HTN’s 10 Most Anticipated Films of the 2026 Toronto International Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (or TIFF) marked its 50th anniversary last year and now is back again, running September 10-20, with 293 films (shorts and features) in its official slate. As always, Hammer to Nail will offer coverage of the event, thanks to lead critic Chris Reed and a new writer for our site, Clara Cuccaro. Below, each offer five choices each of films they are either excited to see or have seen and recommend (all Chris Reed’s blurbs are excerpted from his upcoming full-length reviews).
Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been
It’s a stretch to claim that “Darlene Love is the greatest singer no one has heard of,” as one interviewee does in the new documentary Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been, but that doesn’t take away from the fact she is deserving of all the praise we can give her. One of the stars of Morgan Neville’s Oscar-winning film 20 Feet from Stardom, Love has also been dubbed the “Queen of Christmas” by none other than Mariah Carey and David Letterman, thanks to her 1963 hit “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).” She has a big voice and a big heart and, fortunately, for quite a while now a pretty large following. And yet, at one time, she was indeed that singer whose sound everyone knew without realizing who she was. Thanks to director Barry Avrich’s enjoyable ode to her greatness, the spotlight is on her for good. (Chris Reed)
Trash Mountain
Growing up gay in rural Missouri is not for the faint of heart. In Kris Rey’s newest feature, Trash Mountain, Gavin (Caleb Hearon) thought he escaped his past for a new one in Chicago, but when his reclusive hoarder father passes away, Gavin and his sister Abbi (Zooey Deschanel) are dragged back home to wade through the literal and emotional clutter. Written by Hearon and Ruby Caster, this sweet, disarming comedy asks the question, what if returning home isn’t as awful as you remembered? Rey and Hearon take this premise and subvert Gavin’s expectations, trading the typical small-town hostility for a supportive community that is as tender as it is dysfunctional.(Clara Cuccaro)
Edward Said: Between Worlds
It can unfortunately sometimes be risky to express sympathy for the plight of Palestinians, so wrapped up is their past, present, and future in the fate of Israel. Officially created in 1948, that country exists on land that at one point was owned and cultivated in part by populations now either exiled or condensed into Gaza and the West Bank. While he was alive, academic and activist Edward Said (1935-2003)—born in Jerusalem—was an outspoken defender of Palestinian rights. In director Maiken Baird’s gripping new documentary Edward Said: Between Worlds, we learn all about his life, work, and enduring passion for justice. (CR)
Ladies and Gentleman, Brian Mulroney
Canadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin follows up his surreal Winnipeg-meets-Tehran feature Universal Language with another unique gem: Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney. Produced by the National Film Board, this documentary chronicles the rise of Canada’s 18th prime minister. Apparently he’s one of the most transformative and controversial figures in modern Canadian history although not the funniest – that award goes to Jean Chretien according to my Ontario born and bred friend Ian Mantel. But if Universal Language taught me anything, it’s to expect the unexpected from Rankin. Rather than a standard political biopic, Rankin’s film will be a swirl of archival footage, intrusive Canadian TV ads, and outlandish dramatizations reminiscent of his earlier work, The Twentieth Century (TIFF ’19). (CC)
The Smell of Apples
No matter what the attitude of the current U.S. President towards South Africa’s Afrikaner population might be, with his historically blind claims that they are somehow the victims of discrimination from the country’s Black majority, it is an indisputable fact that apartheid—South Africa’s official doctrine from 1948 to 1994—was a racist, white-supremacist system of oppression that made life miserable for those living under its ugly framework. In The Smell of Apples, director John Trengrove’s adaptation of novelist Mark Behr’s eponymous 1993 book, we see the corruption from within, our guide an 11-year-old boy who journeys from blind acceptance to dawning horror. The film delivers stunning visuals and great performances in a sharp dissection of the festering disease in the heart of all tyrants. (CR)
My Wife Cries
Angela Schanelec may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but she is mine. Following up her previous film Music (TIFF ’23) with My Wife Cries, the Berlin School auteur explores the romantic misalignment of Thomas (Vladimir Vulević), a construction worker, and his wife Carla (Agathe Bonitzer) after she survives a car accident in which the driver, her close friend, with whom she was having an emotional affair, is killed. Left to their own devices, the couple navigates the ensuing fallout under Schanelec’s quiet, almost Bressonian austerity, though she also adds some lightness: there’s color, a choreographed dance scene, and music in the park. (CC)
Union Town
The great documentarian Barbara Kopple began her cinematic career with the 1976 Harlan County U.S.A., which took home the Oscar that year in its category. The movie gave audiences an on-the-ground look at a work strike among hard-scrabble Kentucky coal miners and was a model of observational filmmaking. Now, in Union Town, Kopple returns to labor issues, setting her latest opus among the underpaid and exploited New York employees of UPS, Amazon, and the many delivery-service apps that most people use without a second’s thought of who is on the other end. This is “unseen labor,” as Kopple informs us, and her job is to make sure we see it. (CR)
A Long Winter
Andrew Haigh has been trying to make A Long Winter for 20 years and now the time has come. Adapted by the English director and Colm Tóibín from the acclaimed Irish novelist’s short story of the same name, the film follows Mike (Fred Hechinger) as he comes to terms with his sexuality and his mother’s disappearance during the first blizzard of the year. Set amidst the Canadian Rockies (standing in for Colorado), this coming-of-age story about absent parents and deferred, masculine grief is sure to devastate just like his previous feature All of Us Strangers, which ruined audiences, myself included, a few years ago. (CC)
Misty Green
I don’t think of Chris Rock as a director, even though he’s actually been at the helm of three films: Head of State, I Think I Love My Wife, and Top Five (TIFF ’14). In Misty Green, his newest endeavor, stars Rosalind Eleazar in a star-making role as a former Emmy winner looking for a comeback in Hollywood. This melodrama could just read as a “woman’s picture,” but Rock goes a step further, exposing how deeply racism, classism, and misogyny contaminate the motion picture ecosystem, especially for Black women.
Wild Wild East
Neither World War II nor the Holocaust are strangers to cinema; both have been the frequent subject of many a filmmaker. Indeed, one might even feel it difficult to come up with any new treatment of either, no matter their horrific and genocidal details. But in his latest movie, Wild Wild East, Polish director Jan Holoubek shows that there are still creative depths to plumb, crafting a taut—and ultimately devastating—thriller with more plot twists and turns than the best whodunits. It’s riveting throughout, all the way to its killer of a conclusion. (CR)
For tickets to these and other films, check out the festival website. Enjoy!
– The HtN Staff
