The Toronto Film Festival just announced a few dozen movies of the eventual hundreds of titles that will screen at the September festival this year. Toronto unofficially kicks off prestige season, and this year’s crop brings the usual blend of biopics, auteur-driven dramas, and acting showcases. Among the latter is the festival’s opening-night film, Jean-Marc Vallee’s Demolition, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a talented banker going off the rails after the loss of his wife. (It’s not to be confused with the recent Southpaw, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a talented boxer going off the rails after the loss of his wife.) The festival’s other world premieres include: Ridley Scott’s sci-fi epic The Martian; Roland Emmerich’s gay-rights period piece Stonewall; the Julianne Moore–Ellen Page lesbian legal drama Freeheld; Gavin Hood’s drone thriller Eye in the Sky; Michael Moore’s new documentary Where to Invade Next; and Bryan Cranston’s Dalton Trumbo biopic Trumbo. Additional films making their Canadian or North American premieres include Legend (Tom Hardy as the Kray twins!), Black Mass (Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger!), and Beasts of No Nation (Idris Elba as a warlord!). Read the rest below.
World Premieres
Beeba Boys (Deepa Mehta)
Colonia (Florian Gallenberger)
Demolition (Jean-Marc Valee)
Desierto (Jonas Cuaron)
The Dressmaker (Jocelyn Moorhouse)
Eye in the Sky (Gavin Hood)
Families (Jean-Paul Rappeneau)
The Family Fang (Jason Bateman)
Forsaken (Jon Cassar)
Freeheld (Peter Sollett)
Guilty (Meghna Gulzar)
Hyena Road (Paul Gross)
The Lady in the Van (Nicholas Hytner)
Lolo (Julie Delpy)
Maggie’s Plan (Rebecca Miller)
The Man Who Knew Infinity (Matt Brown)
The Martian (Ridley Scott)
Parched (Lena Yadav)
The Program (Stephen Frears)
Septembers of Shiraz (Wayne Blair)
Stonewall (Roland Emmerich)
Sunset Song (Terence Davies)
Trumbo (Jay Roach)
Un plus une (Claude Lelouch)
Where to Invade Next (Michael Moore)
Canadian or North American Premieres
Anomalisa (Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson)
Beasts of No Nation (Cary Fukunaga)
Black Mass (Scott Cooper)
Brooklyn (John Crowley)
The Club (Pablo Larrian)
The Danish Girl (Tom Hooper)
Dheepan (Jacques Audiard)
I Smile Back (Adam Salky)
The Idol (Hany Abu-Assad)
Legend (Brian Helgeland)
Len and Company (Tim Godsall)
The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Louder Than Bombs (Joachim Trier)
Mountains May Depart (Jia Zhang-ke)
Office (Johnny To)
Remember (Atom Egoyan)
Room (Lenny Abrahamson)
Sicario (Denis Villeneuve)
Son of Saul (Laszlo Nemes)
Spotlight (Tom McCarthy)
Summertime (Catherine Corsini)
Victoria (Sebastian Schipper)
Youth (Pablo Sorrentino)