Every year, the most glam and talented of Hollywood flock to our country for the Toronto International Film Festival. For just over a week, the best of the best in film darken our doorways, spotlighting local talents and proving Canada does have a role in Hollywood—and upping the chances that we get to spot, say, Harry Styles strolling down the street. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to see some of the best films in the world, right in our own backyard. And at TIFF 2024, there’s *a lot* to see. With iconic directors like Challengers’ Luca Guadagnino and actresses like Amy Adams and Nicole Kidman bringing work to this year’s fest (running from September 5 to September 15), moviegoers are in for some A+ viewing experiences. Below, we’ve rounded up the buzziest must-watch films from TIFF 2024. Believe us, you won’t want to miss them.

TIFF 2024 Film: Nightbitch 

 

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If we’re gauging winners based on buzzy titles alone, then Nightbitch, the upcoming film starring Amy Adams, has already won by a landslide. Based on a 2021 book of the same name and directed by Marielle Heller, Nightbitch follows an overworked stay-at-home mom aptly named Mother (Adams) who doesn’t have much in common with the other bone-tired moms at baby book group—because, it turns, out Mother is physically turning into a dog. If you love darkly humorous films exploring truly feral feminine rage in ways that will cause you to rethink everything, including how society treats women and mothers, then this is the movie for you. Now, go call your mom. 

TIFF 2024 Film: Babygirl 

 

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Things can get messy when you mix business with pleasure, and no one knows that better than Babygirl’s Romy (Nicole Kidman). Caught up in an affair with an intern at her company (Harris Dickinson), Romy grapples with the implications of being a woman in a position of power who wants more—and what that may cost. A steamy, erotic thriller from writer-director Halina Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies), the movie is an exploration of power, what it looks like and who truly has it. Dickinson is best known for his turn as model Carl in 2022’s Triangle of Sadness, meaning he’s no stranger to playing morally conflicted, kind-of-unlikeable characters with aplomb.

TIFF 2024 Film: We Live in Time 

If you’re looking for a tearjerker in the vein of About Time and The Time Traveler’s Wife (a.k.a something that is absolutely heartbreaking), then this Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield movie, making its world premiere at TIFF 2024, is for you. In We Live in Time, viewers will encounter and follow the story of Almut (Pugh) and Tobias (Garfield), who fall in love and start a family, only to have their lives thrown into chaos when Almut receives a serious diagnosis. (If it sounds ominous, that’s because the trailer points to the circumstances being straight up tragic). With double Oscar nominees leading the way, we’re calling it: This is going to be a can’t-miss film of the fest.

TIFF 2024 Film: The Last Showgirl 

To be clear, if you put Canadian sweetheart Pamela Anderson in a project, we will gladly be seated. And The Last Showgirl is a powerhouse of a project. Arguably Anderson’s comeback to film, the movie, from director Gia Coppola (Palo Alto), follows Shelley, a Las Vegas showgirl who is faced with personal and professional uncertainty when she finds out her show is closing after 30 years. The movie also stars Jamie Lee Curtis as a cocktail waitress and Shelley’s BFF. Come for a soft and intimate portrayal of a hard and sometimes gritty industry that feels like a not-so-veiled commentary on Anderson’s own career. 

TIFF 2024 Film: Queer

 

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Back at TIFF for the first time since the 2017 premiere of Call Me By Your Name, Italian director Luca Guadagnino brings an all-star cast to the screen with Queer, a “hallucinogenic odyssey bathed in aching desire,” per the fest. Starring Daniel Craig, Queer follows Lee (Craig) a lonely, drug-addicted expat in postwar Mexico City who wants to head into the Amazon for a telepathic and spiritual experience. As one can expect, some kind of chaos is sure to ensue. 

TIFF 2024 Film: Emilia Pérez

Coming to TIFF 2024 fresh off of a Cannes debut that earned the cast a shared Best Actress award, Emilia Pérez is coined as a fusion of  “pop opera, narco thriller and gender affirmation drama.” It’s a combo that may sound ambitious, but gives leads Selena Gomez, Karla Sofía Gascón, Adriana Paz and Zoe Saldaña tons of material to expertly sink their teeth into. A Spanish-language comedy-drama-musical, the movie follows Saldaña’s Rita, a defense attorney in Mexico City who helps a client trying to disappear from their life as a drug king-pin.

TIFF 2024 Film: Saturday Night 

What did the first broadcast of the now-mainstay Saturday Night Live comedy show look like? If you’ve ever wondered that, director Jason Reitman now has the answer. In a word, it was hectic. With a cast as stacked as the OG broadcast of the show it’s chronicling, Saturday Night takes viewers back to that night in October 1975 in a movie that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat as the OG cast tries to make it to showtime. Given the fact that this film is premiering in 2024—50 seasons into SNL’s run—we know the ultimate outcome of the movie, but that doesn’t make the journey to get there any less fun. And with a stacked cast that includes Kaia Gerber, Lamorne Morris, Rachel Sennott, Dylan O’Brien and Nicholas Braun, it’s guaranteed to be a great watch. 

TIFF 2024 Film: Anora 

Anora is already a festival winner, taking home the coveted Palm d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival—and for good reason. The titular character (Mikey Madison) is a Brooklyn-based sex worker whose mundane life is thrown into technicolour when she meets the young and wealthy Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn). As she falls into Vanya’s world, his wealthy family threatens to tear them apart. Call it a modern day Romeo and Juliet, or just call it what it is—a good movie.

TIFF 2024 Film: Without Blood

Without Blood is a quiet psychological thriller set on the frontier landscape of the 20th century that takes an intimate look at the impact revenge can have; on those who enact it, pursue it and are on the other end of it. Salma Hayek Pinault plays Nina, a young woman seeking revenge years after a family tragedy. With names like Angelina Jolie and Hayek Pinault attached to it as the director and star, respectively, Without Blood is more than worthy of a spot on your to-watch list.

TIFF 2024 Film: Heretic 

TIFF 2024 Film: Shell 

 

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Making its world debut at TIFF, Shell is an edge of your seat cat-and-mouse thriller that looks at the success—and dark side of the beauty industry. The movie stars Elisabeth Moss as Samantha, an up-and-coming actress trying to retain her youth—with some unusual side effects. From director Max Minghella (Moss’s longtime The Handmaid’s Tale co-star), Shell will make you reconsider just what you’re putting on your face. The movie also stars Kate Hudson and Kaia Gerber.

TIFF 2024 Film: The Deb 

 

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Every few years, a movie comes around that perfectly encapsulates the thrilling, complex and sometimes devastating experience of being a young person growing up. We’ve had 2017’s Lady Bird and 2018’s Dumplin’ and now, for 2024, there’s The Deb. The directorial debut from Rebel Wilson (best known for Pitch Perfect), the movie follows two young Australian cousins in an Outback town called Dunburn. Maeve (Charlotte MacInnes) is a progressive cool girl whose antics get her cancelled and sent to the country to spend time with her cousin Taylah (Natalie Abbott), with whom she couldn’t be any more different from. In the lead up to a local debutante ball, the duo “clash, crash, and ultimately connect.”