Festivals: Toronto Film Festival
Toronto 2026 Review: THE SMELL OF APPLES, Subtle, Unsettling Coming-of-Age Drama Under Apartheid
John Trengove adapts Mark Behr's novel into a restrained, disquieting coming-of-age drama that filters apartheid-era privilege, racial hierarchy and paternal idealization through a child's limited understanding.
Toronto 2026 Review: TEHRAN, UNDER THE SKIN Reveals the Politics Beneath the Promise of Transformation
Afsaneh Salari's formally controlled documentary examines cosmetic surgery in Iran as an unstable expression of conformity, resistance, consumer desire, and bodily autonomy.
Toronto 2026 Review: WOMAN UNKNOWN, Provocative Drama of Survival and Retribution
May el-Toukhy's film, by virtue of winning the Golden Lion, is an automatic entrant into the Best International Film Oscar race.
Toronto 2026: Wrap -- All Our Coverage (So Far)
Our curtain raiser, our reviews, our poster columns, and an interview.
Toronto 2026 Review: MARIE MADELEINE, An Unforgettable Experience
Géssica Généus directs and stars.
Toronto 2026 Review: EVERYTHING ELSE IS NOISE
Opening with one of the most pleasurable and ambient scenes of 2026, Everything Else Is Noise announces its intentions immediately. Gridlocked traffic in a Mexico City intersection struggles to move and to find space in a complex interactive dance, while...
Toronto 2026 Review: THE UNKNOWN, Elevated Body-Swap Thriller Is A Magisterial Masterwork
Léa Seydoux and Niels Schneider lead Oscar-winner Arthur Harari's mind-bending thriller.
Toronto 2026 Review: UNION TOWN, The Power Divide Is Real
With Union Town, master documentarian Barbara Kopple completes a trilogy she began with the Oscar winning documentaries Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976) and American Dream (1990). From the coal mines of Kentucky to the factories of the Midwest, Kopple shifts her focus to New York...
Toronto 2026 Review: HALF, Malayalam Vampires Throw Down the Beats, and Slay On the Beatings
Somewhere in the vast open spaces of the Rajasthan Desert in Northwestern India, there is a highly organized group of bandits operating a well-oiled machine of hijacking, car-stripping, electronics and jewellery fencing. The local cops are in their pocket,...
Toronto 2026 Review: MISTY GREEN, Profane Hollywood Satire Is Fitfully Amazing
Chris Rock, as a Hollywood insider kimono-opener, wants to regale us with joyously crass anecdotes about the business' lurid inner workings. In his telling, everyone is a coke-addled fuck-up cheating on their partners, sleeping around for roles and money, and...
Toronto 2026 Review: ANCHORS AWEIGH, Deadpan Profundity, with Sailing Metaphors
Matt Barats is an idiot. He says so himself. He should have dropped a knee in his marriage proposal to his rich, blonde, much younger girlfriend. He didn’t. Now she is kissing her co-worker in the park. And here he...
Toronto 2026 Review: LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BRIAN MULRONEY
Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney is, in the words of our former honourable Prime Minister from Baie-Comeau, a "little bit of genius in everybody that causes something to happen in Canada, and that thing has got to be rewarded.” And...
Friday One Sheet: MINOTAUR
Refraction and separation are the key elements in the CREATE's release poster for Andrey Zvyagintsev's superb festival prize-winner, Minotaur. There are some echoes and rhymes with the design work of Akiko Stehrenberger, specifically the remake of Funny Games, one of the best posters of the...
Toronto 2026 Interview: DIARY OF A MAD OLD MAN Director Wayne Wang on Adapting Junichiro Tanizaki, Bringing Chinese and Japanese Stars Together
Director, producer and screenwriter Wayne Wang reflects on desire, ageing and psychological temptation in what may be his final film.
Toronto 2026 Review: THE DEBUT, Community Theater Satire Is a Feature Length SNL Skit
Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti lead Jesse Eisenberg's musical comedy for A24.
Toronto 2026 Review: NOBODY'S VIOLENCE, Profoundly Engaging, Genre-Shattering, Surreal Investigation
Veteran Canadian avant garde filmmaker, Denis Côté once stated that he measures the success of his works by the number of walk-outs. It's doubtful that his wish will be satisfied with his latest. Nobody's Violence (Violence du corps de l'autre)...
Toronto 2026 Review: COWARD, Gentle Romance in Shadows of War
Emmanuel Macchia and Valentin Campagne shared the Best Actor prize at Cannes for Belgium's Oscar entry.
Toronto 2026 Review: LA BOLA NEGRA, Netflix's Ambitious War Epic Is Destined To Be an Awards Juggernaut
Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi's Cannes award-winner is a visually splendid historical drama.
Toronto 2026 Review: DIARY OF A MAD OLD MAN Turns Erotic Obsession Into an Anti-Erotic Meditation
Wayne Wang returns to literary adaptation with a disquieting chamber drama in which senescence becomes its own form of erotic suspense.
Toronto 2026 Review: LOOK BACK Sees Hirokazu Kore-eda Struggle to Bring Tatsuki Fujimoto's Acclaimed Manga to Life
Celebrated filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda returns to the pages of Japanese manga for inspiration once again, unveiling this thoughtful adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s acclaimed 2021 coming-of-age one-shot, Look Back. Reuniting actresses Natsuki Deguchi and Aju Makita, both of whom featured prominently...
