Like I said in yesterday’s Part 1, there are just way too many intriguing choices at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), so much so that I had to split my normal preview into two parts and I couldn’t even keep it down to 40 choices as I originally planned. (And that’s still roughly half the movies I’m dying to see at the festival.)
Anyway, here’s hoping I can see at least some of the ones mentioned in the gallery below, but it’s pretty evident this is going to be one of the better TIFFs in some time.
Although I’ve now shared over 40 movies worth seeking out at TIFF, I do want to mention a couple other foreign films I’m also interested, including Bent Hamer’s 1001 Grams, Takashi Miike’s Over Your Dead Body, Revenge of the Green Dragons and new films from two of Denmark’s premiere female directors, Lone Scherfig’s The Riot Club and Susanne Bier’s A Second Chance. Hopefully these will all find North American distribution soon after their TIFF premieres.
Whether or not you’re attending TIFF, feel free to comment on the movies you’re looking forward to seeing or hearing more about. You can keep track of our full Toronto coverage over the next ten days right here.
TIFF 14 Preview - Part 2
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<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=97520">Wild*</a>
Reese Witherspoon's second film at TIFF and one that's already getting a ton of awards attention is this one in which she plays Cheryl Strayed, a woman haunted by the death of her mother and a dark past that sends her hiking for a thousand miles across the Pacific Crest Trail on her own. Adapted from Strayed's bestselling novel by British author Nick Hornby, it's directed by Jean-Marc Valee, who last year brought Dallas Buyers Club to TIFF, six months before its stars Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto won their first Oscars.
Released by Fox Searchlight on December 5 -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=74984">While We're Young*</a>
Noah Baumbach reunites with his Greenberg star Ben Stiller playing Josh Srebnick, an uptight New York documentary filmmaker, whose dull life with his wife (Naomi Watts) is disrupted by the arrival of young artists Jamie and Darby, played by the ubiquitous Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried, allowing them to recapture some of their youth.
To be released by Focus Features -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=110113">Tusk</a>
Kevin Smith delves into horror--No, honestly, this time for real. I have no idea what Red State was--with Justin Long playing a journalist and podcaster who travels to Canada looking for interesting subjects. There he finds Red State star Michael Parks' adventurer Mr. Howe, who seems obsessed with walruses. Before you can say The Human Centipede... well, we'll say no more...
Released by A24 on Sept. 19 -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=103378">Top Five*</a>
Chris Rock stars in and directs his third film, playing comedian Andre Allen, who decides to make a serious documentary about the Haitian revolution with a journalist (Rosario Dawson) after his career is sidelined by a bad review. Also starring Gabrielle Union, Tracy Morgan, Kevin Hart, Cedric the Entertainer and more of Rock's friends like Jerry Seinfeld and Adam Sandler, this seems like a comedy that could be picked up pretty quickly. -
<a href="http://www.tiff.net/festivals/thefestival/programmes/specialpresentations/time-out-of-mind">Time Out of Mind</a>
Oren Moverman's Rampart was one of the highlights of TIFF a few years back due to the performance by Woody Harrelson and one expects the same here from Richard Gere, playing a New Yorker who tries to reconnect with his daughter (Jena Malone) after being forced into a homeless shelter. -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=52499">This is Where I Leave You*</a>
Director Shawn Levy, best known for his "Night at the Museum" movies, gets into dysfunctional family "fun" with this ensemble dramedy adapted by Jonathan Tropper from his own novel starring Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Corey Stoll, Kathryn Hahn, Abigail Spencer, Dax Shepard and Jane Fonda. Four grown siblings return to their childhood home after the death of their father. Yup, it sounds like August: Osage County: Part 2.
Released by Warner Bros. on Sept. 19 -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=105446">The Theory of Everything*</a>
Eddie Redmayne plays Professor Stephen Hawking as a young student at Cambridge where he meets and falls in love with Felicity Jones' Jane Wilde, a romance that is put to the test when he's diagnosed with the debilitating early stages of ALS.
Released by Focus Features on November 7 -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=114125">Still Alice</a>
Julianne Moore is already getting awards buzz for her performance in David Cronenberg's Maps to the Stars (also playing at TIFF following its Cannes premiere), but this film based on Lisa Genova's novel could be another chance as she plays a professor who learns she's suffering from early signs of Alzheimer's disease. Her daughter Lydia is played by Kristen Stewart. -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=108019">Shelter</a>
Paul Bettany is one of many actors whose directorial debuts are premiering at TIFF, this one starring his wife Jennifer Connelly as a homeless woman who meets fellow homeless person Tahir (played by Anthony Mackie) as they try to find shelter while keeping their dark pasts a secret. -
<a href="http://www.tiff.net/festivals/thefestival/programmes/galapresentations/samba">Samba</a>
Almost missed this follow-up to the French blockbuster The Intouchables, reuniting directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano with Cesar-winning actor Omar Sy who plays the title character, Samba Cisse, an immigrant from Mali working as a dishwasher when he ends up in detention and encounters Alice, a new immigration worker played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=101136">Rosewater</a>
"The Daily Show's'" politically-conscious host, Jon Stewart, makes his directorial debut by telling the story of Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahar (played by Gael Garcia Bernal) who was imprisoned in Iran for five months after appearing on the show. Iranian-American actress Shohreh Aghdashloo plays Bahari's mother.
Released by Open Road Films on Nov. 7 -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=64229">Pawn Sacrifice</a>
There have been a number of films about chess champion Bobby Fischer, but this one directed by Ed Zwick and written by Steven Knight is focused on the 1972 Reykjavik match between Fischer--played here by Tobey Maguire--and his Russian rival Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber) that would capture the world's attention for weeks as it was declared the "Match of the Century." -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=103458">Nightcrawler</a>
TIFF regular Jake Gyllenhaal returns as the star of screenwriter Dan Gilroy's directorial debut playing petty thief Lou Bloom, who decides to get into the world of L.A.'s freelance crime photography where individuals illegally film crime scenes to sell the footage to television news programs, sometimes altering the crime scenes to make the footage more sellable. It co-stars Bill Paxton and Rene Russo.
Released by Open Road Films on Oct. 31 -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=108550">Men, Women & Children</a>
Jason Reitman is the second filmmaker at TIFF trying to turn Adam Sandler into a serious actor, this time with a role in an ensemble drama based on Chad Kultgen's novel about how people are affected by modern technology in their attempt to connect to others. It co-stars Judy Greer, Jennifer Garner, Rosemarie DeWitt, Ansel Elgort, Dean Norris and Reitman regular J.K. Simmons (whose is getting raves of his performance in Damien Chazelle's Whiplash, which also plays at TIFF).
Released by Paramount Pictures on Oct. 1 -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=104255">Manglehorn</a>
Al Pacino's second movie at TIFF, directed by David Gordon Green, has him playing a locksmith who lost the woman he loved forty years earlier but tries to start life over again with a new friend, played by Holly Hunter. This is Green's third film to play TIFF after last year's Joe, starring Nicolas Cage. -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=78986">Love & Mercy</a>
A Bryan Wilson biopic directed by Oscar-nominated producer Bill Pohlad and co-written by Oren Moverman (whose new movie Time Out of Mind, also premiering at TIFF, was produced by Pohlad), starring Paul Dano and John Cusack playing the former Beach Boy at different points in his career, as his life is controlled by his ersatz manager and caregiver, Dr. Eugene Landy, played by Paul Giamatti. Elizabeth Banks plays the older Wilson's love interest Melinda. -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=104658">A Little Chaos</a>
Alan Rickman was able to pull together an impressive cast for his directorial debut, this year's Closing Night Gala at TIFF, a historical drama starring Kate Winslet as a landscape designer working in the famed gardens at Versailles belonging to King Louis XIV (Rickman) who gets into competition with the king's chief architect (Matthias Schoenaerts, who also appears in The Drop)
To be released by Lionsgate -
<a href="http://www.tiff.net/festivals/thefestival/programmes/specialpresentations/learning-to-drive">Learning to Drive</a>
Spain-born filmmaker Isabel Coixet reunites with Sir Ben Kingsley after her 2006 adaptation of Philip Roth's Elegy, this one starring Patricia Clarkson as a book editor who turns to driving lessons from a Sikh instructor (Kingsley) to get over her husband leaving her. -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=105650">The Last Five Years</a>
Anna Kendrick continues her aspirations as a singer with a bonafide musical, this one based on James Robert Brown's off-Broadway musical and adapted by Richard LaGravenese (Beautiful Creatures), about the romance and marriage of a struggling actress to an aspiring novelist (Jeremy Jordan). The story is told in chronological order from his perspective and reverse-chronological order from hers. -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=109095">Kill Me Three Times</a>
One of two Simon Pegg movies playing at TIFF, the other one being Hector and the Search for Happiness. In this one, he plays Charlie Wolfe, an assassin hired by a group of diverse individuals to kill one woman, played by Alice Braga. The crime-comedy directed by Australian filmmaker Kriv Stenders (Red Dog) also stars Teresa Palmer, Sullivan Stapleton, Bryan Brown and Luke Hemsworth. -
<a href="https://comingsoon.preprod.vip.gnmedia.net/films.php?id=101539">The Judge*</a>
TIFF's Opening Night Gala is a rare drama from comic director David Dobkin (Wedding Crashers) starring Robert Downey Jr. (in his first dramatic role in some time) returning home after the death of his mother to defend his father (Robert Duvall), a judge accused of a heinous crime.
Released by Warner Bros. on Oct. 10 -
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This period drama is already getting raves out of Telluride for the performance by recent Emmy winner Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing, the closeted gay mathematician responsible for the implementation of the Enigma machines used to crack the German's codes while facing his own inner demons. Directed by Norwegian filmmaker Morten Tyldum (Headhunter) and co-starring Keira Knightley, who will also be at TIFF for Lynn Shelton's Laggies.
Released by The Weinstein Company on Nov. 21
