What this year’s TIFF People’s Choice Winner could mean for the 2024 Oscars
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Each fall marks the unofficial start to the awards season, as those festivals historically have been the launching pad for the films that go on to be awards contenders. The past two years have seen a slight shift in that trend with “Everything Everywhere all at Once” (2022) and “CODA” (2021) both premiering much earlier in the year. However the importance of these fall festivals cannot be underestimated. One of the major ones, and perhaps the largest in terms of size and scope, is the Toronto International Film Festival which typically takes place right after Venice and Telluride. This year’s event began on September 7 and runs through Sunday the 17th.
The Toronto International Film Festival, commonly referred to as TIFF, originally launched in 1976 and was initially called The Festival of Festivals. What makes TIFF different from many of the other major confabs is its very accessibility to the public. In Toronto, movie audiences will be a mix of critics, industry professionals, actors, directors, and regular folks who are just passionate about movies. And this is what often makes the festival’s top prize, the TIFF People’s Choice Award, so meaningful. (Note: things are slightly different this year due to the joint WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, meaning few performers in attendance along with many others standing in solidarity with the picketing unions.)
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Moving on, how is the TIFF People’s Choice Award decided? Unlike other festivals, the top prize at TIFF isn’t decided by a jury but is voted on by the entire festival audience. However, the festival has checks and balances in place to ensure the integrity of the process. For example, when voting, you must input your email, which is then verified against ticket buying data to make sure the address is registered with a TIFF account and has purchased any tickets during the event. Also, your IP address is checked. This is to prevent people from voting who weren’t at the festival and haven’t seen the films. They also measure a ratio of votes to the size of the venue the films play in. This is conducted so a film that played in one of the larger venues that seats 1,500 people won’t have an advantage over a film that played in a 400-seat theater, as it’s calculated based on the percentage of the viewing audience.
So, what does winning the People’s Choice Award mean for a film’s Oscar journey? Well, if we look back at the past 15 years, since 2008, 14 out of the 15 winners went on to receive a best picture nomination. Of those, five have outright won best picture at the Academy Awards. What’s even more impressive is that of the past 14 People’s Choice winners that went on to receive a best picture bid, all but one went home with at least one trophy on Oscar night. The exception was last year’s “The Fabelmans,” which left empty-handed at the Academy Awards. (Apologies to Mr. Spielberg.)
What film will take home the top prize at the festival this year? Will it continue the best picture streak? We’ll all know soon enough.
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