After a couple of pandemic years and last year's Hollywood strike, 2024 was the first year in a while when the Toronto International Film Festival truly felt like it was operating at full bandwidth.
It was a TIFF full of unpredictable, exciting energy — from political protests to buzzy premieres to dramatic Q&A showdowns. Naturally, it brought some excellent films to Toronto, from prestige projects to star-studded awards bait to underground indie fare.
We spent the past 10 days going to as many screenings as possible, so here are the best films we saw during the festival, as well as a few of the worst. Guess where the People Choice Award winner landed!
The Best Films We Saw at TIFF 2024
Anora
Directed by Sean Baker
As the Palm D'Or winner at Cannes, Anora came into TIFF with a lot of expectations, and it delivered on every single one of them. A hilarious and emotional story about sex work from the perspective of the sex worker with Uncut Gems levels of tension, Anora proves itself to be a star-making vehicle for Mikey Madison and deserving of every accolade it's received.
The Mother and the Bear
Directed by Johnny Ma
Winnipeg winters will test the mettle of any Canadian — let alone a South Korean woman who flies into the country to take care of her daughter. Universally funny and comfortingly warm, The Mother and the Bear offers an alternative to the heavy festival fare.
Paying for It
Directed by Sook-Yin Lee
Toronto cartoonist Chester Brown decided to hire sex workers after a bad breakup with ex-girlfriend Sook-Yin Lee — at which point he made the surprising decision to publicly write about it in a graphic novel. Even more surprising is that Lee is the one to adapt that story for the screen. Come for the intensely intimate tell-all, stay for the fun '90s Toronto references.
Piece by Piece
Directed by Morgan Neville
It's not Pharrell Williams's personal journey that makes his career-spanning doc so unique. Rather, it's the choice to animate the whole thing with LEGO, which blurs the line between documentary, biopic, musical and psychedelic cartoon. It's a very creative spin on a genre often bogged down by formulas, and Pharrell's beats sound incredible in a cinema.
The Shadow Strays
Directed by Timo Tjahjanto
Indonesian action is a particular brand of gruesome, and The Shadow Strays delivers a worthy addition to the genre. Insanely brutal and violent, director Timo Tjahjanto doesn't hold back, from showing beheadings and internal organs slowly sliding down a door frame to gimp masks and swords ripping through faces. Watching this at 10 a.m. worked better than caffeine.
The Worst Films We Saw at TIFF 2024
The End
Directed by Joshua Oppenheimer
The End features an interesting premise (an apocalyptic musical set inside a wealthy family's bunker) and an ensemble that delivers fantastic performances (Moses Ingram being a particular favourite), and none of these promising elements could stop the film from being a tedious bore. In the end, I just couldn't wait for the movie to end.
The Life of Chuck
Directed by Mike Flanagan
Horror auteur Mike Flanagan steps away from his usual genre with an apocalyptic drama about death and the vibrancy of each individual's internal universe. It has a clever approach to some heavy themes — but the smugly self-serious tone and saccharine score aim too hard for profundity, making The Life of Chuck crumble under the weight of its own ambitions. It won the People's Choice Award, and we're pretty sure the people need to reconsider their vote.
Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band
Directed by Thom Zimny
The Boss's tour doc gets bogged down in the details, with tedious and repetitive interviews about how the band found the right tempo during rehearsals and how Springsteen selected the setlist. It felt like Thom Zimny was explaining what exactly a concert is and how it works, which is definitely not what I was looking for from a doc about one of rock 'n' roll's most legendary performers.