Festival season is not in a good place. With both the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild striking simultaneously, attendance will likely be low. That means no Lady Gaga getting out of a boat and no Elle Fanning in a new version of Dior’s New Look. In solidarity with the strikes, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers has even pulled out of the Venice Film Festival and is moving to next April instead. Oof! Still, the festivals must carry on, and the Toronto International Film Festival is doing just that. On July 24, the festival announced its Gala and Special Presentations, a list of 60 films from filmmakers including Taika Waititi, Richard Linklater, and Alexander Payne. One way around the star deficit is to have the stars who direct in the lineup, and this slate has no shortage of that, with films from Anna Kendrick, Michael Keaton, Viggo Mortensen, Chris Pine, and Ethan Hawke all on the docket.
Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron will open the festival on September 7, it was announced on July 27, making it the first time a Japanese film opened. The films taking part in the Midnight Madness and Discovery Programmes were revealed on August 3 with Dicks: The Musical opening Midnight Madness and Patricia Arquette’s Gonzo Girl opening Discovery. Notably, Punjab ’95, a film that was set to be included in the Gala Presentations, has been removed from the slate, TIFF confirmed to Screen Daily. The film was controversial in India owing to its subject matter following the abduction, murder, and cremation of over 25,000 Sikhs. In more exciting news, to accompany the 4k restoration of their concert film, Stop Making Sense, all four members of the Talking Heads will reunite for a joint interview moderated by Spike Lee following the restoration’s premiere on September 11. And there’s another music documentary to look forward to: Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero, a film following the eponymous performer as he embarks on his first global world tour. It will have its world premiere at the festival. Below, the full list of films that will screen at TIFF 2023, September 7–17.
Gala Presentations 2023
A Normal Family, directed by Hur Jin-ho
Concrete Utopia, directed by Um Tae-Hwa
Dumb Money, directed by Craig Gillespie
Fair Play, directed by Chloe Domont
Finestkind, directed by Brian Helgeland
Flora and Son, directed by John Carney
Hate to Love: Nickelback, directed by Leigh Brooks
Lee, directed by Ellen Kuras
Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero, directed by Carlos López Estrada and Zac Manuel
Next Goal Wins, directed by Taika Waititi
NYAD, directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin
Sly, directed by Thom Zimny
Smugglers, directed by Ryoo Seung-wan
Solo, directed by Sophie Dupuis
Swan Song, directed by Chelsea McMullan
Thank You For Coming, directed by Karan Boolani
The Boy and the Heron, directed by Hayao Miyazaki
The End We Start From, directed by Mahalia Belo
The Movie Emperor, directed by Ning Hao
The New Boy, directed by Warwick Thornton
The Royal Hotel, directed by Kitty Green
Special Presentations 2023
A Difficult Year, directed by Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache
A Normal Family, directed by Hur Jin-ho
American Fiction, directed by Cord Jefferson
Anatomy of a Fall, directed by Justine Triet
Close to You, directed by Dominic Savage
Daddio, directed by Christy Hall
Days of Happiness, directed by Chloé Robichaud
El Sabor de la Navidad, directed by Alejandro Lorano
El Rapto, directed by Daniela Goggi
Evil Does Not Exist, directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi
Ezra, directed by Tony Goldwyn
Fingernails, directed by Christos Nikou
Four Daughters, directed by Kaouther Ben Hania
His Three Daughters, directed by Azazel Jacobs
Hit Man, directed by Richard Linklater
In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon, directed by Alex Gibney
Kidnapped, directed by Marco Bellocchio
Knox Goes Away, directed by Michael Keaton
La Chimera, directed by Alice Rohrwacher
Last Summer, directed by Catherine Breillat
Les Indésirables, directed by Ladj Ly
Memory, directed by Michel Franco
Monster, directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu
Mother Couch, directed by Niclas Larsson
Next Goal Wins, directed by Taika Waititi
North Star, directed by Kristin Scott Thomas
One Life, directed by James Hawes
Pain Hustlers, directed by David Yates
Poolman, directed by Chris Pine
Quiz Lady, directed by Jessica Yu
Ru, directed by Charles-Olivier Michaud
Reptile, directed by Grant Singer
Rustin, directed by George C. Wolfe
Seven Veils, directed by Atom Egoyan
Shoshana, directed by Michael Winterbottom
Sing Sing, directed by Greg Kwedar
Smugglers, directed by Ryoo Seung-wan
Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme
Swan Song, directed by Chelsea McMullan
The Beast, directed by Bertrand Bonello
The Burial, directed by Maggie Betts
The Convert, directed by Lee Tamahori
The Critic, directed by Anand Tucker
The Dead Don’t Hurt, directed by Viggo Mortensen
The Holdovers, directed by Alexander Payne
The Movie Teller, directed by Lone Scherfig
The Peasants, directed by DK Welchman and Hugh Welchman
The Promised Land, directed by Nikolaj Arcel
The Zone of Interest, directed by Jonathan Glazer
Together 99, directed by Lukas Moodysson
Unicorns, directed by Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd
Uproar, directed by Paul Middleditch and Hamish Bennett
Wicked Little Letters, directed by Thea Sharrock
Wildcat, directed by Ethan Hawke
Woman of the Hour, directed by Anna Kendrick
Midnight Madness 2023
AGGRO DR1FT, directed by Harmony Korine
Boy Kills World, directed by Moritz Mohr
Dicks: The Musical, directed by Larry Charles
Hell of a Summer, directed by Finn Wolfhard, Billy Bryk
KILL, directed by Nikhil Nagesh Bhat
NAGA, directed by Meshal Aljaser
Riddle of Fire, directed by Weston Razooli
Sleep, directed by Jason Yu
When Evil Lurks, directed by Demián Rugna
Working Class Goes to Hell, directed by Mladen ÄorÄ‘ević
Discovery 2023
Achilles, directed by Farhad Delaram
After the fire, directed by Mehdi Fikri
A Match (Sthal), directed by Jayant Digambar Somalkar
Andragogy, directed by Wregas Bhanuteja
An Endless Sunday, directed by Alain Parroni
Arthur&Diana, directed by Sara Summa
Backspot, directed by D.W. Waterson
Frybread Face and Me, directed by Billy Luther
Gonzo Girl, directed by Patricia Arquette
Hajjan, directed by Abu Bakr Shawky
How to Have Sex, directed by Molly Manning Walker
I Don’t Know Who You Are, directed by M. H. Murray
La Suprema, directed by Felipe HolguÃn Caro
Mandoob, directed by Ali Kalthami
Mimang, directed by Kim Taeyang
Seagrass, directed by Meredith Hama-Brown
Solitude, directed by Ninna Pálmadóttir
Tautuktavuk (What We See), directed by Carol Kunnuk, Lucy Tulugarjuk
The Teacher, directed by Farah Nabulsi
The Tundra Within Me (Eallugierdi), directed by Sara Margrethe Oskal
The Queen of My Dreams, directed by Fawzia Mirza
Valentina or the Serenity (Valentina o la serenidad), directed by Ãngeles Cruz
Widow Clicquot, directed by Thomas Napper
Wild Woman, directed by Alán González
Without Air, directed by Katalin Moldovai
Yellow Bus, directed by Wendy Bednarz
Wavelength Features 2023
Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, directed by Radu Jude
Here, directed by Bas Devos
The Human Surge 3, directed by Eduardo Williams
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, directed by Phạm Thiên n
Mademoiselle Kenopsia, directed by Denis Côté
Mambar Pierrette, directed by Rosine Mbakam
Music, directed by Angela Schanelec
Nowhere Near, directed by Miko Revereza
Orlando, My Political Biography, directed by Paul B. Preciado
Pictures of Ghosts, directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho
Youth (Spring), directed by Wang Bing
Wavelength Pairing
He Thought He Died, directed by Isiah Medina
preceded by
Laberint Sequences, directed by Blake Williams
Wavelengths Shorts
Wavelengths 1: Quiet as It’s Kept
Bouquets 31-40, directed by Rose Lowder
Film Sculpture (1), directed by Philipp Fleischmann
Film Sculpture (2), directed by Philipp Fleischmann
Film Sculpture (4), directed by Philipp Fleischmann
Film Sculpture (3), directed by Philipp Fleischmann
It follows It passes on, directed by Erica Sheu
Mast-del, directed by Maryam Tafakory
Shrooms, directed by Jorge Jácome
Quiet as It’s Kept, directed by Ja’Tovia Gary
Wavelengths 2: Sundown
Let’s Talk, directed by Simon Liu
Light, Noise, Smoke, and Light, Noise, Smoke, directed by Tomonari Nishikawa
NYC RGB, directed by Viktoria Schmid
Slow Shift, directed by Shambhavi Kaul
Sundown, directed by Steve Reinke
We Don’t Talk Like We Used To, directed by Joshua Gen Solondz
Wavelengths 3: Outlines
Chantal Akerman: Her First Look Behind the Camera, directed by Chantal Akerman
The Daughters of Fire, directed by Pedro Costa
Trailer of the Film That Will Never Exist: Phony Wars, directed by Jean-Luc Godard
2023 Classics Program
Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got, directed by Brigitte Berman
Farewell My Concubine, directed by Chen Kaige
L’amour fou, directed by Jacques Rivette
Touki Bouki, directed by Djibril Diop Mambéty
Primetime Program
Alice & Jack, directed by Victor Levin, Juho Kuosmanen, Hong Khaou
All the Light We Cannot See, directed by  Shawn Levy, Steven Knight
Bad Boy, directed by Hagar Ben-Asher, Ron Leshem, Daniel Chen, Roee Florentin, Moshe Malka, Amit Cohen, Daniel Amsel
Bargain, directed by Byun Seung-min, Jeon Woo-sung
Black Life: Untold Stories, directed by Leslie Norville
Bria Mack Gets A Life, directed by Sasha Leigh Henry
Estonia, directed by Miikko Oikkonen
Expats, directed by Lulu Wang
Telling Our Story, directed by Kim O’Bomsawin
This post has been updated.