10 films to watch at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival

Anchors Aweigh

This wildcard Midnight Madness selection mashes together I Think You Should Leave, How To With John Wilson, and Ross McElwee’s Sherman’s March with a Tim And Eric sensibility. Matt Barats’ anti-comedy opens with a failed proposal: After his aspiring Broadway singer girlfriend turns him down, an unfocused artist (Barats, playing a version of himself) spirals out to the end of Queens. He lands in a docked boat to gather himself and start working on a project using his older tapes from a decade ago. In a rambly narration where tangents run wild, Barats says things that should be insightful and poetic but are neither. He observes random scenes of New York City life like Wilson, and tries halfheartedly to give a personal tour of the city, but as a self-absorbed narrator fixated on his girlfriend’s younger age, he’s awkwardly unfunny—but made all the more funny by emphasizing the cringe-inducing nature of his character.

Hombre Al Agua

 

Like Almodóvar’s film, Gael García Bernal’s sneakily clever comedy Hombre Al Agua plays with the boundaries between art and life, but that’s not all the movie’s interested in. García Bernal plays Camilo, a Cuban lifeguard who by chance rescues a millionaire on vacation. Camilo ends up hired by the man to help him run a factory, and eventually marries his spoiled daughter. But fate has other ideas, as Camilo’s wife embarks on making a movie about her life and his father-in-law develops political aspirations. Camilo observes their detached narcissism with a mixture of bemusement, disappointment, and fear, as the whims of the wealthy dictate whether or not his story will have a happy ending. The movie has a dry wit and a surprisingly thriller-like structure blending Camilo’s dreams and reality. 

Edward Said: Between Worlds

Maiken Baird’s documentary Edward Said: Between Worlds is a work worthy of its subject. Following Said’s journey from his birth in Jerusalem, the loss of his home country of Palestine, and his journey to a new home in the United States, the film allows the scholar’s voice to narrate his life story and reflect on how it shaped some of his most monumental works, like Orientalism and The Question Of Palestine. The film switches between world events and Said’s scholarship, where he remained a fierce advocate for the Palestinian people. Like I Am Not Your Negro, which reintroduced James Baldwin to a broader audience, Between Worlds is a timely film revisiting Said’s writing. 

Rehearsals For A Revolution 

 

Broken into five chapters, actor-turned-director Pegah Ahangarani’s essay-like documentary ties together her memories, family photo albums, and home movies with reflections on Iran’s history for a heartbreaking look at the legacy of the Iranian Revolution. Starting with her father, a once-proud member of the army and a filmmaker, Ahangarani traces her family’s disillusion with the revolution after her father’s best friend (and the star of his movie) was executed. She then reflects on a beloved teacher who was punished, an hopeful uncle who was harshly beaten and imprisoned, and a love interest who vanished into the crowd of a rowdy demonstration. She dedicates the last chapter to her child, and her fears and hopes for the future of a country that has been retaliating against its own citizens and threatened by ongoing war. 

Ancestors

David Turpin’s haunting AIDS drama is mournful, poetic, and arresting. Beau (Éanna Hardwicke) works in a London café and keeps company mostly with his best mate Shell (Jessica Reynolds) and gay elder Maurice (Rupert Everett) until he falls for Tiny (Jack Wolfe), a mysterious fellow traveler. Like a vision, Tiny disappears, and Beau is left heartbroken and ill. With just four main characters and the ghostly apparition of a beloved actress mythologized à la Judy Garland or Marilyn Monroe played by Christina Hendricks, Ancestors is an intimate, dreamy drama with soft-focus cinematography that shifts between color and black-and-white like Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter Of Life And Death. The result is a moving piece that plays with the concepts of memory and longing, but also how memories of loved ones survive after they are gone, be they lovers or movie stars. 

The Violinist 

 

An award-winning import from the Annecy Film Festival, Ervin Han and Raúl García’s The Violinist is a sweeping animated drama tracing the bond between two children who grew up to be musicians, all set against the backdrop of the Japanese occupation in Singapore around the time of World War II. The film is structured like Millennium Actress—an accomplished violinist tells her story to an inquisitive journalist and narrates the film—but the movie handles its real-world devastation with the somberness and gravity of Grave Of The Fireflies. Filled with lovely classical music (of course), this imaginative story of friendship, duty, and the struggle to protect music when it doesn’t seem to matter is a much more mature tale than its innocuous title suggests. 

Lemonade

 

In Kim Bartley’s coming-of-age story, Danny (Lewis Brophy) must leave the foster care system in Ireland, forced to quickly grow up on his 18th birthday. As he learns the ropes of adulthood, he tries to stay in touch with his young brother, deal with a social worker (Barry Keoghan) who really wants him to succeed, and look for what truly happened to his absent mother. Bartley, who comes from a documentary background, handles the drama with compassion and an eye for emotional close-ups and windswept pensive moments against gray skies. Brophy is just as impressive as a young man trying to make sense of a world that’s quickly changed overnight, one where he has to make changes to protect his newfound freedom. Keoghan is there almost like an emotional sparring partner, someone for Danny to rebel against (since it feels like the whole world is out to get him), but also someone to call up for advice because there’s no one else there for the young lad.