Greetings from Toronto, Canada! I’m braving long lines and busy streets for the next week or so to attend the Toronto International Film Festival, better known as TIFF, and I’m planning to take you all along with me. Each day I’ll be publishing a dispatch covering my time at the festival, including thoughts on every single movie I watch. As of now, I have more than 20 different features on my schedule so, uh, expect a lot of thoughts.
TIFF is historically a nice preview of the fall and holiday film slate, featuring a mix of awards contenders, indie flicks, and blockbuster-adjacent movies from big-name directors. In recent years, that has included everything from The Substance, to The Boy and the Heron, to whatever Megalopolis is. One of my favorite TIFF memories is watching the world premiere of Glass Onion in 2022, and seeing The Verge make a guest appearance that I couldn’t talk about with anyone until it started streaming months later.
This year is particularly notable because many of the movies that I’m most looking forward to checking out — including Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein — are destined for Netflix, with only brief theatrical runs. Other films to keep an eye on include No Other Choice from Oldboy director Park Chan-wook; Dust Bunny, the feature film debut from Hannibal showrunner Bryan Fuller; a fantasy anime called Scarlet, which is Mamoru Hosoda’s latest; and Good Fortune, in which Keanu Reeves plays the angel Gabriel.
Photo: Andrew Webster
Now for a little inside baseball. I live just southwest of Toronto, in a city called Hamilton, so I’ll be commuting to the festival most days. If you were ever curious what a Verge reporter takes with them to sit on a train and then a theater all day, well, today’s your lucky day. It’s a little boring, because all I really need is a laptop for writing, voice recorder for interviews, and a notebook for… notes. And, yes, that is a Nintendo 3DS. I’ve gotten really into Picross 3D lately.
As for my first day at TIFF, I managed to squeeze in four movies highlighted by perhaps the best video game adaptation I’ve ever seen. Here’s what I watched:
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
A panic attack masquerading as a movie, it’s a bit like if Uncut Gems was about being a parent. Linda (Rose Byrne) is really going through it: a sick kid who needs constant care, a husband who travels, demanding therapy patients, and, oh, now there’s a giant hole in the ceiling of her house. It’s a constantly escalating fever dream of stress, in which things just keep getting worse, and it’s done in a way that made me feel truly anxious while watching. Thankfully, there’s some welcome dark humor to cut through the gloom, and an ending with just the right amount of hope.
In select theaters on October 10th.
Image: Netflix
A charming but safe look at the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. It certainly looks the part, rendered in black and white, and with copious scenes in smoky Parisian bars and cafes. And Guillaume Marbeck makes for a lovably frustrating Godard, never without a cigarette, sunglasses, and just the right quote. The problem is there’s no tension. The actors get a little annoyed about Godard’s unorthodox style, the producer is nervous about money, but all along the director says stuff like, “Film is a revolutionary art,” and you just know everything will be okay. Godard may have been a rule-breaker, but this movie plays things safe.
In select theaters on October 31st, steaming on Netflix on November 14th.
The Exit 8 was a short, unsettling game about carefully observing your surroundings in order to find anomalies and escape a never-ending hallway inside a Japanese subway station. The movie captures exactly what made the game so scary — and then it takes things a step farther. Without over-explaining the mystery, the movie expands it, with more terrifying anomalies and actual characters with backstories that create a heart-pounding sense of urgency. Just like the game, it leaves you second-guessing what exactly you’re seeing, and it becomes even more of a mindfuck by messing around with the flow of time. Now I just need a film version of the sequel.
Coming to theaters in early 2026.
The best ending of any film I’ve seen in years. It starts with a simple car accident, and then it quickly accelerates into a tale of revenge… which is delayed due to a possible case of mistaken identity. Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) is ready to deal with the man who tortured him and ruined his life, but first he needs some help making sure that he has the right guy. His crew of co-conspirators steadily grows in size — eventually it includes a bride and groom all decked out for their big day — and they find themselves taking their prisoner to all kinds of unexpected places. At times hilarious and harrowing, It Was Just An Accident is completely unpredictable right up until its chilling final moments.
In select theaters starting on October 15th.
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