The 2019 Toronto International Film Festival lineup has arrived, boasting a wide swath of films including potential crowd-pleasers like the Mister Rogers movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, prestige plays like Cannes-winner Parasite, and dark supervillain fare like Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Gotham’s favorite baddie.
The lineup is, as always, a strong bellwether of the hopefuls we’ll see over and over again on the awards circuit this fall. On the biopic front, there’s Tom Hanks as Mister Rogers in Beautiful Day, Renée Zellweger taking on Judy Garland in Judy, and Cynthia Erivo playing Harriet Tubman in Harriet. Shia LaBeouf’s life story will also play out in Honey Boy, starring Lucas Hedges as the Transformers star.
There are also plenty of classic prestige-y titles in the lineup, like Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat, starring Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman, and Antonio Banderas. Banderas also takes center stage in Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain and Glory, which some prognosticators think might be his ticket to an Oscar nomination. There are plenty more movie stars where that came from, including Nicole Kidman and Ansel Elgort in their long-awaited adaptation of The Goldfinch, Annette Bening and Adam Driver in the political drama The Report, Matt Damon and Christian Bale in the race car epic Ford v Ferrari, and Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu in the stripper scam story Hustlers.
Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, starring Driver and Scarlett Johansson is also on the docket, as is the black-and-white two-hander The Lighthouse, from spooky The Witch director Robert Eggers. The latter stars Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson—who is reportedly circling ever closer to the lead role in the upcoming Batman stand-alone movie.
Speaking of Batman: Joker’s North American premiere signals that Warner Bros. is giving this feature—also starring Robert De Niro and Zazie Beetz—the prestige push. But it won’t be the only spectacle at this year’s TIFF. Rian Johnson’s Knives Out—his whodunnit follow-up to Star Wars: The Last Jedi—stars, oh, just about everyone you can think of, including Chris Evans, Daniel Craig, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield, and Jamie Lee Curtis, among many others. Taika Waititi’s satirical Jojo Rabbit, starring the director as Hitler, will make its world premiere, as will Craig Brewer’s blaxploitation biopic Dolemite Is My Name, starring Eddie Murphy, Wesley Snipes, and Chris Rock. Speaking of comedians, Adam Sandler’s star turn in the Safdie brothers’ Uncut Gems will make its international premiere at TIFF.
There will also be a handful of films that have already done well on the festival circuit and are just continuing their march ahead, like Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite. Chinonye Chukwu’s Sundance hit Clemency, starring Alfre Woodard as a haunted prison warden, is on the lineup too, as is the Cannes hit Portrait of a Lady on Fire, directed by Céline Sciamma.
The entire lineup can be found here. This year’s TIFF takes place September 5–15.
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