TIFF 2024: Read THR’s Reviews of the Movies Screening at the Toronto Film Festival (Updating)

As the Toronto International Film Festival gets underway, The Hollywood Reporter’s critics weigh in on this year’s crop of titles, from biopics to documentaries, sweeping epics to intimate character studies, tear-jerking dramas to laugh-out-loud comedies.

Several of this year’s slate have already debuted at other festivals throughout the year. For those curious about the very best the TIFF calendar has to offer, a few — but not nearly all — of the highlights include the Steven Soderbergh ghost story Presence, which David Rooney hailed as “masterfully done” out of Sundance; the Icelandic grief drama When the Light Breaks, which Lovia Gyarkye described as “impossible to shake” at Cannes; and the literary adaptation Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, which Caryn James praised at Telluride for the “astonishing” child performance at its center.

In addition, the lineup includes a number of highly anticipated world premieres — we’re curious about David Gordon Green’s Nutcracker, Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch and Angelina Jolie’s Without Blood, among many, many others. Plus, feature filmmaking debuts by the likes of TV director Andrew DeYoung (Friendship), commercials and music video director Fleur Fortuné (The Assessment) and actress Rebel Wilson (The Deb).

But perhaps most exciting, this year and ever year, is the unpredictable thrill of discovery: the possibility that any film we sit down for might become a lifelong favorite, might introduce us to a brand-new talent, might show us a way of looking at the world that we’ve never thought of before. We hope you’ll continue to join us as we explore this year’s TIFF titles — watch this space as we continue to update with new reviews posted throughout the festival.

All We Imagine as Light
Sideshow/Janus; directed by Payal Kapadia; 110 minutes

And Their Children After Them
Charades; directed by Ludovic Boukherma, Zoran Boukherma; 144 minutes

Anora
Neon; directed by Sean Baker; 138 minutes

April
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili; 134 minutes

The Assessment
Amazon Prime Video; directed by Fleur Fortuné; 114 minutes

Babygirl
A24; directed by Halina Reijn; 114 minutes

Battleground
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Gianni Amelio; 103 minutes

Better Man
Paramount; directed by Michael Gracey; 134 minutes

Bird
Mubi; directed by Andrea Arnold; 119 minutes

Bonjour Tristesse
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Durga Chew-Bose; 110 minutes

Bring Them Down
Mubi; directed by Christopher Andrews; 105 minutes

The Brutalist
A24; directed by Brady Corbet; 215 minutes

Caught by the Tides
Sideshow/Janus; directed by Jia Zhang-Ke; 111 minutes

Cloud
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa; 124 minutes

Conclave
Focus; directed by Edward Berger; 120 minutes

Dahomey
Mubi; directed by Mati Diop; 68 minutes

The Damned
Vertical Entertainment; directed by Roberto Minervini; 88 minutes

Diciannove
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Giovanni Tortorici; 109 minutes

Disclaimer
Apple; directed by Alfonso Cuarón

Diva Futura
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Giulia Louise Steigerwalt; 129 minutes

Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Embeth Davidtz; 98 minutes

Emilia Pérez
Netflix; directed by Jacques Audiard; 130 minutes

The End
Neon; directed by Joshua Oppenheimer; 148 minutes

Ernest Cole: Lost and Found
Magnolia; directed by Raoul Peck; 105 minutes

Flow
Sideshow/Janus; directed by Gints Zilbalodis; 86 minutes

The Friend
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Scott McGehee, David Siegel; 120 minutes

The Girl With the Needle
Mubi; directed by Magnus von Horn; 115 minutes

Grand Tour
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Miguel Gomes; 129 minutes

Happy Holidays
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Scandar Copti; 124 minutes

Happyend
Metrograph; directed by Neo Sora; 113 minutes

Hard Truths
Bleecker Street; directed by Mike Leigh; 97 minutes

Harvest
Mubi; directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari; 133 minutes

I’m Still Here
Sony Classics; directed by Walter Salles; 135 minutes

Julie Keeps Quiet
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Leonardo van Dijl; 103 minutes

Kill the Jockey
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Luis Ortega; 96 minutes

The Last Republican
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Steve Pink; 90 minutes

The Last Showgirl
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Gia Coppola; 85 minutes

The Life of Chuck
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Mike Flanagan; 110 minutes

The Luckiest Man in America
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Samir Oliveros; 90 minutes

Meet the Barbarians
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Julie Delpy; 101 minutes

Megalopolis
Lionsgate; directed by Francis Ford Coppola; 138 minutes

Memoir of a Snail
IFC; directed by Adam Elliot; 94 minutes

Misericordia
Janus; directed by Alain Guiraudie; 102 minutes

My Sunshine
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Hiroshi Okuyama; 90 minutes

Nightbitch
Searchlight; directed by Marielle Heller; 98 minutes

No Other Land
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor; 96 minutes

Nutcrackers
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by David Gordon Green; 104 minutes

Oh, Canada
Kino Lorber; directed by Paul Schrader; 91 minutes

On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
A24; directed by Rungano Nyoni; 95 minutes

On Swift Horses
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Daniel Minahan; 119 minutes

The Order
Vertical Entertainment; directed by Justin Kurzel; 116 minutes

Pepe
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias; 122 minutes

The Piano Lesson
Netflix; directed by Malcolm Washington; 125 minutes

Piece by Piece
Focus; directed by Morgan Neville; 93 minutes

Presence
Neon; directed by Steven Soderbergh; 85 minutes

Queer
A24; directed by Luca Guadagnino; 135 minutes

Relay
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by David Mackenzie; 112 minutes

Riff Raff
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Dito Montiel; 103 minutes

The Room Next Door
Sony Classics; directed by Pedro Almodóvar; 107 minutes

Rumours
Bleecker Street; directed by Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson; 118 minutes

Santosh
Metrograph; directed by Sandhya Suri; 120 minutes

Saturday Night
Sony; directed by Jason Reitman; 103 minutes

The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Neon; directed by Mohammad Rasoulof; 168 minutes

The Shrouds
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by David Cronenberg; 119 minutes

Sketch
Morphan Time; directed by Seth Worley; 92 minutes

The Story of Souleymane
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Boris Lojkine; 102 minutes

The Substance
Mubi; directed by Coralie Fargeat; 140 minutes

Three Friends
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Emmanuel Mouret; 117 minutes

To a Land Unknown
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Mahdi Fleifel; 105 minutes

Universal Language
Oscilloscope; directed by Matthew Rankin; 89 minutes

Unstoppable
Amazon/MGM; directed by William Goldenberg; 116 minutes

Vermiglio
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Maura Delpero; 116 minutes

The Village Next to Paradise
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Mo Harawe; 133 minutes

We Live in Time
A24; directed by John Crowley; 108 minutes

Went Up the Hill
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Samuel Van Grinsven; 99 minutes

When The Light Breaks
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Runar Runarsson; 80 minutes

The Wild Robot
DreamWorks; directed by Chris Sanders; 102 minutes

Will & Harper
Netflix; directed by Josh Greenbaum; 114 minutes

Without Blood
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Angelina Jolie; 91 minutes

Youth (Homecoming)
Still seeking U.S. distribution; directed by Wang Bing; 152 minutes