2017 Toronto International Film Festival: 20 Must-See Films

The Telluride Film Festival is in the rear-view mirror and the Venice Film Festival will finish up this week and that means they’ll both give way to the Toronto International Film Festival, easily the largest film festival in North America, and in terms of sheer size and volume, probably the largest film festival in the world. TIFF usually houses around 300 films or so, and it’s such a wide and varied event, you can curate it to your tastes: you could stick with glossy mainstream picks with stars, indie up-and-comers, Midnight Madness pictures, foreign films, documentaries, experimental films, and shorts if you wish. For us, it’s a mix of everything as you’ll see in our full coverage, but we have to admit, filmmaker-driven material with exciting actors we love are an enticing draw.

You might ask, well what about these films?? Yes, we’re greatly looking forward to Joe Wright’s “Darkest Hour” featuring what sounds like a towering performance by Gary Oldman (review); Darren Aronofsky’s “Mother” (review), Alexander Payne’s “Downsizing” with Matt Damon (review), Midnight Madness prison actioner “Brawl In Cell Block 99” (review);“‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri’” by “In Bruges” filmmaker Martin McDonaugh (review); George Clooney‘s Coen brothers-written “Suburbicon” (review); and Guillermo del Toro’s already-acclaimed “The Shape Of Water” (review). You should see these films, we wanna see these films at TIFF and we will, but obviously, as you can tell by all these links, they’ve been seen and reviewed by other parts of the team—and have been already featured in our Venice Film Festival preview and our Telluride Film Festival preview.

So consider these ALL “anticipated pictures,” but since we’ve already given them lots of love, we’d love to put the spotlight on some other films we haven’t mentioned (and additional TIFF titles like “The Florida Project,” “The Mountain Between Us” and “Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House,” just to name a few, can be found in our Most Anticipated Fall Film preview). But here’s 20 titles that we’re dying to see from the various riches of TIFF.

“Current War”
Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Tom Holland, Katherine Waterston,
Synopsis: The dramatic story of the cutthroat race between electricity titans Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse to determine whose electrical system would power the modern world.
What You Need To Know: Filmmaker Alfonso Gomez-Rejon continues to prove how versatile he can be. Known for the quirky and twee Sundance hit, “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” before that he helmed many episodes of “Glee,” “American Horror Story” and the feature length horror “The Town That Dreaded Sundown.” So now, it’s very apparent that Gomez-Rejon has pivoted to something much more dramatic and… let’s face it, something that sounds very Oscar baity. Pundits are already predicting a potential Oscar nomination for the always-striking Benedict Cumberbatch who was nominated for an Oscar for “The Imitation Game.” To the awards end, it’ll be the only chance the withering Weinstein Company will have this year so they’re going to throw everything they have at it.

“Thelma”
Cast: Eili Harboe, Okay Kaya, Ellen Dorrit Petersen
Synopsis: A woman begins to fall in love, only to discover that she has fantastic powers.
What You Need To Know: Already Norway’s submission for the Foreign Language Film Award of the 90th Annual Academy Awards director Joachim Trier has come a long way from acclaimed, breakthrough filmmaker (2006’s stellar “Reprise”), to the pride and joy of his home country. The filmmaker has almost exclusively centered on humanist dramas, usually focused on tragedies of family or friendship of some kind. But he really switches gears for “Thelma” which is being described as a kind of austere supernatural thriller influenced by both Brian DePalma and Carl Theodor Dreyer. Say no more, we’re sold.

“I Love You, Daddy “
Cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, Helen Hunt, Louis CK
Synopsis: This is an edgy comedy pitched partway between the sharp social observation of Ck’s Horace and Pete series and the gasp-inducing laughs of his stand-up. And the less you know going in, the better.
What You Need to Know: Apparently, not much, if the “synopsis” (and truly, that’s what’s given) is anything to go by. Filmed entirely in black and white and in secret, it would seem that the director is continuing in the trend of his heartbreaking Horace and Pete series and keeping his artistic pursuits on the down low. He’s assembled a league of comedy greats to join him and with so little known about the project from the offset it gives the director more room to surprise us come time of it’s debut. Knowing CK however, we can expect some acerbic dialogue, some darker, introspective drama, and moments that allow the comics on board to shine.

“Unicorn Store”
Cast: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Joan Cusack
Synopsis: Brie Larson stars in her directorial debut about a dreamer reluctant to abandon her childish wonder who is offered the most magical gift she can imagine.
What You Need to Know: Having won our hearts (multiple times) over the years from appearing in “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” and “21 Jump Street” in bit parts to leading the scorching and emotional “Short Term 12” and the movie that won her her first Oscar in “Room”, actress Brie Larson has earned quite a bit of good will amongst the film community. So much so that we’re almost able to let a title such as “Unicorn Store” slide with this being a scenario where we need to encourage ourselves to not judge the film by the name. Regardless of the silly nature of the name itself, the synopsis including arrest development and coming of age sensibilities along with mystical nonsense such as imaginary pets is enough to catch our eye with Larson being the main selling point (new image via People)

“I, Tonya “
Cast: Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney
Synopsis: Competitive ice skater Tonya Harding rises among the ranks at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, but her future in the sport is thrown into doubt when her ex-husband intervenes.
What You Need to Know: After blowing up in a big way in Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street”, actress Margot Robbie has largely been let down by parts ill suited to her promise. Barring perhaps the barely seen “Z For Zachariah” her talent has always outshone her projects, with vehicles ranging from forgettable such as “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” and “Focus” to near unforgivable with “Suicide Squad”. “I, Tonya”, the based on real events sports drama, seems like it could be the first step in rectifying this problem. Directed by “Craig Gillespie” who has, admittedly, had a tough regaining his footing following his beautiful debut in “Lars and the Real Girl”, seems to put a spin on both what we’ve come to expect from sports films as well as anything to do with figure skating and the image of visual perfection and presentation that comes with it with Tonya Harding being the exact opposite.