By George & Josh Bate
This year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has wrapped up after over a week’s worth of nearly 300 movies and shorts for lucky attendees to watch.
At the festival this year, we watched 41 movies and two television shows, some of which are destined to go down as some of our favorite films of the year. In this list, we are going to break down our 10 favorite movies we saw at the festival and ones we believe need to be on your radar.
The following films are presented in no particular order.
La Bola Negra
A sweeping romantic epic and perhaps the greatest queer movie of all time, La Bola Negra is a beautiful piece of art that champions the importance of accepting one’s true self. While somewhat disconnected, overdrawn, and unfocused through its first two acts, the film comes to life most potently in its extraordinary third act, cleverly coalescing its disparate elements with extraordinary precision into one of the year’s greatest and most powerful films. With a whopping number of gut-wrenching lines and moments, La Bola Negra takes audiences on an exhilarating rollercoaster of pain, love, grief, joy, loss, and liberty, all while approaching queer identity and life with empathy, rawness, authenticity, and approachability. Queer people will feel seen, whereas non-queer people will obtain insights into the humanity and horror of queer people, making La Bola Negra essential viewing for queer and non-queer folks alike.
Read our full review of La Bola Negra here.
I Play Rocky
I Play Rocky turns the extraordinary true story of Sylvester Stallone’s struggle to get Rocky made into a soulful, funny, and deeply inspirational crowd-pleaser. Anthony Ippolito delivers a career-defining, awards-worthy performance, transforming into Stallone with uncanny precision and capturing the charisma, vulnerability, and determination behind the iconic actor. Supported by an outstanding ensemble, Peter Farrelly effectively recreates the hardship, rejection, and eventual triumph of Stallone’s journey while filling the film with tremendous heart and humor. Though it plays things pretty safe and formulaic, Farrelly’s instinct for emotional storytelling and comedy ensures that the film remains exceptionally uplifting. Most impressively, I Play Rocky mirrors the very underdog story it chronicles, ultimately becoming one of the year’s greatest movies.
Read our full review of I Play Rocky here.
Atonement
Atonement is a remarkably moving drama that shows there is indeed more stories of interest about the Iraq War to explore. More concerned with the mental aftermath of the war than battlefield spectacle, Reed Van Dyk’s feature debut affords dense topics like moral injury, guilt, PTSD, grief, shame, responsibility, redemption, and the difficult possibility of forgiveness with the sensitivity they deserve, while Boyd Holbrook delivers a deeply committed performance as a man crushed by actions of the past. Hiam Abbass and Kenneth Branagh provide strong support, while Van Dyk shows genuine promise as a director with assured filmmaking and strong handling of familiar themes. The film does not completely reinvent the Iraq War drama, and some of its emotional beats can feel heavy-handed, but its emphasis on what people carry with them after the shooting stops gives it more substance than a straightforward depiction of violence.
Read our full review of Atonement here.
God Bless You, Mr Kopu
God Bless You, Mr Kopu is a breezy (and quite sleazy) dark crime comedy that has fun with its makeshift duo of criminals while somberly interrogating the disturbing fragility of cultural identity. The feature debut of Tongan Kiwi writer-director Alex Liu, the film moves at a brisk pace and never ceases to entertain as it slowly trades humor for thoughtful commentary. Predator: Badlands breakout star Dimitrus Shuster-Koloamatangi superbly sells the doe-eyed desperation of a down-on-his-luck Tongan native and is ultimately critical to the success of the film’s commentary given how much his performance contributes to and elevates Liu’s messaging. Simon Rex, meanwhile, injects energy and ambition into the proceedings with a sleek, enigmatic performance akin to Tom Cruise’s Frank T.J. Mackey from Magnolia and Brad Pitt’s Rusty Ryan from Ocean’s Eleven. While an unexpected third act twist threatens to undermine its nuanced critique of modern capitalism, Liu’s film finds its footing come the end thanks to heavy-lifting from Shuster-Koloamatangi’s stellar turn. Part crime thriller, part buddy comedy, part biting social satire, God Bless You, Mr Kopu seamlessly oscillates between genres as it showcases the remarkable talent of Shuster-Koloamatangi and bitingly condemns the erosion of cultural identity that the deceptive allure of capitalism gives way to.
Read our full review of God Bless You, Mr Kopu here.
Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!
One of the more uniquely titled movies of this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! is a beautiful, vibrant, quirky, weird, imaginative, and genuinely moving portrait of moving on from devastating loss and the ways in which art and romance can help facilitate that healing.
Read our full review of Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! here.
Ah Girl
In filmmaker Ang Geck Geck Priscilla’s beautiful and devastating feature debut Ah Girl, audiences are given the opportunity to experience the harsh realities of the world through the eyes of a young girl with profound emotion, endearment, and humor. Ong Xuan Jing delivers an extraordinary performance as the titular character in a film that beautifully captures the joys and horrors of childhood.
Read our full review of Ah Girl here.
Fjord
Fjord is is a challenging film destined to be one of the year’s most divisive and inciting outings, thoughtfully interrogating the horrors of parenthood, systemic erasure of values, and potential governmental overreach. In active conversation with troublingly prescient issues, Christian Mungiu’s film asks where the lines are drawn between parental and governmental control over children, who is the ultimate determinant of what values and education are imposed on society’s youth, and what values are deemed appropriate enough to propagate and which should be shunned. While the validity of the abuse claim at the heart of the film remains purposefully ambiguous, Mungiu is less concerned with treating it as a mystery than with making the audience feel the palpable discomfort of parents whose children are torn from them based on an accusation of abuse and, even more disturbingly, a perceived failure to assimilate to dominant values. Anchored by some of the best work of Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, Fjord authentically captures the anguish and anxiety of a couple whose entire lives have shattered, while its increasingly reflective legal drama demands that audiences contemplate uncomfortable issues bubbling under the surface of our sociopolitical landscape. Rather than championing the importance of conservative values, Mungiu offers a more nuanced watch, challenging audiences to consider how similar both sides of the political spectrum can be at times and, even more audaciously, question how far those on the left will champion the freedom for people to believe what they want, even when what people believe is perceived as barbaric or wrong.
Read our full review of Fjord here.
Smudge the Blades
While director, co-writer, producer, and leading actor Cody Lightning doesn’t exactly pull off the admittedly challenging feat of creating a wholly original sports drama, he nonetheless triumphs with a touching underdog story that cleverly inverts a key trope of the genre. Smudge the Blades forges a unique identity amidst the over-saturated sports drama genre by centering the story around a disillusioned, pessimistic coach, whose words are the antithesis of inspirational. he film may drag in places, but it makes for exceedingly heartwarming and even tear-jerking viewing, especially in its crescendo of a final act. Lighting marvelously leads the film and anchors the emotional weight of the story, while behind the camera he brings a tenacity to the hockey scenes and an intimacy to the interpersonal scenes. Perhaps more than anything, Lightning’s greatest achievement is transposing a Saturday Night Fever-esque desire to use a passion to escape from dead-end living to Indigenous youth in Canada and ultimately lands on a resounding note about the importance of doing what you want, despite what the world says.
Read our full review of Smudge the Blades here.
The Housewife
The Housewife is a clever film that knows not to stretch its initial mystery on for very long, and the cast are game for the exciting turns it takes.
Read our full review of The Housemaid here.
Elsinore
Andrew Scott gives one of the year’s best performances in an incredible, heartbreaking true story brought to life with overwhelming inspiration and strength.