TIFF People’s Choice: 12 contenders

By Pickle September 7, 2026

The Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Awards are a failsafe predictor of awards season success. Will it be any different this year? The Cannes Film Festival in May unveiled a bunch of films that look set to go all the way to the Oscars in both the principal categories and the Best International Feature Film race. Fjord, La Bola Negra, Minotaur and All of a Sudden will be hard to ignore as the Academy Awards nominations process approaches culmination. And, of course, there is Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey dominating all the conversations. But, as always, the TIFF selection has a healthy slew of entries that could garner ready support from Toronto audiences, bag the People’s Choice Award, and make the Academy members pause and think before they vote. We pick 12. By Saibal Chaterjee

I Play Rocky

In the 50^th year of Rocky comes a highly anticipated biographical drama that traces the development and production of the iconic film that launched Sylvester Stallone’s storied career. I Play Rocky, directed by Peter Farrelly and world premiering at TIFF, could turn out to be a star-making outing for lead actor Anthony Ippolito as well as a frontrunner for the festival’s People’s Choice Award, a trusted bellwether for the Academy Awards. In a year with a crowded Best Actor Oscar field, Ippolito could land a surprise nomination. And that would be one of the stories of the year. Watch out!

A Talent for Murder

TIFF hosts a Gala screening of Dutch director Anton Corbijn’s A Talent for Murder, adapted by Joanna Murray-Smith from her own 2014 play, Switzerland. The film is expected to be in the People’s Choice Award contention and enjoy a steady Oscar run-up. A young man travels from New York to Switzerland in order to persuade Patricia Highsmith (the American thriller writer is played by Helen Mirren) to write a final instalment of her Tom Ripley novels. His efforts turn increasingly persistent and sinister as the writer stonewalls the suggestion. With its intriguing premise and Helen Mirren at the centre of it, the film has undeniable potential. Toronto audiences will certainly have it in their sights.

The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd

Indie actor-writer-director Tim Blake Nelson’s prison break drama starring Amanda Seyfried (as a teacher who finds employment in a maximum-security jail) is reported to be a psychologically layered tale of crime, punishment, hope and redemption. The protagonist is a woman coming off an abusive marriage. She develops a bond with a prison inmate (Scoot McNairy). Her steely exterior gives way and she is stakes her all to help the eponymous character with a shot at freedom. The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd Sounds strong enough in terms of its storyline to stand a chance of jockeying its way into the People’s Choice Award mix.

Onwards and Sideways

Directed by John Madden, whose Shakespeare in Love (1998) won the Best Picture Oscar, premieres his new film, Onwards and Sideways, at TIFF this year. The story centres on a schoolteacher (Rhys Ifans) and a composer and piano tutor (Laura Linney). The two strangers meet one morning in a health care clinic after both are diagnosed with Parkisnson’s disease. They form a friendship. The Norfolk-set drama combines humour with solemnity. It could make Toronto audiences laugh and cry in equal measure, a surefire formula for success. About disease and degeneration, Onwards and Sideways is also about a life-affirming connection. We expect it to start a conversation.

Tender Loving Care

Seven-time Oscar nominee Mike Leigh’s Tender Loving Care, which is slated to be his final film, is about a committed social service worker and her mother dealing with her ailing father. An uplifting drama about the act of dealing with grief, navigating the process of ageing and enjoying life even as it poses daunting challenges, Tender Loving Care is a characteristic Mike Leigh film, filled with insight, warmth and keen understanding of the rhythms of real life. Starring Kate O’Flynn, Paul Jesson and Alice Bailey Johnson, the film has everything that TIFF attendees and Oscar voters usually like.

Tenzing

One TIFF 2026 film that we would love to see scale the Oscar summit is Australian director Jennifer Peedom’s Tenzing, which narrates the story of Sherpa climber Tenzing Norgay and New Zealander Edmund Hillary’s pioneering ascent to the peak of Mount Everest in 1953. Peedom’s 2015 documentary Sherpa had also played at TIFF. The Tenzing cast features Chinese actor of Tibetan descent Genden Phuntsok in the titular role, with Tom Hiddleston as Sir Edmund, Willem Dafoe as expedition leader John Hunt and Caitriona Balfe as expedition secretary Jill Henderson. The film is written by Luke Davies, Academy Award nominee for Lion. Pravesh Sahni is a co-producer while the film has been line produced by India Take One Productions.

Bunker

French playwright, novelist, theatre director and filmmaker Florian Zeller brings Bunker, psychological thriller starring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem, to TIFF after it competes for the Golden Lion at Venice. A tech billionaire commissions an architect to build a bunker for him. The assignment and the questions that it triggers test the former’s marriage. Bunker is Zeller’s third film. It probes the challenges that the couple faces amid the tensions gripping their immediate environment and the world at large. Cruz is having a fantastic run. She is likely to earn more than one nomination this year, with her turn in The Invite being a shoo-in and the one in the Cannes hit La Bola Negra also a strong contender. Add Bunker to the list.

Ink

Danny Boyle’s Ink, the Venice Film Festival opener, is adapted by James Graham from his stage play. With Jack O’Connell as The Sun editor Larry Lamb, Guy Pierce as media magnate Rupert Murdoch and Claire Foy as a fictional reporter, Ink traces the rise of UK’s tabloid culture on the back of an unprecedented owner-editor partnership that produces the most successful newspaper ever in the UK. By focusing on a specific turning point in journalistic history, Boyle, whose 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire won big both in Toronto and at the Oscars, alludes to the steady decline in the power of news gathering and dissemination.

Misty Green

Scripted and helmed by Chris Rock, Misty Green (the actor’s fifth film as director) seeks to lay bare contemporary Hollywood’s growing propensity towards excess and exploitation. Starring Rosalind Eleazar, Adam Driver, Daniel Kaluuya, Anna Kendrick, Topher Grace and Rock himself, the film hinges on a once-feted actress who, after a slump in her career, reconnects with her former agent in a bid to start over in showbiz even as she grapples with her personal demons. Misty Green has the makings of a success story that could last well beyond its TIFF premiere.

Prima Facie

Adapted by Suzie Miller from her own West End play, the Susanna White-directed Prima Facie tells the story of a woman from a working-class background who becomes a successful lawyer sure of her professional acumen and the legal system’s efficacy. But when an untoward incident rattles her, her faith in the processes she swears by is shaken. Cynthia Erivo, nominated twice for Best Actress Oscar (Harriet, Wicked) as well as for Best Original Song (Wicked), plays the central character. An Oscar nomination for her individually looks assured.

The Debut

Actor Jesse Eisenberg’s third directorial, The Debut, reunites him with his When You Finish Saving the World lead Julianne Moore in a drama that seems destined for great things. Both Moore and co-actor Paul Giamatti could be in contention for Oscar nominations, the former as Best Actress, the latter as Best Supporting Actor. The Debut is about a awkward and shy woman who is cast in the production of a musical. Under the guidance of an enigmatic director, she begins to lose herself in the role. Can Julianne Moore ever not be a contender for an Oscar? She has won one before (Still Alice, 2014) after four previous nominations. She is only one of two actresses (the other is Juliette Binoche) to win the best actress prize in all of the big three European festivals – Cannes, Venice and Berlin.

Elsinore

Simon Stone’s biographical drama about Scottish film and theatre actor Ian Charleson, best known to cinema lovers for Chariots of Fire and Gandhi, could be Andrew Scott’s greatest chance to leap into the Oscar race. Elsinore also stars another formidable screen performer, Olivia Colman (Best Actress Oscar for The Favourite, 2018). The film follows Charleson in the final months of his life as he prepares for the role of Hamlet at the National Theatre. He was cast as Shakespeare’s Prince of Denmark as replacement for Daniel Day-Lewis when the latter quit the production. Charleson dies of AIDS at the age of 40.