50 Anticipated Films at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (Part 1)

With the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) set to begin in less than two weeks, members have had early access to ticket sales over the past week, and public tickets are now available starting Monday. After reviewing the festival's selections, I've compiled a list of 50 anticipated films, starting with the first seventeen films.

Arco

Directed by Ugo Bienvenu, this film won the Award for Best Feature Film at this year’s Annecy International Animated Film Festival. The English voice cast is packed with stars, including producer and Oscar Best Actress winner Natalie Portman (Black Swan), Will Ferrell (Barbie), Emmy Best Actress winner America Ferrera (Ugly Betty, Barbie), Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Emmy Best Actor winner Mark Ruffalo (I Know This Much Is True), and Golden Globe Best Actor winner Andy Samberg (Brooklyn Nine-Nine).

The film’s premise is that rainbows are actually time travellers from our future. Here, time travel isn’t simply an adventure — it’s employed to uncover lost truths about our planet and how human beings have endangered our environment.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t exciting, though, especially for Arco, a 10-year-old boy who can’t wait to travel through time, despite the fact that travel is restricted to those 12 and up. Arco pays for his impatience immediately when he is stranded in the year 2075, and must be rescued by Iris, a girl his own age. As the bond between them deepens, Arco finds out more about Iris’ era — where humans must live in domes that protect them from the extreme weather and rely very heavily on androids. But despite the precautions Iris’ people have taken, climate events can still present a danger, with one looming on the horizon — and Arco still needs very particular conditions to attempt a return home.

Ballad of a Small Player

This film is an adaptation of the novel of the same name, directed by Edward Berger, the director of the Oscar Best International Feature Film All Quiet on the Western Front and the BAFTA Best Film Conclave. The script is written by Rowan Joffé (28 Weeks Later). The cast includes two-time Golden Globe Best Actor winner Colin Farrell (In Bruges, The Banshees of Inisherin), Fala Chen (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), Venice Film Festival Best Actress winner Deanie Ip (A Simple Life), two-time Olivier Award winner Alex Jennings, and Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton). Berger’s last two films received numerous accolades, and he has reunited with his production team, including Oscar-winning cinematographer James Friend and Oscar-winning composer Volker Bertelmann from All Quiet on the Western Front, as well as BAFTA-winning editor Nick Emerson from Conclave.

Lord Doyle (Colin Farrell) is laying low in Macau – spending his days and nights on the casino floors, drinking heavily and gambling what little money he has left. Struggling to keep up with his fast-rising debts, he is offered a lifeline by the mysterious Dao Ming (Fala Chen), a casino employee with secrets of her own.

However, in hot pursuit is Cynthia Blithe (Tilda Swinton) – a private investigator ready to confront Doyle with what he is running from. As Doyle tries to climb to salvation, the confines of reality start to close in.

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Below the Clouds

Directed by Gianfranco Rosi, his previous documentaries, Sacro GRA and Fire at Sea, won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, respectively, making him the only documentary filmmaker to have achieved this.

In this film, Gianfranco Rosi embeds for three years among the populace living in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. The region of 3 million people remains infused with the lore of the volcano’s eruption in 79 AD that decimated the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Modernity and history live side by side. Rosi follows a wide variety of characters, including archeologists still uncovering treasures, as well as the Carabinieri who investigate tomb raiders. Rooted more firmly in the present are receptionists for an emergency hotline. We watch them respond to a wide variety of callers, both people at risk and others who seem over-anxious. Maybe a little anxiety is to be expected for these times. The film's score is composed by Oscar-winning composer Daniel Blumberg (The Brutalist).

Blue Heron

Written and directed by Sophy Romvari, this is her feature debut and it won the Best First Feature Film Award at the Locarno Film Festival this month.

The graceful opening scenes depict a period of transition for a Hungarian-Canadian family of six as they adapt to a new home on Vancouver Island in the late 1990s. Seen from the perspective of the youngest daughter Sasha (Eylul Guven), events range from the comfortably quotidian — family beach days and park outings, summer afternoon fun with trampolines and garden hoses — to those that take on a darker cast as the extent of the issues concerning one family member become clear. In sequences set years later, we witness an effort to grapple with this difficult past.

The Captive

This film is directed by Alejandro Amenábarthe, the director of The Sea Inside, which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Julio Peña stars as Miguel de Cervantes, the author of one of the foundational works of modern Western literature, Don Quixote. The cast also includes Italian actor Alessandro Borghi and Spanish actors José Manuel Poga (Money Heist) and Roberto Álamo.

In 1575 Algiers, a young soldier named Miguel de Cervantes is held for ransom — unaware he’s on the path to becoming one of history’s greatest storytellers. Despite the dire situation he finds himself in, Cervantes makes use of his talents and captures the attention of Hasan, the Bajá of Algiers (Alessandro Borghi), with whom he develops a shifting connection that alters his fate.

The Christophers

Directed by Oscar Best Director winner Steven Soderbergh (Traffic), the film is written by his previous collaborator Ed Solomon (No Sudden Move). This is Soderbergh's third film this year, following the supernatural thriller Presence and the spy thriller Black Bag. This new project is a very different kind of black comedy. The film stars Ian McKellen (X-Men), BAFTA winner Michaela Coel (I May Destroy You), talk show host and Tony Award winner James Corden, and Emmy nominee Jessica Gunning (Baby Reindeer).

Having all but given up her own art practice, thirtysomething Lori (Michaela Coel) divides her time between freelance art restoration and working the window of a food truck. Her fortunes promise to change, however, when she’s approached by the estranged heirs (Jessica Gunning and James Corden) of renowned painter Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) with a tantalizing proposition: Lori is to apprehend a series of long-abandoned paintings from Sklar’s London home, complete the paintings using her masterful imitation skills, and receive a third of the profits from the sale of the paintings following the old man’s imminent death. Lori accepts the gig, infiltrating Sklar’s home under the pretense of becoming his new assistant, but the ruse quickly goes awry in a series of titillating twists and shifting allegiances.

Couture

This film is written and directed by French César Award winner Alice Winocour (Mustang). It stars Oscar winner Angelina Jolie (Girl, Interrupted), Louis Garrel (An Officer and a Spy), and Ella Rumpf and Garance Marillier from Raw.

Maxine (Angelina Jolie), an American film director, arrives in Paris to helm a video for a fashion event. Maxine thinks fashion is “useless and unnecessary,” but the opportunity is lucrative and she has financial burdens. She is in the midst of a divorce, has a teenage daughter, and is preparing her next feature film. But her tightly ordered life is about to unravel as Maxine is given a serious medical diagnosis.

Maxine’s personal crisis intersects with two other women she encounters at her job: Angèle (Ella Rumpf), a veteran makeup artist writing a work of fiction based on her own experiences in the industry, and Ada (Anyier Anei), an 18-year-old pharmacy student from Nairobi who has just been “discovered” as a model and navigating a brand-new world. Each is confronted with choices small and significant, and must make life-changing career decisions.

Cover-Up

Directed by Oscar winner Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) and Mark Obenhaus, this film follows investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who has repeatedly exposed brutal realities that governments and corporations wanted to cover up. He shares behind-the-scenes details of how he reported the My Lai massacre, Watergate, the operation of CIA spying on Americans, and the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, to name a few of his major headlines.

Dead Man's Wire

Directed by Palme d'Or and Best Director winner Gus Van Sant (Elephant), the film stars Bill Skarsgård (It), Dacre Montgomery (Stranger Things), Emmy winner Colman Domingo (Euphoria), Myha'la (Leave the World Behind), Cary Elwes (Operation Fortune), John Robinson (Elephant), and Oscar winner Al Pacino (Scent of a Woman).

Gus Van Sant’s latest recreates the strange, fascinating true story of the 1977 kidnapping that made aspiring Indianapolis entrepreneur Tony Kiritsis into an eccentric outlaw folk hero. It is February, 1977. Having fallen behind on his mortgage and, as a result, lost the commercial property he’d dreamed of developing, aspiring Indianapolis entrepreneur Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgård) shows up for a meeting with Meridian Mortgage Company president Richard Hall (Dacre Montgomery). Tony expected to meet Hall Sr. (Al Pacino), but the Meridian founder is enjoying a luxury vacation in Florida, a fact that only stokes Tony’s ire.

Dust Bunny

Written and directed by Bryan Fuller, the creator of the acclaimed series Hannibal, this marks his feature directorial debut. The film stars Cannes Best Actor winner Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal, The Hunt), Golden Globe Best Actress Sigourney Weaver (Alien, Gorillas in the Mist), and David Dastmalchian (Late Night with the Devil).

Like many children, Aurora (Sophie Sloan) fearfully believes a monster lurks beneath her bed. And she has good reason to: her foster parents have been eaten by one. Fortunately, she has arrived at a practical solution. She will hire the enigmatic hit man who lives next door (Mads Mikkelsen) to slay the beast. But procuring her neighbour’s services will not be easy, for he believes her family was mistakenly dispatched by an assassin’s bullets that were meant for him.

The Fence

Directed by Claire Denis, who won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival for Both Sides of the Blade and the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes for Stars at Noon. The film stars Isaach De Bankolé (The Brutalist), two-time Independent Spirit Award winner Matt Dillon (Drugstore Cowboy, Crash), British Independent Film Awards winner Mia McKenna-Bruce (How to Have Sex), and Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes).

Within the walls of a private construction company in Africa, British supervisor Horn (Matt Dillon) hangs around with his colleague Cal (Tom Blyth) while expecting his wife Leonie (Mia McKenna-Bruce) to stop by for a visit. There is a sense of foreboding in the air — earlier that day a worker was killed in an accident. Soon, Alboury (Isaach De Bankolé), a local villager and brother of the deceased, arrives and demands to collect the body.

Tensions start to rise, and things start to unravel as Alboury demands answers. Leonie gets caught up in the chaos, struggling to understand the circumstances and in shock from the events and revelations that quickly unfold. Cal’s manic energy escalates and the construction site effectively starts to feel like a powder keg waiting to explode.

Frankenstein

This film is written and directed by Oscar Best Director winner Guillermo del Toro (Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, The Shape of Water). Based on the classic novel, it stars Golden Globe Best Actor winner Oscar Isaac (Show Me a Hero) as Victor Frankenstein, Jacob Elordi (Euphoria) as Frankenstein's monster, Mia Goth (Suspiria) as Elizabeth Lavenza, two-time Oscar winner Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained) as Dr. Pretorious from Bride of Frankenstein, and Felix Kammerer (All Quiet on the Western Front), Lars Mikkelsen (House of Cards), David Bradley (Harry Potter), and Charles Dance (Game of Thrones).

Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) is a brilliant scientist tortured by ambition and his own raging passions. Pushing his work beyond scientific certainty to the boundary between life and death, he brings a new being into existence in a spectacular moment of creation. Frankenstein's monster (Jacob Elordi) begins as a powerful, dangerous beast but carries the equally dangerous capacity to learn from human behaviour. It puts both Frankenstein and his fiancé Elizabeth (Mia Goth) in jeopardy.

Franz

Directed by Agnieszka Holland, the director of Europa Europa, which won a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, this film is about the life of Franz Kafka, one of the 20th century's most influential writers and the author of The Metamorphosis, The Trial, and The Castle. Idan Weiss plays Kafka, while Czech actress Jenovéfa Boková plays Milena Jesenská, with whom Kafka had a close correspondence.

In Franz, we meet Kafka (Idan Weiss) as a young man — a lawyer working in insurance — navigating his passion for literature while balancing the responsibilities of being a son and future husband in a conservative yet economically troubled society on the verge of World War I. Possessing talent for blending realism and fantasy as well as a penchant for savagely worded skewerings of bureaucracies and man — whether facing surreal predicaments or his own nature — Kafka’s world was compressed by a long battle with tuberculosis.

The Furious

Directed by Hong Kong Film Awards Best Action Choreography winner Kenji Tanigaki (Raging Fire, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In), this film stars action actors from several countries, including Xie Miao, Joe Taslim (Mortal Kombat), Jeeja Yanin (Chocolate), child star Yang En-you (Nanjing Photo Studio), and Yayan Ruhian (The Raid series).

A desperate father (Xie Miao) into a knock-down, drag-out war to rescue his daughter from a nefarious array of cutthroat kidnappers

Fuze

Directed by David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water), the film stars Golden Globe winner Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Nocturnal Animals), Theo James (Divergent series), Sam Worthington (the Avatar franchise), Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Loki), and Saffron Hocking (Top Boy).

When a World War II-era bomb is found in a construction site in a busy area of London, the authorities quickly spring into action, determined to save the throngs of innocent bystanders in the vicinity. Scripted by Ben Hopkins (the mind-bending The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz, TIFF ’00), Fuze moves at a breakneck pace. As the tension mounts and time threatens to run out, it soon becomes clear that no one can truly be trusted.

Good News

Directed by Byun Sung-hyun, who won at the Baeksang Arts Awards and Grand Bell Awards for Kingmaker, the film stars three-time Blue Dragon Film Awards winner Sul Kyung-gu (The Book of Fish), Hong Kyung, and Ryu Seung-bum (Moving). It revolves around the 1970 Yodo-go hijacking incident.

It is 1970. Shortly after departing Tokyo’s Haneda Airport, a commercial aircraft bound for Itazuke is taken over by members of the Red Army Faction, armed with pistols and blades and demanding that the flight be rerouted to Pyongyang. The fact that Japan and North Korea share no infrastructure to facilitate such a landing is only one among a rapidly growing list of kinks in the zealous hijackers’ plan.

Meanwhile, in Seoul, a mysterious figure known only as “Nobody” (Byun regular collaborator Sul Kyung-gu) — a man whose work turns up on the nightly news but whose name is never uttered — is called in to advise on a secret intervention. Intelligence and military agencies from Japan, South Korea, and the US deploy several strategies, from double parking on the runway during refuelling to attempting to hijack a radio signal. They might just bring the hostages to safety — if they don’t create an even bigger disaster with their insane shenanigans.

Hamlet

This film is directed by Aneil Karia, who previously directed the short film The Long Goodbye with the film's lead actor, Emmy Best Actor winner Riz Ahmed (The Night of). They won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film for their work. The film is an adaptation of one of Shakespeare's tragedies, Hamlet. The screenwriter, Michael Lesslie, also adapted another of Shakespeare's tragedies, Macbeth, into a film in 2015. The cast includes Riz Ahmed as Hamlet, Morfydd Clark (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power) as Ophelia, and Joe Alwyn (Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk) as Laertes. The editor is Mikkel E. G. Nielsen, who won an Oscar for Best Film Editing for the Riz Ahmed-starring film Sound of Metal.

The film is set in a modern-day South Asian community in London, with the original Elsinore Castle reimagined as a family manor house in the English countryside—filled with unease, unspoken silence, and patriarchal rule.

If you are interested in upcoming movies to be released in Canada, please visit the Movie Release Schedule page on this website!

Photo and Source: TIFF