TIFF 2024: 10 films to see at this year’s rocking Toronto film festival

This year’s Toronto International Film Festival kicks off with a song in its heart — and on the street. Though the opening night film is the world premiere of Nutcrackers, a comedy starring Ben Stiller and a quartet of rambunctious, adorable moppets, the first actual public screening of TIFF is The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal, a four-part, four-hour documentary about the famed Canadian group.

The screening starts at noon Thursday at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. Mike Downie, brother of the band’s late frontman, Gord Downie, directs and includes never-seen footage of the Kingston quintet, and interviews with family, friends and fans — the latter including the likes of Sarah Harmer, Jay Baruchel and Justin Trudeau.

Can’t get into the screening? Fear not, because the Toronto-based, everyone-welcome singing group Choir! Choir! Choir! will lead an outdoor sing-along beginning at 4:30 on John Street just south of King, the heart of what will be known for the next four days as Festival Street. (TTC patrons take note; it’s going to mess up your King Street commute.)

This is also where fans can check out booths run by festival sponsors or take in free outdoor screenings in David Pecaut Square. Offerings this year include Ghostbusters, Footloose and The Karate Kid, all of which are turning 40. And thanks to the lack of Hollywood labour unrest this year, you’ll be able to see actual actors and writers on the red carpets, not just boring producers and key grips. In fact, TIFF’s list of expected talent in attendance runs to more than 700 names, everyone from Adam Driver to Zoe Saldana.

The Tragically Hip is just one of many musical offerings at the festival this year. Documentaries include Andrea Bocelli: Because I Believe, about the famed Italian tenor; Better Man, a profile of British pop star Robbie Williams; Elton John: Never Too Late; Paul Anka: His Way; Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band; and Piece By Piece, a biography of Pharrell Williams made entirely out of Lego. There’s also A Sister’s Tale, in which director Leila Amini follows her sister’s dreams of becoming a singer in Iran, where women are banned from performing in public.

And that’s just the docs. In Measures for a Funeral, a fictional academic (played by Canada’s Deragh Campbell) becomes obsessed with a real musician, violin virtuoso Kathleen Parlow. From Kenichi Ugana comes The Gesuidouz, described in the TIFF program guide as the story of “a misfit horror-themed rock band (that) moves to the Japanese countryside to write the greatest punk anthem in the world.”

Then there’s The End, starring Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon, about the last family on Earth after the collapse of society. But it’s also a musical.

Finally, the festival closes on Sept. 14 with the world premiere of The Deb, Rebel Wilson’s directing debut, about two teenaged cousins who decide to make their mark on the annual debutante ball in a small Outback town. It’s a comedy and it’s Australian, so of course it’s also a musical.

It’s tempting to suggest that one’s entire 10-day festival be taken up with music. It’s certainly possible. But I like to set my sights a little wider. Here are 10 non-musical offerings I’m looking forward to catching at this year’s TIFF.

A world where technology matches you with your soulmate? I wasn’t a fan of the conceit in Fingernails, starring Jessie Buckley and Riz Ahmed. But I’m willing to give the idea a second chance, based on the talents involved in this one. Director/co-writer William Bridges also penned U.S.S. Callister, one of the best of the Black Mirror episodes. Star/co-writer Brett Goldstein also co-wrote and starred in Ted Lasso, a fantastic coach-out-of-water comedy. And it’s a romance set in the near future, where we’ll all be living soon.

TIFF 2019 gave us The Two Popes, starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce in the true story of Pope Benedict XVI passing the torch to the future Pope Francis. This one’s about a fictional Papal election but features similarly powerhouse actors in Stanley Tucci, Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini. It promises a peek behind the curtain of a secretive, millennia-old process. Who could resist?

Director Nacho Vigalondo’s debut feature was 2011’s Timecrimes, a twisty time-travel mystery. This one features Henry Golding as a man who, grieving the death of his lover, enrols in a drug trial that allows him to control his dreams, which he then uses to recreate a perfect relationship, even though it’s no longer real. The film is presented by the Sloan Foundation, which has championed such science-centric dramas as Primer, Grizzly Man, Robot & Frank and After Yang.

TIFF’s Midnight Madness program always has the most intriguing titles. This year’s opening night film is The Substance, with Demi Moore as an aging actress battling her younger clone (Margaret Qualley) — think Gemini Man but less action, more horror. Dead Mail, meanwhile, is set at the dawn of the digital age, circa 1980, and features dead-letter detectives on the trail of a blood-soaked missive.

There are fans of director Mike Leigh, and there are people who have yet to discover him. In this, his 23rd film, the master of neo-kitchen-sink realism reunites with Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Secrets & Lies) for a story of an extended Black family in contemporary London. That’s all I know about it so far. It’s enough.

If you need a brief synopsis of this horror, how about “Hugh Grant vs. Latter-day Saints.” Co-directors Scott Beck and Brian Woods (the writers of A Quiet Place) deliver the story of two proselytizers who come to the door of a polite suburban gent (Grant). Then, apparently, all hell breaks loose. Hard to believe Grant was once the stuttering rom-com guy from the turn of the century given the range he’s been showing of late.

This is the true story of Michael Larson (Paul Walter Hauser), who went on the cheesy 1980s game show Press Your Luck and ran the tables, after figuring out that the show’s random number generator was anything but. Even knowing all that, I’m excited to see it on the big screen; Hauser is one of the most interesting and underrated actors working today.

Francis Ford Coppola’s latest has had a rocky ride so far, with an underwhelming press reaction at its Cannes world premiere, and then a (hastily pulled) trailer that included made-up quotes from real critics, possibly with the help of A.I. But he’s been working at making this thing for almost 50 years; the least I can do is give it 138 minutes of my time. That’s assuming I can get a ticket, however, as it’s quickly turning into one of the festival’s hottest properties, thanks to having just two public performances, and none for the press. (On the plus side, like a lot of TIFF offerings, it will be opening in regular cinemas soon.)

This one sounds like ideal counter-programming to Ben Stiller looking after his sister’s children in the opening night’s Nutcrackers. In Nightbitch, from Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), Amy Adams plays a stay-at-home mom driven to exhaustion by the task of looking after her toddler. But also — she might be turning into a dog? Motherhood just got a lot more interesting.

Next year marks the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live, so what better time to revisit the frenzied preparations for that very first night? Jason Reitman, who wasn’t even born when SNL first went to air, co-writes and directs a host of huge names that includes Lorne Michaels, Billy Crystal, Paul Shaffer, Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd — or at least people playing them. We’ll also see portrayals of Gilda Radner, George Carlin, Jim Henson, John Belushi, Don Pardo and many more.

Oh, and apparently the film’s score was performed on the set, during filming, in real time. Which brings us right back to music again; no getting away from it this year.

The Toronto International Film Festival runs from Sept. 5 toSept. 15. Tickets and more information at tiff.net