TIFF Critic’s Picks: 10 Must-See Movies in Toronto

Lovia Gyarkye

September 7, 2023 at 9:00 AM·5 min read

The Hollywood Reporter arts and culture critic Lovia Gyarkye shares her list of the 10 must-see films at this month’s Toronto Film Festival.

The Boy and the Heron

How lucky for us that Hayao Miyazaki, the animation master with a gift for enchanting world-building, didn’t stay retired? The prolific Japanese filmmaker makes an exciting return with The Boy and the Heron, which opened in Japan earlier this summer. Inspired by Genzaburo Yoshino’s novel How Do You Live?, The Boy and the Heron chronicles the adventures of a young, bereft boy who discovers an abandoned tower and a persistent grey heron while exploring his new town.

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Dicks: The Musical

A24’s first musical feature is a ride that, for better or worse, I’m ready to get on. Comedians Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp play two businessmen who find out they are twins and try to reunite their parents. This raunchy Parent Trap-esque film is based on Jackson and Sharp’s two-man stage show that ran at Upright Citizens Brigade in 2014 and it’s directed by Borat’s Larry Charles. The real pull for me? Megan Thee Stallion making her acting debut as a corporate boss and Bowen Yang plays God.

Dumb Money

The GameStop stock mania of 2021 feels like a fever dream, but more surreal was the race to secure IP rights for the story. Craig Gillespie’s Dumb Money, based on Ben Mezrich’s book The Antisocial Network, might be the most exciting version in an already crowded market. The I, Tonya and Cruella director has assembled a stacked cast led by Paul Dano as Keith Gill, whose posts on Reddit have been cited as a precipitating factor in the retail stock trading frenzy. Pete Davidson plays his brother; Shailene Woodley, his wife; America Ferrera, a pseudo-disciple; and Seth Rogen and Nick Offerman, billionaire CEOs who are surely up to no good.

His Three Daughters

Azazel Jacobs gathers three captivating talents in his latest film, His Three Daughters. Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen and Natasha Lyonne play estranged sisters forced to reunite when their father becomes seriously ill. Their distinctive personalities and approaches to palliative care bristle and clash as they cohabitate in the patriarch’s small apartment. It’ll be exciting to see how Jacobs, a director of sincere and subtly constructed features, crafts this intimate family drama.

Les Indésirables

Ladj Ly’s latest film is a follow-up to his Cannes Jury Prize-winning debut Les Misérables, an explosive drama about tensions between a French anti-crime unit and the residents of their assigned district. In Les Indésirables, The Malian French director culls lessons and imagery from Victor Hugo’s masterwork to bolster his drama about an interim mayor’s clashes with his working-class constituency. The story, led by performances from Anta Diaw and Alexis Manenti as adversaries, is bound to be powerful.

Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero

The limits of the intimate celebrity musical documentary have never been more apparent than in today’s film economy, but Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero might escape the fate of its predecessors solely because of its subject. Lil Nas X dominated the scene with the infectious “Old Town Road” in 2019 and his meteoric rise has been the subject of intense fandom and scrutiny. The star has spent his years in the spotlight negotiating his creativity and sexuality on his own terms. Carlos López Estrada and Zac Manuel embed themselves in Lil Nas X’s debut concert tour to build a portrait of the Black queer pop star.

Next Goal Wins

Based on Mike Brett and Steve Jamison’s documentary of the same name, Taika Waititi’s Next Goal Wins promises to be a rousing dramatization of the American Samoa national football team’s attempts to qualify for the FIFA World Cup in 2014. Michael Fassbender stars as Thomas Rongen, the Dutch-American coach tasked with turning the historically losing team into winners, and fa’afafine actor Kaimana plays Jaiyah Saelua, the first nonbinary player to compete in a men’s FIFA World Cup qualifier.

Quiz Lady

Jessica Yu won an Oscar in 1996 for her documentary short on Mark O’Brien. Since then, the director has experimented with feature-length documentaries, television, and narrative projects. She returns to comedy (after helming the 2007 sports comedy Ping Pong Playa) with Quiz Lady, which boasts a thrilling cast of comics. Sandra Oh and Awkwafina play sisters who plan to pay off their mother’s gambling debt by becoming game show champions. They are joined by Jason Schwartzman, Holland Taylor, Will Ferrell and Tony Hale in what is sure to be a fun and chaotic trip.

Silver Dollar Road

After a brief foray into television with the extraordinary HBO miniseries Exterminate All the Brutes, Raoul Peck returns to film with a documentary based on a joint ProPublica and The New Yorker investigation. In Silver Dollar Road, Peck chronicles the decades-long struggle faced by one Black family in North Carolina as they protect their land from greedy developers. It’s an urgent project that will likely build on Peck’s study of how white supremacy shapes and infringes upon the lives of Black people.

We Grown Now

Minhal Baig proved her directorial sensitivity and poetic eye in her debut film Hala, which premiered at Sundance in 2019. She’s applying these strengths to a different kind of coming-of-age story in We Grown Now. The film follows Malik and Eric, best friends played by newcomers Blake Cameron James and Gian Knight Ramirez, as they face changes to their community in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing complex. S. Epatha Merkerson, Jurnee Smollett and Lil Rel Howery star alongside Cameron James and Ramirez in this 1992-set drama about a misunderstood neighborhood.

This story first appeared in the Sept. 6 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Best of The Hollywood Reporter