Midnight Madness programmer Peter Kuplowsky is one of the producers but to that we say — who the hell cares when the debut feature was so ferociously off the charts. Chris Nash‘s In a Violent Nature 2 reunites us with Johnny, a vengeful undead killer (Ry Barrett) awakened by a stolen locket, who heads to a summer camp where he crosses paths with a young outcast camper spending the night with his sister and friends. This was filmed in Canada.
A Joel Coen film without distribution, if Venice doesn’t land Jack of Spades, then the first weekend in Toronto for this gothic mystery might be in the cards. Josh O’Connor, Frances McDormand, Lesley Manville and Damian Lewis star in a project set in the late 19th century Scotland… in a Victorian setting. A nice audience two-hander if we include a North American preem for Zachary Wigon’s Cannes showcased Victorian Psycho.
Led by Chase Infiniti, Gillian Anderson, Christopher Briney, Jason Isaacs and Nina Hoss, Niki Byrne‘s sophomore feature The Julia Set could be a crowd-pleaser type of film entry. The acquisitions title is about a young mathematician preparing for a challenging contest.
Having populated the fest with several of his features, TIFF VIP member Taika Waititi‘s dystopian future sci-film will finally get released theatrically on October 23rd via Columbia Pictures. Klara and the Sun stars Jenna Ortega, Amy Adams, Mia Tharia, Aran Murphy, Steve Buscemi, Natasha Lyonne, and Sophia Bryant-Taukiri in the tale about a companion android named Klara who tries to bond with Josie, a sick girl for whom she was purchased.
Brampton, Ontario born actor Michael Cera moved behind the camera for his feature debut in Love Is Not The Answer – a comedy about heartbreak, and exploring modern loneliness and the need for connection. Pamela Anderson, Steve Coogan, Liam Neeson, Shirley Henderson and Jamie Dornan star in the acquisitions title.
Seeing that the film will receive a domestic France release early next year, and that the actress-director has been to Toronto in the past, we could perhaps see Milo by Nicole Garcia shore up on the Special Presentations slate. The project has the likes of Marion Cotillard, Théodore Pellerin, Laure Calamy, Charles Berling and Alexis Manenti in the tale of Alice, who takes a job as a waitress next to an auto repair garage. She befriends a young man named Milo, who works at the garage. There is a reason why she took the job.
Previously at TIFF with 2014’s Top Five, Chris Rock saw his NEON project move to A24 with a cast comprised of himself, Rosalind Eleazar, Adam Driver, Daniel Kaluuya, Anna Kendrick and Topher Grace. Misty Green is about actress looks to rebuild her fledgling career after reconnecting with a person from her past. If this project is gold then the distrib will want to put it out this year instead of next.
Peter Berg was once at TIFF for 2016’s Patriots Day, and perhaps Netflix want a touchdown with football sports drama The Mosquito Bowl. Starring Nicholas Galitzine as John McLaughry, Bill Skarsgård and Ray Nicholson, this is about the Mosquito Bowl game played during World War II – about American football players enlisting in the United States Marine Corps after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Alex Gibney has been a longstanding invited TIFF guest, and while Venice might be looking to land Musk, docu programmer Thom Powers certainly circled this title which was picked up by Bleecker Street. A thorough and unvarnished analysis of Elon Musk, a technology billionaire who serves as the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter.
Having showcased 2013’s Blue Ruin (a FIPRESCI Prize winner), 2015’s Green Room and 2018’s Hold the Dark, perhaps Jeremy Saulnier might be in the running for another showcase. He directed October, back in December of last year with Cory Michael Smith, Chase Sui Wonders and Sophie Wilde in the horror action thriller. A24 release this one.
The Hungarian filmmaker has been to TIFF in the past with the likes of White God (2014) and pandemic edition Pieces of a Woman (2020), and he might drop his second feature film this year in acquisitions title Place to Be. Kornél Mundruczó landed the starry cast of Ellen Burstyn, Taika Waititi, Pamela Anderson, Édgar Ramírez, Lena Waithe, Murray Bartlett, and Maika Monroe for the tale of an unlikely friendship forms between no-nonsense Brooke and divorcee Nelson, as they travel from Chicago to New York City to return a lost racing pigeon.
Set for a September release by the folk at A24, Robert Pattinson stars as Chris Hansen who sets out to make television history as the host of To Catch a Predator. Directed by Lance Oppenheim, the crime psychological thriller also stars Merritt Wever, Skyler Gisondo, Matthew Maher, Bokeem Woodbine, and Anna Faris. A prime showcase for Primetime will likely work best with North American auds who are familiar with gotcha television show.
Docu filmmaker behind The Carter Effect (premiered at TIFF in 2017), the assets for Sean Menard‘s Run Terry Run were just recently dropped with a tied October domestic release date in Canada. This is a behind-the-scenes look at Canadian hero Terry Fox’s legendary 1980 Marathon of Hope.
He had the chance to premiere Sing Sing at the fest in 2023, and so Jockey and Train Dreams writer Greg Kwedar might also be looking to showcase his romance-drama. Starlets Rachel Brosnahan, Charles Melton, and Will Poulter boarded the Netflix project titled Saturn Return — about two college sweethearts over a decade’s run.
Focus Features tied up the September theatrical release for Sense and Sensibility a while back. Directed by Georgia Oakley and starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, this is a new take on Jane Austen’s iconic novel. Oakley’s previous film – the feature debut Blue Jean was a major gem discovery at Venice back in 2022.
We truly see Aaron Sorkin‘s The Social Reckoning (out October 9th via Columbia Pictures) as a TIFF title. Featuring the likes of Mikey Madison as Frances Haugen, Jeremy Allen White as Jeff Horwitz and Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg, this thriller is based on the 2021 Facebook leak by whistleblower Haugen and Horwitz. Sorkin has been to TIFF with 2017’s Molly’s Game and 2020’s The Trial of the Chicago 7.
There is a lot of buzz surrounding Tom McCarthy‘s next project which could end up staying with the title of The Statement. A Sony Pictures Classics release, based on the novel, in 1980, a group of 20 scientists, activists, and policymakers gathers in Florida for a conference on the effects of carbon dioxide emissions on the climate with a seemingly simple mandate: writing a statement on measures to be taken against this issue. Paul Rudd, Paul Giamatti, Evan Peters, Tatiana Maslany, John Turturro, Amy Ryan, Dylan Baker, Jason Clarke, and Zach Woods toline this comedy noir.
The tandem of Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson had Mouse premiere at the Berlinale earlier this year and they could see their other film The Steel Harp nibble at TIFF auds. The comedy (starring O’Sullivan, Lois Smith, Cherry Jones, and Reed Birney) is about a 90-year-old woman who guards the Golden Gate Bridge meets Amy, a troubled young woman, on what should be her final patrol. Their winter encounter leads to a healing friendship. This is an acquisitions title.
Searchlight have Sweetsick on the docket for either this year or … next. Lady Macbeth and Die My Love scribe Alice Birch‘s directorial debut is about a mercurial woman (Cate Blanchett) with a strange and piercing gift – the ability to see what others most intimately need, often at great personal cost – who sets out on a journey home.
Being Heumann might have landed the opening night slot, but we could have easily have seen The Stunt Driver by Michael Dowse get that pole position. The Canadiana historical comedy is based on the life of Canadian daredevil stuntman — played by Jay Baruchel. Ed Helms, Ben Foster, Laurence Leboeuf and Dan Bakkedahl star in the kitsch looking pic set in 1970s – it a nutsehll this is about the plans to drive a rocket car across a river dividing Canada from the United States, from a 90-foot-high ramp.
Mike Leigh was bypassed by Cannes and Venice the last time he offered his cinema in 2024’s Hard Truths. Should Telluride and Venice pass over again, Tender Loving Care will have a home here. Marion Bailey, Paul Jesson, Kate O’Flynn and Alice Bailey Johnson topline the project – this is a Bleecker Street project.
An Apple TV release in early October, Australian filmmaker Jennifer Peedom has been showcased at TIFF when she premiered 2014’s Sherpa at the fest. Tenzing is a biographical drama that stars Genden Phuntsok as Tenzing Norgay, Tom Hiddleston as Sir Edmund Hillary, and Willem Dafoe as John Hunt. Tenzing along with Edmund Hillary were the first confirmed to have reached the summit of Mount Everest, as part of the 1953 British Mount Everest expedition.
Bleecker Street have themselves a crowd-pleaser on their hands with A Talent For Murder and Toronto audiences would eat this one up. Featuring Helen Mirren as Patricia Highsmith, Alden Ehrenreich and Olivia Cooke, this is thriller is directed by Anton Corbijn and tells the story of young man travels from New York to Switzerland to try to persuade acclaimed thriller writer Patricia Highsmith to write one final installment of her Tom Ripley series, with his efforts gradually turning more sinister.
Dakota Johnson actually got her start in filmmaking on a 2024 world preemed short that Toronto programmed, so perhaps A Tree is Blue will find a spot in the feature line-up. Vanessa Burghardt, Charli XCX and Jessica Alba star in the tale about a young woman on the autism spectrum who—in the summer after high school graduation—breaks free from her loving but overprotective mother in search of freedom, friendship, and a little chaos..
With the fest beginning one day before the theatrical release, Paul Greengrass has better than average shot at received a TIFF premiere especially with a history that includes preems for United 93 (2006), 22 July (2018) and last year’s The Lost Bus. His action period drama starring Andrew Garfield, Jamie Bell, Stephen Dillane, Tom Hollander, Cosmo Jarvis, Thomasin McKenzie, Jonny Lee Miller, Woody Norman, and Katherine Waterston is set during the English Peasants’ Revolt in 1381, a farmer becomes a leader of the rebellion against the Crown forces of a then-14-year-old King Richard II. The Uprising is a Focus Features release.
Amazon MGM Studios have dated Verity with an October 2nd release date and seeing that Michael Showalter has been at the fest several times before its entirely possible that this psychological erotic thriller get an extra nudge here. Based on the 2018 novel, Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett star in the tale about Lowen Ashleigh who is a writer in need of work when she is contacted by Jeremy Crawford. Jeremy’s wife is bestselling author Verity Crawford, and due to a mysterious accident, she is unable to finish her successful book series.
Filming on this stop-motion animated fantasy began all the way back in 2021 so there has been a lot of anticipation building up for Travis Knight feature debut. Based on the novel, Wildwood is about a hidden magical forest near Portland, the ensemble voice cast has Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Richard E. Grant, Awkwafina, Amandla Stenberg, Tom Waits, Charlie Day, Blythe Danner, Arthur Knight, Maya Erskine, Jake Johnson, Tantoo Cardinal, Rob Delaney, Jemaine Clement, Marc Evan Jackson, Len Cariou, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Angela Bassett, and Mahershala Ali. Fathom Entertainment will theatrically release the film on October 23rd.
Danish-Egyptian filmmaker May el-Toukhy blasted out of the gates with 2019’s Queen of Hearts (which was a Sundance selection) and has finally lined up her next feature film project. Set in a post-WW2 Denmark, Woman, Unknown revolves around a young woman who over the course of three days, attempts to escape her carefully suppressed secret to embark the new life she has created for herself. This stars Mathilde Arcel as Marie and Carsten Bjørnlund as Christian.
Featuring Lola Tung, Nico Parker, Brendan Hines, Tatiana Maslany, Johnny Knoxville, Heather Graham and Nicole Kidman, NEON have Osgood Perkins‘ The Young People readied for a big drop. While 2027 is a stronger possibility, we can’t help but think that this American horror might be a good fit for midnight crowds. The filmmaker was at TIFF with 2015’s The Blackcoat’s Daughter.
An acquisitions title with a fine actor in pole position, Young Stalin is a biographical film directed by Géla Babluani and starring Cosmo Jarvis as a young Joseph Stalin adapted from the 2007 non-fiction book of the same name by Simon Sebag Montefiore.
Another film with a September theatrical drop date (via Amazon MGM Studios), Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother by Bassam Tariq sees Mahershala Ali topline. A film about a devoutly religious hitman embarks on a desperate journey across Houston to protect his children, confronting the forces closing in around him – and the beliefs threatening to unravel within. John Cho and Giancarlo Esposito also star.
