11 Days of Canadian and International Cinema
TIFF 2025 Volume 1
The Toronto International Film Festival wrapped its 50th Anniversary celebration from September 4-14, and I was lucky enough to be there for my third year in a row. This time around, I dove into 41 films—a slightly smaller haul than last year since I did most of my viewing in Toronto rather than catching advance screeners. But what TIFF50 lacked in quantity, it more than made up for in quality and variety.
What really struck me this year was just how well TIFF’s programmers understand their audience. There’s truly something for everyone: big crowd-pleasers that get the room buzzing, quiet documentaries that make you think long after the credits roll, experimental films that challenge what cinema can be. Every section felt carefully curated, like each programmer had dug deep to find titles that would connect with different kinds of film lovers in different moods. That’s the magic of this festival.
The access and experiences this year were incredible. I got to see Jaws in 35mm for the anniversary—and it looked absolutely fantastic. I was invited to a private Q&A with the cast of the new Knives Out film. And then there were the parties: at the gatherings for The Lost Bus and Hedda, I actually got to tell Tessa Thompson, Tom Bateman, Nina Hoss, and director Nia DaCosta how much I loved their film. Tessa and I even chatted about what other movies we’d been enjoying at the festival! I also kept running into actors and filmmakers at premieres they were attending to support friends, met up with fellow critics I’d only known online, and just soaked up the energy of being part of this community.
The people of Toronto, the TIFF staff, the volunteers working around the clock—everyone made this feel less like a film festival and more like a homecoming. I’m grateful for the hospitality, the growing connections, and the chance to keep doing this work I love.
Over the next several volumes, I’ll be sharing my reviews with links to the full write-ups as they go live. And yeah, I’ve already booked my AirBnB for next September. See you at TIFF51.
DISC
The story of a hookup gone too far up.
Director: Blake Winston Rice | Stars: Jim Cummings, Victoria Ratermanis
Fourteen minutes. That’s all it takes for DISC to put you through an emotional meat grinder.
Jim Cummings (The Beta Test) loves roles that make other actors sweat through their shirts, and this one’s a doozy. He plays Carey, a guy trying way too hard the morning after a one-night stand with Alex (Victoria Ratermanis, who co-wrote). She wants to disappear. He wants to make coffee and maybe fold a towel. Then something happens. I won’t spoil it, but suddenly these two strangers can’t leave and have to actually deal with each other.
Director Blake Winston Rice cranks the awkwardness to eleven. The camerawork is jittery, the editing frantic, and Kevin Garrett’s score builds until you want to crawl out of your skin. It’s cringeworthy, occasionally gross, and hilarious in ways that sneak up on you. Underneath all the chaos, there’s something sweet about watching two people ditch their snap judgments and actually see each other. More genuine tension than most two-hour movies manage.
MODERN WHORE
A hybrid documentary that reimagines popular depictions of sex work through the lived experiences of writer, performer, and sex worker Andrea Werhun. Andrea grapples with social stigma and reclaims her narrative in a series of funny, heartbreaking, and surprising stories.
Director: Nicole Bazuin | Star: Andrea Werhun
Andrea Werhun (Paying for It) is the friend you wish you had: wickedly funny, razor-sharp, and impossible to look away from.
This hybrid documentary, based on Werhun’s book about her experiences in sex work, could have been preachy or exploitative. Instead, it’s raunchy and warm, honest without grandstanding. Director Nicole Bazuin mixes Werhun’s direct-to-camera confessions with animation, conversations with other sex workers, and surprisingly tender moments with her mother. The animation externalizes memory and trauma without turning anyone into a symbol or a victim.
What lands hardest is how the film implicates you. It’s not just about societal stigma; it’s about your assumptions walking in. Werhun and Bazuin aren’t interested in easy takeaways. They’d rather complicate your thinking and make you laugh while doing it. Humor as a scalpel. It works.
NO OTHER CHOICE
After being laid off and humiliated by a ruthless job market, a veteran paper mill manager descends into violence in a desperate bid to reclaim his dignity.
Director: Park Chan-wook | Stars: Lee Byung-hun, Son Ye-jin, Yeom Hye-ran
Here’s a confession: I hated Decision to Leave. Bottom of my 2022 list. So walking into another Park Chan-wook premiere felt like a gamble.
Thank God I showed up. No Other Choice is Park at his most viciously entertaining. Lee Byung-hun plays Man-su, a paper company loyalist dumped after 25 years. He’s got a wife who likes nice things, kids with expensive hobbies, and zero job prospects. His solution? Eliminate the competition. Literally. What follows is a pitch-black comedy about corporate desperation taken to its logical, blood-soaked conclusion.
Lee is magnificent, playing a man whose frustration hardens into something terrifying. Son Ye-jin gets the film’s sharpest laughs as his ruthlessly pragmatic wife. Yeom Hye-ran nearly runs off with the whole thing as an unfortunate bystander who gets tangled in the mayhem. With AI eating jobs and layoffs becoming background noise, this one cuts close to the bone. The final image will haunt you.
Read my full review here.
SENTIMENTAL VALUE
Sisters Nora and Agnes reunite with their estranged father, the charismatic Gustav, a once-renowned director who offers stage actress Nora a role in what he hopes will be his comeback film. When Nora turns it down, she soon discovers he has given her part to an eager young Hollywood star.
Director: Joachim Trier | Stars: Renate Reinsve, Stellan Skarsgård, Elle Fanning, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas
My first official film at TIFF has been gold three years running*. Anatomy of a Fall. The Girl with the Needle. Now this. The streak continues.
Joachim Trier reunites with Renate Reinsve for a family drama that detonates slowly and beautifully. When their mother dies, estranged father Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård, Dune), a famous director, reappears in the lives of his children with a script he wants his eldest daughter Nora (Reinsve, Presumed Innocent) to star in. She refuses. The role goes to a Hollywood actress (Elle Fanning, Predator: Badlands) desperate for credibility. But whose story is Gustav really telling? His mother’s? His ex-wife’s? His daughters’? Trier keeps shifting the answer until you’re holding your breath.
Reinsve is staggering, from a harrowing opening meltdown to confrontations with a father who wounds with a smile. Skarsgård does career-best work. But the revelation is Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas as younger sister Agnes, communicating entire histories through glances and posture. I’ve seen it twice. It only gets richer. This is a master filmmaker operating without a safety net, and being caught by a cast that feels like family.
Read my full review here.
*(DISC, Modern Whore, and No Other Choice were screened prior to the festival start)
HAMLET (2025)
Set in a modern-day London of economic and political uncertainty, the story follows the intersecting themes of familial honor, moral duty and dynastic corruption.
Director: Aneil Karia | Stars: Riz Ahmed, Sheeba Chaddha, Art Malik
Another modern Hamlet? Yawn. Except this one actually earns its existence.
Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal) is electric as the prince, here reimagined within a wealthy British South-Asian family in present-day London. His father, a real estate titan, is dead. His mother (a devastating Sheeba Chaddha) is already marrying his uncle. Nobody finds this weird except Hamlet. When dad’s ghost shows up after a night of partying and cocaine with Laertes, spilling the truth about his murder, revenge becomes the only option.
Director Aneil Karia (The Long Goodbye) and writer Michael Lesslie (Justin Kurzel’s 2015 Macbeth) trim the runtime under two hours, which might make purists twitch. Ignore them. The text that remains crackles, and the ensemble devours it. A mid-film dance sequence meant to expose the guilty parties is jaw-dropping. But this belongs to Ahmed, who brings real understanding to every monologue. Wait until you see what he does with “To be or not to be.” It’s not a gimmick. It’s the real thing.
CHARLIE HARPER
The journey of a young woman, Harper, and a young man, Charlie, as they meet, leave their respective homes, and attempt to build a life together in a new city. As the driven and ambitious Harper works to build a career as a chef, and the brilliant-yet-stuck Charlie struggles to get himself on track, their relationship faces growing challenges.
Director: Mac Eldridge & Tom Dean | Stars: Nick Robinson, Emilia Jones
Two attractive people fall in love, fight about the same things repeatedly, and remember it all differently. Sound familiar?
Charlie Harper plays with time and perspective, showing us both versions of arguments between Charlie (Nick Robinson, Love, Simon) and Harper (Emilia Jones, The Running Man). She’s ambitious and frustrated by his aimlessness. He feels judged every time she suggests he do something with his life. The structure flirts with gimmick but Robinson and Jones have real chemistry, making their recurring fights sting with recognition.
The supporting cast could use pruning, and finding the rhythm takes patience. But the film earns its emotional payoff by asking a genuinely interesting question: what do you do with happy memories that are tangled up with painful ones? Not revolutionary, but honest. Good music choices and clever use of different aspect ratios add polish. Sometimes “gets the job done” is enough.
MADDIE'S SECRET
By day, bright-eyed, kind-hearted Maddie is a dishwasher at Gourmaybe, a trendy Los Angeles food content creation company, and at night makes scrumptious vegetarian dishes, captured in videos by her devoted husband Jake. When one of the videos goes viral and she is thrust into the spotlight, the pressure heralds the inopportune return of a long-dormant struggle with an eating disorder.
Director/Star: John Early | Co-stars: Kate Berlant, Vanessa Bayer, Eric Rahill
John Early (Stress Positions) made a Sirk-style melodrama about eating disorders starring himself and a murderer’s row of comedians. It has no business working this well.
Early plays Maddie, an employee at a trendy food content company who dreams of becoming an on-camera chef. She’s got a supportive himbo husband (Eric Rahill, Friendship), an obsessed best friend (Kate Berlant, perfect), and a workplace nemesis (Claudia O’Doherty, deliciously awful). She also has a secret. I won’t tell you what it is, but discovering it opens the door to Vanessa Bayer doing some of her funniest work and Early revealing serious dramatic chops.
The film walks a tightrope between satire and sincerity, skewering influencer culture and LA wellness nonsense while treating its central subject with genuine care. There’s an obvious joke the movie could make constantly. It never does, because it doesn’t need to. Michael Hesslein’s ’80s-inspired score is the cherry on top. This is what happens when funny people trust their material enough to play it straight.
MILE END KICKS
In 2011 Montreal’s indie music scene, Grace Pine, a 24-year-old music critic moves to the Canadian city to write a book on Alanis Morissette’s classic ‘Jagged Little Pill’ album. But her plans take an unexpected turn when she gets romantically involved with members of an indie band for whom she serves as their publicist.
Director: Chandler Levack | Stars: Barbie Ferreira, Stanley Simons, Devon Bostick
Almost Famous from a woman’s perspective, set in 2011 Montreal, with Alanis Morissette as the obsession instead of Stillwater. I’m in.
Barbie Ferreira (Bob Trevino Likes It) plays Grace, a music critic working on a book about Jagged Little Pill who gets tangled up with a local band instead of, you know, writing. She falls for the oblivious frontman (Stanley Simons, The Iron Claw) while ignoring the guitarist (Devon Bostick, Oppenheimer) who actually pays attention to her. Director Chandler Levack, following up I Like Movies, treats Grace’s bad decisions with affection instead of mockery.
The details sing: photocopied zines, cramped practice spaces, lyrics that seem profound at 2am and embarrassing by noon. The third act stumbles into heavier territory that doesn’t fully land, and Grace’s self-created misery occasionally tests patience. But Ferreira’s vulnerability and Levack’s understanding of how young people find themselves through the art they love make this a warm, messy winner.
THE LAST VIKING
After serving fourteen years for robbery, Anker is released from prison and reunites with his mentally ill brother Manfred, who alone knows where the stolen money is hidden but has forgotten its location, sending them on a journey to recover the loot and confront who they are.
Director: Anders Thomas Jensen | Stars: Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas
You’re here for Mads Mikkelsen. You’ll stay for Nikolaj Lie Kaas.
Mikkelsen’s sixth collaboration with director Anders Thomas Jensen starts strong: Anker (Lie Kaas) gets out of prison after fifteen years, ready to collect the fortune he asked his brother Manfred (Mikkelsen, The Promised Land) to bury. Problem is, Manfred’s past trauma has fractured his mind, and he genuinely can’t remember where he put it. Cue a shaggy odyssey involving violent creditors and a Beatles tribute band gone horribly wrong.
Jensen opens with a gorgeous animated sequence promising fable-like magic. The movie that follows can’t sustain it, sagging in the middle and jerking between whimsy and violence without much control. Mikkelsen is fine but muted. Lie Kaas, though, is magnificent: skeptical of his brother’s condition but unable to stop caring. His performance turns a potentially thankless role into something moving. Gorgeous cinematography, handsome craft, just not quite enough gas in the tank. Still, you might leave humming an off-key Beatles cover, and that’s something.
Read my full review here.
MĀRAMA
1859. When a young Māori woman is summoned from New Zealand to North Yorkshire, she uncovers her horrific colonial heritage and is compelled to confront and destroy the titled Englishman who devastated her family.
Director: Taratoa Stappard | Stars: Ariana Osborne, Toby Stephens
Gothic Māori noir. That’s the pitch. It delivers.
Ariana Osborne plays Marama, a Māori woman lured to an isolated English estate under mysterious circumstances. What she finds is a household drowning in colonial guilt, performing rituals that recast historical violence as entertainment. The setup is familiar, sinister manor, secrets everywhere, but director Taratoa Stappard builds dread through etiquette and glances rather than cheap scares.
Osborne is fantastic, starting with careful politeness before hardening into something fiercer. One ballroom sequence pivots from pageantry to horror so effectively it’ll raise goosebumps. Toby Stephens (Die Another Day) oozes menace as the estate’s charming master, his courtesy curdling the longer you watch. The final stretch leans too hard into conventional horror beats, losing some psychological tension. But as a reckoning with colonial memory and the violence of spectacle, it cuts deep. Slow-burn done right.
CHRISTY
Christy Martin never imagined life beyond her small-town roots in West Virginia—until she discovered a knack for punching people. Fueled by grit, raw determination, and an unshakable desire to win, she charges into the world of boxing under the guidance of her trainer and manager-turned-husband, Jim. But while Christy flaunts a fiery persona in the ring, her toughest battles unfold outside it—confronting family, identity, and a relationship that just might become life-or-death.
Director: David Michôd | Stars: Sydney Sweeney, Ben Foster, Merritt Wever, Katy O’Brian
Sydney Sweeney (The Housemaid) wants you to forget everything you think you know about her. Mission accomplished.
Playing real-life boxer Christy Martin, Sweeney gained thirty pounds of muscle, trained for months, and did her own fight sequences. The physical transformation is impressive. The emotional one is extraordinary. Martin went from West Virginia scrapper to the first female boxer on the cover of Sports Illustrated, but Christy is equally interested in the battles outside the ring. Her marriage to trainer Jim (Ben Foster, terrifyingly controlled) curdles from charming to monstrous. The third act contains shocks that would seem melodramatic if they weren’t documented fact.
David Michôd stages fights with clarity that makes footwork matter. Merritt Wever cuts deep as Martin’s dismissive mother. Katy O’Brian (Love Lies Bleeding) blossoms in unexpected ways. Chad Coleman’s Don King might be the best committed to screen. Go in blind if you can, Christy Martin’s real story is wilder than any screenplay could invent. Sweeney doesn’t just make her case as a serious actress here. She closes it.
Read my full review here.