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14 MOVIES I’M SUPER HYPE TO SEE AT TIFF 2026

I’ve been following TIFF from afar for so many years, so getting to experience the Toronto festival for the first time irl feels like a pretty big deal. It also helps that the 2026 lineup does not disappoint. It has a little bit of everything: starry premieres, awards-season hopefuls, international films, big genre swings, and the kind of smaller discoveries that can end up being the movies you never shut up about.


My watchlist is already longer than common sense would recommend, but a few titles immediately jumped to the top. From Mahershala Ali balancing faith, fatherhood and contract killing to Michelle Yeoh turning a surgeon’s precision into an action-movie weapon, these are the TIFF 2026 films I’m most excited to see.



Dir. Florian Zeller



Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem play a married couple who hit a pretty major ethical snag when a billionaire offers Bardem’s architect a fortune to design a luxury apocalypse bunker for the ultra-rich. He sees a career-defining opportunity; she sees everything wrong with the world in one very expensive proposal. Bunker turns that disagreement into a messy story about marriage, money, ambition and just how much compromise is too much.


Dir. Arie Esiri & Chuko Esiri



Sophie Okonedo leads this contemporary Lagos-set adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway as a wealthy woman preparing for a party while looking back on the choices that shaped her life. When an old love played by David Oyelowo suddenly reappears, the past starts crowding in on the present. The film also reimagines the novel’s postwar trauma through Nigeria’s fight against Boko Haram, giving a century-old story a completely new context.


Dir. Barry Avrich



Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been gives the legendary singer the spotlight she was denied for far too long. Love looks back on a career that took her from church choirs to some of the biggest records of the ’60s, often without credit, while fighting Phil Spector for control of her own work. Cher, Dionne Warwick and Bruce Springsteen help tell the story of an artist whose influence has always been bigger than the recognition she received.


Dir. Jenna Cato Bass



In a near-future Cape Town on the brink of climate collapse, a couple wins the chance to travel back to 1647 and experience South Africa before colonization. But Lwando, an underground activist, sees an opportunity to change history, while Tara is mostly trying to save their relationship. Future Tense folds time travel, climate anxiety and South Africa’s colonial past into one very complicated romantic getaway.


Dir. Niki Byrne



Chase Infiniti stars as a gifted college student who’s spent most of her life hiding just how brilliant she is. That changes when a teaching assistant pulls her into an elite group training for North America’s toughest undergraduate math competition and the two begin a romance as the pressure ramps up. With Chloe Bailey, Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs in the mix, this sounds like my kind of smart, slightly stressful coming-of-age story about ambition and who actually gets encouraged to be exceptional.


Dir. Chris Rock



Rosalind Eleazar stars as Misty, an Emmy-winning actor trying to claw her way back after a very public spiral. A shot at redemption comes with a role in Chris Rock’s Dreamgirls remake, but eviction, family troubles and one very questionable money-making opportunity threaten to blow it all up. Add Daniel Kaluuya, Adam Driver and Anna Kendrick to Rock taking aim at Hollywood, and there’s a lot here I want to see play out.


Dir. Noah Segan



John Turturro stars as Harry, an old-school New York pickpocket who works alone and wants absolutely nothing to do with smartphones. When he steals from the son of a connected crime family, one bad lift turns into a day-long scramble across the city. Steve Buscemi, Giancarlo Esposito and Tatiana Maslany round out this charming little throwback crime movie.


Dir. Susanna White



Cynthia Erivo stars as Tessa, a brilliant barrister who’s built her career defending people accused of sexual assault and who firmly believes in the system she works within. When she’s assaulted by a colleague, that faith gets tested in the most devastating way. Prima Facie is clearly going to be a heavy one, but Erivo taking on a role this emotionally demanding immediately has my attention.


Dir. Daniel Oriahi



When the youngest of Baba Segi’s four wives can’t conceive, a trip to the doctor threatens to expose the secrets holding his entire household together. Based on Lola Shoneyin’s novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives shifts between the women at the center of the family, mixing sharp humor with a much messier story about rivalry, survival and the impossible expectations placed on them.


Dir. Mahamat-Saleh Haroun



Set in rural Chad, Soumsoum, The Night of the Stars follows Kellou, a young woman who can see both the past and the future, a gift her village treats more like a curse. Ostracized by her community, she finds kinship with Aya, another woman who’s been pushed to the margins. It’s a grounded fantasy about women, isolation and the ties between the living and the dead.


Dir. Serville Poblete



Set over one brutally hot day in Toronto, Sunburn follows a group of young people pushed out into the city when a blackout hits their high-rise neighborhood. They roam rooftops, sidewalks and parks, talking crushes, clowning each other and making the kind of connections that feel enormous when you’re young. Loose, funny and very sweaty, Sunburn is a coming-of-age hangout movie about friendship and the fleeting connections of one long summer day.


Dir. Roshan Sethi



The Surgeon sounds like Michelle Yeoh in full action-hero mode which is really all I needed to know. She plays a recently retired surgeon who gets kidnapped by a criminal gang and forced back into the operating room at gunpoint. Unfortunately for them, knowing exactly how to put a human body back together also means knowing exactly how to take one apart.


Dir. Deanté Gray



Set in 1967 Detroit, Voices follows an aspiring singer working as a motel bellhop who spots a very questionable shortcut to stardom after an accident takes an up-and-coming act out of the picture. He recruits his friends to steal their identity and their shot at fame. Part musical, part chamber thriller, it’s a story about ambition, desperation and what happens when talent alone can’t get you through the door.


Dir. Bassam Tariq



Mahershala Ali stars as Latif, a devout Muslim, devoted father and contract killer with a strict code: no guns, and no targets the world wouldn’t be better off without. After his wife dies, he’s ready to leave the killing behind and focus on raising his three kids, but an escalating feud—and a past that refuses to stay buried—drags him right back in. This is faith, fatherhood and a whole lot of bloodshed.



I fully expect TIFF to throw a few surprises at me once I’m actually on the ground in Toronto, but these are the films I’ll be trying hardest to catch. And if even half of them live up to the promise, I’m in for a very good week.

 
 
 

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