Sing it with us, folks: it’s the most wonderful time of the year… No, it’s not Christmas. It’s time for TIFF, back for edition no. 51, but aging like a fine wine. Seriously, the Toronto International Film Festival is one of the best festivals on the planet, led by an incredible programming team (assisted by amazing volunteers) who always seem to curate an incredible—and large—selection of the best upcoming films from around the world. This year’s program is no exception, and out of the 427 films screening at the festival, it’s almost impossible to just pick five movies from such a broad selection. But we like a challenge, so we’ve chosen our five most-anticipated titles to highlight.
We’ve got something for everyone: Bizarre alien encounters, the third installment of our strangest anthology franchise, a sex comedy about the Ideal Man, a bizarro slasher from a new filmmaking talent, and Helen Mirren as Patricia Highsmith. Yeah, it’s gonna be a pretty dope year. TIFF runs from September 10 to 20 in Toronto (the universe’s answer to the question “What if New York was nice?”).
Without further ado, here are our five:
Alpha Gang
We have a weird relationship with the Zellner brothers — sometimes, these dudes hit it out of the park (Damsel, for one), and other times, well, we don’t like to talk much about Sasquatch Sunset. But this time around, they’ve got a fun concept that wouldn’t be out of place in a Quentin Dupieux feature: an alien invasion, led by the cast of Grease. Well, not the actual cast of Grease, but a bunch of Hollywood stars (Lea Seydoux, Dave Bautista, Riley Keough, and more!) who just so happen to play aliens dressed up as greasers and greasettes. Of course, it all goes to hell when the aliens discover that they actually quite like Earth, but there’s plenty of time for them to change their mind. It sounds funny, and we’re excited to see how goofy things get.
Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo
How did we wind up getting a new Bad Lieutenant on a clockwork 17-year schedule, and how did all three of them play at TIFF? In case you need a refresher: The first was Abel Ferrara’s in ’92 (with Harvey Keitel as our antihero), the second was Werner Herzog’s in ’09 (with an all-timer of a Nicolas Cage performance), and now we’ve got Takashi Miike helming the ’26 installment, moving the action overseas to Tokyo. In the lead is Shun Oguri, a gambling-addicted policeman sent on the trail of a politician’s missing daughter. With that franchise tag and Miike at the helm, you can expect this movie to be absolutely bug-nuts crazy. The only thing we’re surprised by is that it’s premiering outside of the Midnight Madness category. Seriously.
Everybody Wants to F*ck Me
Here’s a semi-controversial opinion: Taron Egerton is criminally underrated as a leading man. He’s got range, a great sense of humor, and plenty of charm, which is why it’s so delightful to see him take on a role like the lead in Jonathan Schey’s dark comedy. Egerton plays a guy who has mastered the art of dating app seduction, mainly by making the ladies think he’s someone he’s not — namely, a soft boi type. All that turns upside down when he meets a woman who can resist his charms, and every other woman (and some men) becomes obsessed with him. No One-Wish Willow involved here, we hope. But this sounds like a fun concept, and, again, Egerton’s a swell actor to structure this film around.
River
There’s been a lot of hype surrounding Joshua Giuliano’s feature-film debut, and we’re absolutely sure it has nothing to do with the fact that Obsession (jokingly alluded to above!) made a billion dollars. No sir, no way, no how! We’re kidding, but man, that’s going to be an albatross for first-time filmmakers for the next few years. Anyhow, it has a cool concept behind it as well—it’s Halloween… on a motorboat. When a trio of siblings hit some engine trouble while scattering their father’s ashes, everything goes to hell. And that’s before a weird figure appears on the shore and starts to intimidate the three of them. So, yeah, we’ve got a solid logline, an acclaimed short-form filmmaker, and a whole lot of content warnings. Sounds good to us. Let’s go, folks.
A Talent for Murder
It’s been a bit since Anton Corbijn directed a narrative feature — the last was Life, which got buried despite featuring Dane Dehaan as James Dean — and he’s back with a new movie that has us genuinely excited as both fans of his (if you don’t like those Depeche Mode videos, you suck) and of the murder-mystery. Adapted by Joanna Murray-Smith from her play Switzerland, it’s about a young man (Alden Ehrenreich) who makes his way to Europe to meet the legendarily grumpy author of the Ripley novels, Patricia Highsmith (Helen Mirren, in what seems to be fantastic casting). He’s got designs on something other than the new Ripley sequel he wants to write, though… And we can’t wait to find out what happens next.
