“Snowden”
As one of the most provocative political filmmakers ever to work within the studio system, the story of Edward Snowden, the CIA contractor who was a whistleblower on global surveillance, seemed to fit perfectly within the wheelhouse of Oliver Stone, the director of “JFK” and “Born On The Fourth Of July,” among others. But the director can be unpredictable, and has had mostly misses in the last few years. How will “Snowden” turn out? Well, a bullish presence at Comic-Con, of all places, suggests some confidence on the part of Open Road, and Cannes head Thierry Frémaux said that he thought the film was terrific (producers withdrew it from festival consideration to better its Oscar prospects). But trailers make it look a bit like a “Saturday Night Live” parody, and it has had several release-date shuffles over time. We’d love a Stone comeback — let’s just hope that this is the one to deliver it.
“Their Finest”
She gave her career a new lease on life in a big way with the multi-Oscar nominated “An Education,” but Danish director Lone Scherfig hasn’t yet found the project to follow it up satisfyingly — neither rom-com “One Day” or satire “The Riot Club” quite connected with audiences. Could the WW2-set dramedy “Their Finest” return her to glory? Based on an acclaimed novel by Lissa Evans, and produced by the minds behind “Carol” and “Brooklyn,” it follows a British film crew as they try to make a propaganda film to cheer the nation during the depths of war, with Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, Jack Huston, Helen McCrory, Jake Lacy and Jeremy Irons leading a very fine cast. The story has elements of the story of Dunkirk, getting it ahead of the game of Christopher Nolan’s epic next year, and given the Academy’s fondness for voting for movies about movies, this could be a dark horse for awards watchers.
“Trespass Against Us”
With the actor seemingly permanently busy — he had three movies last year, and this’ll be the third of four this year — it’s no wonder that the Michael Fassbender vehicle “Trespass Against Us” has been awaiting the right premiere date for a while now. Now it’s here, though, and it looks to hold as much promise as it ever did. The feature debut of “Doctor Who” director Adam Smith, it’s set among the rural traveler community in the U.K., as Chad Cutler (Fassbender) tries to break free of the criminal nature of his family, led by patriarch Brendan Gleeson, only to agree to pull off a final heist. The traveler community is one that deserves a more nuanced investigation than the one we saw in “Snatch,” for instance, and a script from documentarian Alastair Siddons will hopefully provide that (and Fassbender’s taste in material is pretty impeccable on the whole). Keep an ear out for the score too: It comes from Smith’s longtime collaborators The Chemical Brothers, with their first film work since “Hanna.”
“Una”
For a modest two-hander, David Harrower’s play “Blackbird” has had a long life: first premiering at the Edinburgh Festival in 2005, it went on to play in the West End, and has two separate Broadway runs a decade apart, attracting actors like Jeff Daniels, Michelle Williams and Alison Pill. And now, it reaches the screen, albeit in retitled form, with Australian theater director Benedict Andrews (most recently behind “A Streetcar Named Desire” with Gillian Anderson and Ben Foster) making his directorial debut in the project. Rooney Mara plays the title character, a young woman who tracks down the man who sexually abused her as a 13-year-old, played by the great Ben Mendelsohn. It’s uncomfortable material, but in stage form was done with nuance and complexity, and we hear a lot of good buzz that the film has captured that and more. Keep an eye out for man of the moment Riz Ahmed in a supporting role too.
“A United Kingdom”
Not enough people saw “Belle,” Amma Asante’s terrific second feature, which featured a remarkable performance from Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and succeeded as both a your-mom-will-love-it period romance and an incisive examination of race, gender and identity. But with awards buzz already gathering (despite no U.S. distributor yet being announced), don’t expect the same fate to befall her follow-up, “A United Kingdom.” The film tells the incredibly potent story of Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams, with David Oyelowo (who also produces) and Rosamund Pike taking the lead roles, of a prince next in line for the throne of the African nation of Bechuanaland and the British woman he fell in love with, their marriage causing him to be forced into exile by the British governement, only for him to return and become the first democratic leader of a new nation, Botswana. It’s a great bit of material, with a director who’s perfect for it, and two very fine actors, so this should be one of the safest bets of the festival.
“Wakefield”
With an Oscar nomination for last year’s “Trumbo” (which also premiered at TIFF), Bryan Cranston’s now firmly ensconced as not just a multi-Emmy-winning TV star, but a movie actor too, and has thrown off the shadow of Walter White while he’s at it. For his next trick, he’s headlining this film, an intriguing drama based on a short story by E.L. Doctorow. The second feature as director from “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button” writer Robin Swicord (her first was the somewhat underrated “The Jane Austen Book Club”), it stars Cranston as a suburban father who disappears from his own life and hides out in his garage attic, observing his wife (Jennifer Garner) and children as they deal with the fallout from his disappearance. It’s an intriguing set-up, one with echoes of Cranston’s most famous role in some ways while arguably pushing him into different territory than something like “The Infiltrator,” and if anyone can pull off a near-one-hander like this, it’s Cranston.
Anything else? Well, with literally hundreds of films in the line-up, of course there are, even when you exclude films that have premiered at other festivals, films like “Toni Erdmann,” “Paterson,” “Elle,” “Neruda,” La La Land,” “Arrival” and “Nocturnal Animals.” Among the ones that are TIFF premieres that we’re intrigued by, but didn’t make our list, are “(Re)Assignment,” the return of the great Walter Hill; “Tramps,” from “Gimme The Loot” director Adam Leon; Leonardo DiCaprio-centered eco-doc “Before The Flood;” Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s “Daguerrotype;” Glenn Close-starring zombie pic “The Girl With All The Gifts,” Zacharias Kunuk’s indigenous Western “Maliglutit” and Obama biopic “Barry.”
That’s not to forget concert doc “Justin Timberlake & The Tennessee Kids,” from Jonathan Demme, who directed the concert-doc masterpiece “Stop Making Sense;” Bill Nighy and Olivia Cooke in period thriller “The Limehouse Golem;” Rachel Weisz in courtroom drama “Denial;” Mira Nair’s “Queen Of Katwe;” documentary “Amanda Knox;” surprise horror “Blair Witch;” Hailee Steinfeld in teen dramedy “The Edge Of Seventeen;” Marc Forster thriller “All I See Is You,” starring Blake Lively; and Christopher Plummer and Jai Courtney, together at last in “The Exception.”
Also keep an eye on Jacob Tremblay and Vera Farmiga in “Burn Your Maps;” Iko Uwais kicking ass in “Headshot;” Sally Hawkins in painter biopic “Maudie;” Olivia Cooke and Chris Abbott in “Katie Says Goodbye;” Brit indies “The Levelling” and “Lady Macbeth,” which we both hear is good; animation “My Entire High School Sinking Into The Sea;” Holly Hunter in “Strange Weather;” Wang Bing’s latest “Ta’ang,” Isabelle Huppert in “Souvenir;” Nanette Burstein’s “Gringo;” Feng Xiaogang’s “I Am Not Madame Bovary;” Nick Cannon’s directorial debut “King of The Dancehall;” Errol Morris’s “The B Side;” Hong Sang-Soo’s “Yourself & Yours;” and Sarah Paulson and Mark Duplass in “Blue Jay.” Anything else you’d recommend, or that you’re excited about? Let us know in the comments below.