I’m late with this post. Maybe when you see how many movies I saw this year at TIFF, you’ll understand why this took so long to put together. I had a great time at the festival this year and managed to see many premieres. I even got a chance to see a secret test market screening (I can’t reveal any specifics!). I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to see this many movies at TIFF again!

Perfect Days

Germany, Japan | 2023 | 124m | Japanese, English

Oh it’s such a perfect day
I’m glad I spent it with you

I rewatched Perfect Days at home with the lights low, quiet, and with my infant son sleeping on my chest. I looked at his peaceful face as Lou Reed sang those lyrics as part of the soundtrack. A perfect day, indeed.

I didn’t give Perfect Days five stars the first time I saw it at the TIFF Lightbox, but something about it connected with me enough that it became one of the first Criterion discs I ever bought. I don’t know why it took me until now to watch it. The 4K quality is absolutely stunning. It’s among the best-looking films I own. It was too bad, though, that the disc ended up freezing multiple times during playback. I felt the stress rising within me until I tried to take inspiration from Hirayama in the film—seeking to look at the bigger picture and find satisfaction even in the face of life’s inconveniences. (Thankfully, cleaning the disc with a dry microfiber cloth, wiping middle-out, seemed to fix the problems.) What a beautiful movie: visually, musically, and spiritually.

5/5

Buddy

United States of America, Israel | 2026 | 95m | English, Spanish

While at times it does feel kind of like an Adult Swim short that somehow goes on for a feature length, I really liked how well Buddy committed to its nostalgic, surreal, violent premise.

The low point of the movie, for sure, is the real-world sequence that follows the incredibly strong opening half hour. The 180 in tone and charm almost threatens to sink the movie but I thought it recovers well enough once the story moves back into Buddy’s world. There’s some surprisingly interesting, Backrooms-esque world-building going on in the last part. Nobody is really talking about Buddy on the same level as that or Obsession (maybe because it seems to have a somewhat limited theatrical release, though I can’t complain as it’s kind of amazing that something like this found theatrical distribution at all), but I think it stands among them as making 2026 the year of the limited-budget, independent, internet-inspired, horror hit. (I think Buddy gets to be considered an “internet movie” thanks to its clever online marketing—which is how I found out about it in the first place.) I would love more movies as weird as this to reach theaters. But hopefully not all of these indie internet-adjacent movies need to be horror!

4/5

Akira

Japan | 1988 | 124m | Japanese

Akira is a movie I’ve always respected—maybe even loved—but every time I’ve seen it I’ve felt like it was missing something. This time was no exception. The problem, I think, is a coldness in the storytelling and obtuse, awkwardly paced world building rather than adequate time spent building up the characters in a satisfying manner. Compare the characterization in this film to just about anything from Miyazaki. Akira looks so, so good but it lacks heart. It’s cool as fuck, though, and that goes a long way.

3.5/5

Toronto International Film Festival 2026

Clarissa

United States of America | 2026 | 134m | English

I think I appreciate Clarissa more than I enjoyed it. Maybe I’m being a tad generous with the 3 rating, to be honest. There’s great cinematography, music, and acting. What’s not to like? Well, it’s slow. And—perhaps this is partly due to my own ignorance of the source material—I didn’t feel like I was always totally able to track all the characters, which becomes tough given that the story jumps between time periods so you’ve got different actors playing the same person. I thought in the last 10 minutes or so it came together nicely as a melancholy story about adults who aren’t quite sure if they’re happy or if they made the right choices in life. For most of the rest of the movie, it was mostly just mechanical scenes of things happening in isolation—the wider plot remained out of reach until it came together at the very end.

3/5

Love Is a Gypsy Child: A Carmen Story

Finland, France, Spain | 2026 | 91m | French

The director of the fantastic French animated musical Chicken For Linda has another film out, so of course I checked out its North American premiere at TIFF 26. He was even there at the screening, which was neat. Apparently this is an adaptation of an opera. Call me uncultured because I didn’t catch that. (I did recognize some of the music, though.)

Look, this one was hovering between a 3.5 and a 4 for me but I went with a 4 since I do really appreciate the unique, colorful style of this filmmaker. The music was fantastic, and one scene in particular—I think you’ll know it when you see it—had me lamenting the fact that I couldn’t just rewind the movie in the theater and rewatch it right then and there. I didn’t quite like this as much as Chicken for Linda, but I still think it’s great.

4/5

Idda

Italy | 2026 | 93m | Italian

Two friends meet up after a long time apart to climb a volcano. Both actresses are gorgeous and deliver strong performances with great chemistry, although from a story perspective it didn’t always make sense to me why they were often all smiles one moment and fighting the next. (“Women are unclear,” say the characters at one point. Maybe we’ll go with that.)

A twist comes that partly explains the behavior, though it didn’t make me feel any more sympathetic to the characters. I felt like the volcano setting—especially with the between-scene cuts to images and sounds of molten lava—was building up to something, I don’t know, more dramatic. Fiery, even. But no, Idda stays a relatively low-key indie character drama throughout. As we learned from a recorded intro from the director at this world premiere screening at TIFF, Idda is a personal story, inspired by a relationship from her past. For her, this movie undoubtedly brought healing. What others take get from it will probably be a strongly acted depiction of female friendship.

2.5/5

Being Heumann

United States of America | 2026 | 127m | English

Back in the “city of testosterone” for the first movie of my second day at TIFF 2026.

I felt like Being Heumann was required viewing for me given that I had the chance to be a background extra in this movie (but couldn’t follow through since I was moving/getting married at the time).

While it might verge on the saccharine, I thought Being Heumann was a moving and engaging story about an episode in U.S. civil rights history that I, like many others I presume, didn’t know anything about going in. The pacing was great as were the performances. Perhaps it started to feel a tad too long by the end, but you know what, these people deserve to have our attention for as long as they need to tell their story.

This is an interesting choice for an opener of a film festival in a country like Canada, which has chosen to deal with its disabled people by expanding its state euthanasia program rather than funding and prioritizing mental health and housing programs for its most vulnerable. It certainly would not be a bad thing if many, many people saw this movie.

3.5/5

Evil Genius

United States of America | 2026 | 94m | English

Last year I was in Roy Thomson Hall during TIFF for another bizarre true crime movie—Roofman. I don’t think Evil Genius is quite as charming as that was, but what Evil Genius does have going for it is a towering lead performance by Patricia Arquette. I wasn’t familiar with the “Pizza Bomber” case going in, but I left with a fascinating story of a deeply dysfunctional love story at the end of a long trail of bodies. I think the movie is best when it leans into the dark comedic aspects of this story. By the end, it became a bit too serious and gloomy—but maybe that’s not a fair criticism given the source material.

3.5/5

Whatcha Want

Canada | 2026 | 91m | English, Chinese

I don’t watch any Hallmark movies but I am guessing this is how a lot of them are: straightforward plot, a script that’s a connect-the-dots of tropes, uninspired cinematography, and acting performances that simply get the job done.

Whatcha Want tells the story of a Vancouver-based Hong Kong woman who grows increasingly uncomfortable in her role as a “trophy wife” as she realizes she’s shelved her passion for dancing, all for a guy who isn’t there for her. Unhappy marriage or not, I can only muster so much sympathy for billionaire characters—and the script isn’t doing any favors at giving them depth and nuance. One line of dialogue I remember: “You signed a prenup. We all did. But if you leave him now, you will get nothing. And that would be very bad.” Later, the absentee husband defends himself by talking about how “under pressure” he is with “the merger”—just a throwaway sentence that doesn’t correlate to any scene the movie shows us. Another thing the movie doesn’t show us: how in the world the main character can afford another huge Vancouver home with the income of a breakdancing student. As long as whatcha want from this is 90 minutes of bland Can-con with a few dance numbers thrown in, you’ll enjoy it well enough.

2/5

The Beloved

Spain, France | 2026 | 136m | Spanish, English

Best film of the festival. Masterful performances in each long scene after the next from the two leads Javier Bardem and Victoria Luengo. Honored to have seen the North American premiere of this because I’m expecting it to collect acting nominations at the next Oscars. This is the movie Sentimental Value wishes it could have been!

4.5/5

The Last Photograph

United States of America, Spain, Colombia| 2026 | 135m | English

Being first row, center for the world premiere of The Last Photograph meant that I was mere feet away from Zack Snyder and the cast during the Q&A, which was one of the coolest experiences I have had at TIFF so far. The movie itself, however…

This script does not deserve this cinematography. Everything is photographed brilliantly. I can’t say the same for the story, a morbid revenge tale which takes itself far too seriously and goes on for far too long. It seems to revel in being unpleasant, as if that makes the story mature and sophisticated. To me, the material never felt like it transcended a teenager’s sense of edginess—almost every woman is topless, children are murdered and trafficked, and heroin scenes are aplenty. Then there is the portrayal of the South American setting and characters: the brooding protagonist’s relationship to every indigenous character is to either to shoot them in the head at first glance or literally be worshipped by them, in one truly bizarre sequence of Jesus imagery. Look, I am far from what you could call “woke,” but even I found it odd that this same TIFF audience that will clap for a pre-show land acknowledgment would have so many nice things to say to Zack at the Q&A, especially when he said he chose the South American setting because of its inherent “mysticism.”

Outside of the rosaries and churches, a recurring motif in the film is a butterfly. Is the movie trying to say something about rebirth? Faith? Resurrection? I don’t know man, and the answer given during the Q&A didn’t give me the sense that it all meant anything other than looking “cool.” For a movie that has apparently been in development for close to twenty years, I’m surprised that the themes aren’t clearer, the dialogue less corny, or the scenes better thought out. (Would a character really run straight into an intense shootout armed with nothing more than his camera?) This will certainly not be The Last Screening of The Last Photograph. I’m expecting critics to eviscerate it when it receives a wider release.

2/5

Salvation

United Kingdom | 2026 | 91m | English

There’s real talent behind Salvation, an indie drama that has turned out to be one of my absolute favorite movies at TIFF 2026. The story centers on Danny, a man who tries his best to set up a life coaching business as a path out of debt and insignificance in his small, post-industrial Scottish town.

A lot of the other reviews have this pegged as a “manosphere” movie. I don’t find that to be the best descriptor. The guru that Danny follows in this story is more akin to a Tony Robbins or GaryVee type of figure, where the emphasis is on confidence, charisma, and entrepreneurship. Pick-up artistry isn’t part of this package. I think most other storytellers working with characters like these would find it hard to resist the urge to emphasize misogyny or inceldom, but that’s not where writer-director Tom Nicoll takes this movie, and that’s to its great benefit. It keeps Danny as a largely sympathetic character, even if he’s reckless and manipulative. He’s truly in a rut, debts and shame mounting, faking it until he makes it—but “making it” remains ever out of reach. I spent the movie empathizing with his claustrophobic situation (which might have been helped stylistically by the narrow aspect ratio and constant extreme close-up shots). The relationship with Scott, the one mentee that Danny does seem to genuinely help, has a satisfying arc—that’s thanks to the smart writing and believable acting that underpin the film.

Salvation is one of the very best examples of small-scale independent filmmaking that I’ve seen in a long time. It is a far more compelling film than most of the others that I’ve seen at TIFF this year that have 100x its budget. I’m excited to see what else Tom Nicoll is able to create in the future.

4.5/5

A Talent for Murder

Australia, Ireland, United Kingdom, Italy, Switzerland, United States of America | 2026 | 106m | English

Wasn’t sure what to expect from a movie described as a “smouldering chamber thriller” but I thought this was entertaining with a well-written script and actors who had what it took to deliver lines that in less capable hands could have come across as stilted. And we all love Helen Mirren, don’t we? She’s great in this. This feels like the kind of movie my mom would enjoy.

3.5/5

Inherit

Thailand | 2026 | 128m | Thai

Yeah, I kind of loved this. Hot lady shows up at your door claiming to be your 85-year-old grandma: who am I to turn her away? Lots of great scary set pieces, and even if the ending feels a bit incomplete, this was some of the most fun I’ve had at the festival so far.

4/5

Look Back

Japan | 2026 | 100m | Japanese

A real Japanophile film if there ever was one. “Does Look Back really need a live-action adaptation, when the anime version is already so beloved?” I wondered when I first saw its trailer. Having seen it at its North American premiere, I can confirm that it was a worthwhile endeavor after all.

I don’t think I connect with the Look Back story quite as much as other people do. The tragic turn in the story didn’t make me cry this time, either, and honestly I think the story meanders after that point until it ends. But there are so many moments of stunning beauty both visually and musically. With an absence of conflict for the majority of the film, Look Back creates an inviting, warm world for viewers to spend time basking in the friendship and passion of these two young characters.

As a big fan of manga, I didn’t mind the film’s emphasis on showing the process of its creation. A viewer coming in totally blind—meaning no awareness of the acclaimed Look Back anime adaptation, manga source material, or the real-life Kyoto Animation Studio incident that heavily inspires the plot—might find the whole thing slow, but likely they’ll at least appreciate the gorgeous, bright 35mm cinematography and lighthearted story that leaves you feeling good until the moment that it does not.

3.5/5

Kick On

Australia | 2026 | 91m | English

Yes, this is what a midnight madness movie should be. The premise is pretty straightforward, which helped since Look Back got out late and I had to miss the opening minutes of this screening. Four friends enter the home of an unhinged son of a mob boss, looking to score some drugs. They get the drugs, but spend the rest of the movie fighting to get out. Early on it’s established that no one is safe, adding a real tension to all of the violent standoffs. Apparently about 40 of the cast and crew flew out from Australia to join the crowd at this world premiere. I’m sure they had fun hearing the audience loudly cheer all the gnarly gore. This was a great way to cap off my four-movie marathon day at TIFF.

3.5/5

Alpha Gang

United Kingdom, United States of America | 2026 | 109m | English

Alpha Gang feels like a silly student film that somehow got an eight-figure budget. The first half hour or so had me wondering what the movie was going for or why any of it mattered. I suppose I was still thinking along those lines by the end but at least the entertainment value picked up with the introduction of Chris Pine’s character. Alpha Gang is goofy, mild fun.

2.5/5

Memories of a Forest

Austria, Germany | 2026 | 91m | German

Memories of a Forest misses every single opportunity to do anything interesting or unexpected with its dry, straightforward setup.

A doctoral student is interrupted from her thesis work to come home and deal with a forest she unexpectedly inherited from her recently deceased grandmother. Oh, so it’s a story about the stress she feels, being pulled between too worlds? Well, not really—the thesis plotline is ignored for most of the movie and the stakes are never really established in the first place. So then it’s a story about deep-rooted familial conflict that can no longer be ignored? Again, not really—there’s like one scene of an older relative being told off but then nothing else comes from that. Maybe there’s an unexpected romance that blossoms where the lead character least expects it? Um, if you can call it that when there’s no development and it fizzles out with little explanation. I got it—it’s about environmentalism! Well, if that’s the case then it’s odd how much time the film devotes to showing the trees get cut down and sawed up, only to make us worry when the protagonist isn’t earning as much as she expected from all the deforestation.

Unfortunately there’s just nothing interesting going on at any point in Memories of a Forest. I found it to be a total dud. (I’ll refrain from making any jokes about how it’s as wooden as the trees.)

1/5

Vintage Violence

United States of America, Japan | 2026 | 105m | English, Japanese

On paper, this movie should be right up my alley. For the first several minutes, I felt like I was about to witness a 5-star instant classic. While I do appreciate the goofiness, Japanophile sensibility, and unique and frenetic presentation—even when it is spread across multiple screens—I have to reluctantly admit that Vintage Violence wore out its welcome by the end.

It’s hard for me to put my finger on where the movie went wrong. Maybe the story revealed itself too much to be mostly style over substance. Maybe I was distracted while watching this, thinking wistfully of my own time living in Japan. I’m still feeling a 3.5 because of how original it was, but that’s a light 3.5.

Also—the director was probably the most personable out of any who I saw give a Q&A at the festival. He had a certain stage presence and charm that almost none of the others did.

3.5/5

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother

United States of America, United Kingdom | 2026 | 112m | English, Arabic

I was probably ready to settle on giving this a lower score until the last twenty minutes or so really, really elevated it. John Cho as a violent Christian dominionist leader steals every scene he’s in. I’m thankful that Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother is a story with nuance. It’s not black-and-white about any of the faiths it portrays. All are capable of hypocrisy and of genuine reverence to God. Stylish, moving, and thoughtful, it’s somehow both brutal and funny. Out of the films I have seen this year it is in a category of its own.

4/5

Trees are Watching

Iran, United Kingdom | 2026 | 106m | Kurdish, Turkish, English

You’ve heard of toilet humor. Now get ready for toilet horror.

Trees Are Watching is a film that’s trying to do a lot of things, but doesn’t do any of them well. The director, both before and after the screening, made it clear that the past number of years that he’s lived in exile from the Iranian regime influenced his desire to tell a story where danger lurks around every corner… where no one and nothing can be trusted. I actually think this sort of “animist horror” concept could work in the right hands.

However, the way that idea materializes in this film is through deeply silly and unscary scenes of a demonic chair (yes, a 🪑 chair) clattering around a room, menacingly yanked by offscreen wires. There’s also a possessed toilet (“Every toilet has an evil mother”) that elicits many, many screams from one of the child actresses. She’s probably the best part, honestly. The scariest thing to me in this film was the way the adults treated the children. Well, maybe the AI use was scarier—those warbling, lo-res backgrounds didn’t escape my notice. Peter Kuplowsky’s recommendations really baffle me sometimes!

1.5/5

Diary of a Mad Old Man

Japan, Switzerland, United States of America, Malaysia | 2026 | 119m | Japanese, Chinese

My wife insisted that I see this because of Fan Bingbing, who is mega popular in China despite being somewhat exiled over there. Toronto-area Xiaohongshu had been monitoring her every move all week. At the world premiere at TIFF, which doubled as an opportunity for Cameron Bailey to present her with a special award, Bingbing certainly drew many cheers from the audience. Afterward, I walked past a mob of fans waiting outside the exit to snap pictures of her.

In Diary of a Mad Old Man, the actress plays the live-in caretaker and daughter-in-law of an ailing man who develops the hots for her. I never felt like the movie was quite as subversive or naughty as it seemed to regard itself—and I say that even with the opening long take of the old guy jerking himself off under a table. There is only one scene in particular that I think could be called “shocking” (and hearing in the Q&A afterward that it was unscripted certainly raised my eyebrows). We get many moments between the two leads interacting inside their rural Japanese home, but hardly any of it is what I would call “erotic,” even as the old man becomes increasingly bold in his perviness. I’m undecided about the acting—maybe someone more familiar with the aftereffects of a stroke can attest to whether actor Lily Franky, playing the disabled old man, pulled off the physical mannerisms convincingly. Fan Bingbing’s heavily accented Japanese also stood out to me, and it makes me wonder how her performance will be received by Japanese audiences. The cinematography of all the interior locations was pretty to look at, but Diary of a Mad Old Man never rose to the level of something that I feel I need to go out of my way to recommend to others.

3/5

Musk

United States of America | 2026 | 238m | English, Portuguese, Spanish

One star for every hour in the theater. I’ve read enough books on Elon that most of this material was familiar. But despite the wide range of time periods and subjects, it flows in a logical and compelling way.

The biggest misstep is the use of AI to simulate an “interview” with Elon, who early on we learn refused to cooperate with the creation of this documentary. Use of generative AI in movies always feels pretty icky, but I found it especially egregious in this case. In a fictional story you could argue that it’s an evolution of existing CGI technology—perhaps even a way to democratize filmmaking for those who otherwise would not have the budget to put those images on the screen—but to use AI in a non-fiction, journalistic context to literally put words in the mouth of the subject being portrayed in an unflattering light feels like it only gives ammunition to those who would claim that this film is an unfair hit piece. Granted, the synthetic quotes coming out of AI Elon in this movie were adapted from his real speech and writing, and to the best of my knowledge it didn’t seem like anything his avatar was made to say felt wildly out of character, but the fact that I can’t know for sure doesn’t feel great. Worse, it just felt unnecessary: I see no reason why the narrator couldn’t have just said something like, “Elon believes such and such.” I also think there is an incongruence between complaining about the environmental impact of AI data centers and then relying on those same data centers to generate one’s critique.

Given how terminally online Elon is, I have to seriously wonder if he is reading this review (hi 👋)—after all, this documentary has so far only played to a limited audience of film festival attendees and he’s trying his best to suppress it from being seen by even more people. (Not very free speech absolutist of him.) I’ll throw him a bone here—I can see how detractors of this doc might share my feeling that there is perhaps an undeserved lion’s share of interview footage given to Ashley St. Clair (whom I find to be a relatively untrustworthy grifter) or Sam Harris, whose ardent denial of the genocide in Gaza disqualifies him, in my mind, from handwringing about Elon’s lack of ethics. Overall, however, I found this to be an engaging watch with a length that didn’t feel unwarranted given the enormity of what its subject has been—and continues to be—involved with.

4/5

Muyi

France | 2026 | 90m | French

If I were reviewing this based solely on the animation, it would be a five. I love how this movie looked: it’s genuinely unlike any other style I’ve seen before. I also liked the character design of the titular Muyi, which goes a long way. Where this movie loses some points is in the winding story that by the end had me a little lost. However, I hope this film finds a wide audience and I absolutely look forward to whatever this director and team come up with next.

3.5/5

Half

India | 2026 | 96m | Malayalam, Hindi, English, Telugu, Tamil

I guess these characters are vampires, but there isn’t a lot of time devoted to explaining or exploring that. Really, I think it’s just an excuse to make them unkillable, so they can go from one wild action scene to the next. I didn’t see Half at its first showing, which was at midnight. I can only imagine that audience had a strong, vocal response to this.

Half gives the bare-minimum plot necessary to establish why its baddies need to die, but it honestly does a good job in doing so. I would describe the story as “economical.” The music, “kick ass.” The action, which is the vast majority of the film, “great.”

3.5/5

The World Before

South Korea | 2026 | 115m | Korean

The World Before became my twenty-third and final movie of this year’s TIFF. I picked it more-or-less on a whim since it fit into the last time slot of the night and had a resale ticket available.

Many people, I’m sure, would find this film slow, but I actually appreciated it quite a bit. It is a meditative, gorgeous movie about teenage limerence, in all its awkwardness. The acting from both of the young leads makes the movie entirely believable. It’s less a story as it is a portrait of a moment in time, which I think a lot of viewers will be able to relate to even if they’re not Korean. I’m not sure when or where I would have the chance to watch this again, but I think I want to revisit it some day.

3.5/5

TIFF 2026 Ranking

Here’s how I rank all of the movies I saw at the festival this year:

1. The Beloved
2. Salvation
3. Inherit
4. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother
5. Love Is a Gypsy Child: A Carmen Story
6. Musk
7. Being Heumann
8. Muyi
9. Kick On
10. The World Before
11. Half
12. Look Back
13. Vintage Violence
14. A Talent for Murder
15. Evil Genius
16. Diary of a Mad Old Man
17. Clarissa
18. Alpha Gang
19. Idda
20. The Last Photograph
21. Whatcha Want
22. Trees are Watching
23. Memories of a Forest

Other Movies I Saw This Month

• King of New York (1990) [3/5]
• Thief (1981) [4/5]
• Inside Out (2015) [4/5]
• Inside Out 2 (2024) [3.5/5]
• Barbarian (2022) [3.5/5]
• I Like Movies (2022) [3/5]

Best Movies I Saw This Month

• Perfect Days
• The Beloved
• Salvation
• Inherit

Worst Movies I Saw This Month

• Memories of a Forest
• Trees are Watching