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The Toronto International Film Festival is back with another intimidatingly good lineup, featuring nearly 300 films from 66 countries in its 2026 official lineup.
For moviegoers and cinema lovers in this city, trying to make sense of 293 options can be a full-time job, one that should be reserved for the professionals. With the help of TIFFR’s most-saved titles and the successes of the Cannes and Venice film festivals, some early favourites are already starting to emerge. This year’s lineup is packed with buzzy young talent, Canadian stars, and big-name actors making unexpected career moves.
For those of you looking to attend a premium screening (featuring a handful of talent appearances) or discover the work of lesser-known artists waiting to make their debut, these are 27 of the most exciting titles to watch at TIFF 2026.
1. Fjord
Already one of the five most-saved films on TIFFR, Fjord arrives in Toronto with about as much buzz as a movie can. The winner of the Palme d’Or (the highest prize awarded to the director of the best feature film at the Cannes Film Festival), this movie features Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value, TIFF 2025), starring alongside Sebastian Stan as a conservative Christian couple who relocate from Romania to a small Norwegian town with their five children, where their strict parenting style becomes a divisive topic among the community.
2. The Debut
Jesse Eisenberg continues his work behind the camera with The Debut, another one of the five most-saved films in the TIFF lineup via TIFFR. This dark comedy stars Academy Award winner Julianne Moore as a suburban housewife who finds a new sense of purpose after joining a community theatre production.
Eisenberg, who made his directorial debut with When You Finish Saving the World, brings together Moore, Paul Giamatti, Halle Bailey and Eisenberg himself to bring life to this world of low stakes, high pressure.
3. Bucking Fastard
Yes, you read that right. Sisters Rooney and Kate Mara share the screen in what might be TIFF’s most unexpected combination this year. The real-life sisters play Jean and Joan Holbrooke, siblings whose unusually close relationship includes speaking in unison, dressing alike, sharing dreams and eventually falling for the same man, Orlando Bloom. The sisters’ growing obsession eventually lands them in court at the height of a media frenzy.
4. Wild Horse Nine
Director Martin McDonagh returns to TIFF with a star-studded cast. This dark comedy stars John Malkovich, Sam Rockwell, Steve Buscemi, Tom Waits and Parker Posey, following two CIA agents sent to Easter Island in the early 1970s, around the time of the Chilean coup that removed Salvador Allende from power.
Wild Horse Nine is among TIFF’s five most-saved films and is a testament to TIFF’s programming team, often known for having their finger on the pulse of pop culture; Posey’s inclusion, following her booming success on The White Lotus, feels especially timely and one I wouldn’t want to miss.
5. Ink
The final film among TIFF’s current five most-saved titles pairs Sinners star Jack O’Connell with The Brutalist star Guy Pearce.
Ink adapts James Graham’s play about the transformation of The Sun and the beginnings of the modern British tabloid machine.
6. Back in Black
Christopher Walken, running a failing funeral home that needs more people to die, is all you really need to know. Canadian director Ron Murphy’s black comedy Back in Black stars Walken as Clyde Mortimer, the patriarch of a family funeral business in a health-conscious small town where residents simply aren’t dying quickly enough to keep the company afloat.
7. Iron Boy
For animation fans, Iron Boy is one of the most intriguing international films in this year’s lineup.
Former Pixar animator Louis Clichy uses hand-painted animation to tell the semi-autobiographical story of Christophe, a young boy growing up on a rural French farm whose health problems require him to wear an iron back brace. The French-language film arrives at TIFF following a prize-winning run at Cannes.
8. Sunburn
A Toronto film at the Toronto International Film Festival always deserves a closer look.
Serville Poblete’s Sunburn unfolds during one sweltering summer day in St. James Town, where a power outage pushes a group of young people out of their high-rise apartments and into the city.
The coming-of-age film follows them across sidewalks, rooftops and parks as friendships, crushes and small adventures unfold against an oppressively hot Toronto backdrop. TIFF compares its loose hangout energy to Dazed and Confused, reimagined for present-day downtown Toronto.
Despite the film’s lesser-known cast, there’s no lack of accolades. Poblete is fresh off winning SXSW’s Documentary Short Award for In the Morning Sun; this is Sunburn’s world premiere and a TIFF Next Wave selection.
9. Trash Mountain
Caleb Hearon might be one of the most exciting additions to the festival; his rise to fame is attributed to viral comedic clips and podcast favourites, and he is slowly becoming one of the most recognizable emerging voices in comedy, with TIFF giving audiences an early look at his next move.
Hearon co-wrote Trash Mountain with Ruby Caster and stars opposite Zooey Deschanel, Jacki Weaver and Jaboukie Young-White.
The semi-autobiographical film follows siblings as they return to rural Missouri after their hoarder father’s death. There are some parallels between Hearon and his character; Hearon himself grew up in Missouri and has spoken publicly in his comedy about his father being a hoarder. The result is a comedy about grief, queer identity, family and the complicated experience of returning home after building a life elsewhere.
10. Magazine
If TIFF’s lineup is any indication, several of the actors likely to dominate film and television over the next few years are all appearing in this year’s festival.
Alexandra Pechman’s feature debut, Magazine, is set in New York’s intensely competitive literary world circa 2011, where an aspiring poet from Arizona begins an internship at an influential literary journal and quickly discovers the hierarchies, romances, and power games operating behind the scenes.
The cast is packed with familiar young names: Shrinking actor Lukita Maxwell, Bottoms star Ruby Cruz, Eighth Grade alum Daniel Zolghadri, Iris Apatow, comedian Alex Edelman, XO, Kitty actor Sasha Bhasin and internet star Delaney Rowe.
11. Babies
Seth Rogen and Anna Kendrick lead one of the Festival’s biggest new comedies.
Directed and co-written by Lauren Miller Rogen, Babies centers on Annie and Aaron, a couple who inevitably come face to face with the question that all couples find themselves asking: children? The ensemble alone makes this a major TIFF title: Issa Rae, Dan Stevens, Sharon Stone, David Strathairn and Kate Berlant.
It’s the world premiere of Miller Rogen’s second feature as director, following her 2018 debut Like Father, and features a Premium screening.
12. Being Heumann
Oscar-winning CODA filmmaker Siân Heder turns to the life of disability-rights pioneer Judy Heumann for her latest film.
Ruth Madeley plays Heumann, the activist who helped lead the historic campaign demanding the U.S. government enforce Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, landmark legislation prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities. The extensive ensemble includes Dylan O’Brien, Rob Delaney, Daniel Durant, Roberta Colindrez and many more.
Accessibility is built directly into TIFF’s presentation: screenings will include open captions, with ASL interpretation and live captioning for onstage components.
13. Bunker
Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem reunite on screen for the first time since Everybody Knows in Florian Zeller’s Bunker.
The Oscar-winning married couple play Sofia and Miguel, a long-married couple whose relationship begins to fracture when Miguel, a celebrated architect, receives an offer from a billionaire to design an ultra-luxury bunker to protect a select group of wealthy people during an apocalypse. The ensemble cast includes Paul Dano, Stephen Graham and The White Lotus star Patrick Schwarzenegger.
14. Evil Genius
Courteney Cox is returning to the director’s chair with one of the strangest true-crime stories of the century. Her second feature, Evil Genius, dramatizes the infamous 2003 “pizza bomber” case in Erie, Pennsylvania.
David Harbour stars opposite Patricia in a story weaving together murder, a body hidden in a freezer, a bizarre bank-heist plot and a pizza delivery driver forced to wear an explosive collar.
15. Girl Group
Rebel Wilson takes a swing at multitasking, serving as writer, director and star. Girl Group follows a pop star making a poorly executed attempt at a solo career. The film brings together an over-the-top cast that includes Jennifer Coolidge, Nicole Scherzinger, Melanie Chisholm, Ashley Roberts, Shaznay Lewis, Randall Park, Sally Hawkins and Chris Colfer.
With both original music and recognizable pop hits, the film is positioned as both a showbiz comedy and a love letter to girl groups.
16. The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd
Amanda Seyfried and Scoot McNairy lead Tim Blake Nelson’s prison drama. Seyfried plays Karen, a teacher who takes a job inside a maximum-security prison and forms a powerful connection with an inmate.
Living inside an abusive marriage, Karen becomes increasingly drawn to this inmate’s tenderness and charisma, eventually reaching a point where she is willing to risk everything for the possibility of his freedom.
The drama uses that relationship to explore incarceration, punishment, morality and how much one person can ever truly know another.
17. Misty Green
Chris Rock returns as writer-director with a Hollywood satire starring Rosalind Eleazar, Daniel Kaluuya, Adam Driver and Anna Kendrick.
The movie follows an Emmy-winning actor as she attempts to rebuild her career after addiction cost her a major project. Rock plays the director willing to offer her another chance through a remake of Dreamgirls.
18. Onwards and Sideways
Laura Linney and Rhys Ifans star in Onwards and Sideways, the latest film from Shakespeare in Love director John Madden.
They play Emma and Tony, two strangers diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at the same clinic on the same day.
Emma is a composer and piano teacher who decides to speak openly about her diagnosis, while Tony is a schoolteacher determined to keep his condition private to protect his career. Over the following years, their paths cross repeatedly, including at a Parkinson’s ballet class, where the two find community and eventually one another.
19. Prima Facie
Cynthia Erivo takes on one of contemporary theatre’s most acclaimed roles in the film adaptation of Suzie Miller’s Prima Facie.
Erivo plays a brilliant barrister who has built her career successfully defending clients accused of sex-related crimes. Her faith in the legal system is fundamentally shaken when she is sexually assaulted by a colleague and becomes the person seeking justice herself.
Following Erivo’s enormous visibility through Wicked, the world premiere is likely to be among TIFF’s highest-profile acting showcases.
20. Vintage Violence
It isn’t TIFF without Midnight Madness. The famously rowdy late-night programme has become one of the Festival’s defining traditions, and this year one of its buzziest entries stars Cole Sprouse.
In Vintage Violence, Sprouse plays a disgraced American explorer who discovers a cache of highly valuable vintage jeans, hoping to sell them into Japan’s obsessive collectors’ market, when things naturally go awry. It’s campy, it’s comedy, it’s thrilling — it’s exactly the spirit of midnight madness.
21. Carrie
Another Stephen King adaptation might not sound surprising until the director’s name enters the conversation: Mike Flanagan.
The filmmaker behind Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Hill House and TIFF 2024 People’s Choice Award winner The Life of Chuck is returning to King’s work with a new episodic version of Carrie.
Online interest has followed the project since casting began, and TIFF will host its world premiere.
22. YAGA
Hudson Williams’ rapid rise continues at TIFF.
The Canadian actor became a major breakout following Heated Rivalry and now appears alongside Noah Reid and Carrie-Anne Moss in YAGA, an adaptation of Kat Sandler’s award-winning stage play.
The story follows a detective investigating the disappearance of wealthy local party boy Henry Park, played by Williams. She reluctantly joins forces with a private investigator, played by Schitt’s Creek star Reid. Part-horror story and part-whodunnit, the series uses ancient mythology to explore modern power and secrecy.
YAGA is receiving its world premiere through TIFF’s Primetime programme, and Williams is almost guaranteed to make an appearance at the premium screening since he will also be participating in an In Conversation With… event at this year’s Festival.
23. Club Kid
Jordan Firstman has quickly become one of Hollywood’s most recognizable new comedic personalities following his role in Rachel Sennott’s I Love LA. Now he’s writing, directing and starring in his own feature.
Club Kid follows a perpetually partying promoter in New York City’s queer nightlife scene whose lifestyle is abruptly disrupted when he learns he has a 10-year-old son.
After generating buzz at Cannes, Club Kid makes its Canadian premiere at TIFF with a Premium screening.
24. Elsinore
Andrew Scott already had an enormous 2025 at TIFF with Blue Moon and Wake Up Dead Man, and he’s back with a role TIFF is describing as among his strongest work.
Elsinore tells the true story of Ian Charleson, the Scottish actor who stepped into the role of Hamlet at London’s National Theatre while living with AIDS. Charleson took over after Daniel Day-Lewis abruptly left the production, creating the opportunity of a lifetime just as the actor faced a devastating diagnosis.
Scott reunites on screen with Olivia Colman after their time together on Fleabag. Scott will also appear separately as part of TIFF’s In Conversation With… series.
25. Everybody Wants to F*ck Me
The title alone ensures this one won’t be difficult to remember.
Taron Egerton stars in this dark comedy as Adam, a man who has learned how to perform the image of the enlightened modern male without necessarily possessing the values underneath it. The movie brings new meaning to the phrase “performative male” when Egerton meets a young woman who immediately sees through him.
26. The Julia Set
Chase Infiniti’s ascent continues with another major leading role. Following her work opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another and her role in the screen continuation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale universe, Infiniti leads The Julia Set as a gifted university mathematics student.
Julia has spent much of her life minimizing her intelligence until teaching assistant Pascal, played by The Summer I Turned Pretty star Christopher Briney, recognizes her abilities and recruits her into an elite group preparing for the notoriously difficult Putnam mathematical competition.
27. Love of Your Life
Margaret Qualley returns to TIFF following The Substance with a sweeping romantic drama that moves across several countries and years. White Lotus star Patrick Schwarzenegger plays her estranged best friend. Rather than focusing on a single great romance, the film tracks the accumulation of relationships, losses and reinventions that shape one woman’s adult life.
