The Toronto International Film Festival announced the last additions to its 2026 lineup on Tuesday. The new titles are led by Martin McDonagh’s Oscar hopeful, Wild Horse Nine, which heads to Canada after its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival followed by an anticipated North American premiere at Telluride.
It’s a homecoming for the Irish writer-director after 2022’s The Banshees of Inisherin and 2017’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri both screened for TIFF audiences. The latter film won the festival’s coveted People’s Choice Award on its way to six Oscar nominations and two wins for stars Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell.
The festival also unveiled the list of artists who will be taking part in its In Conversation With series of live interviews. This year’s roster includes Chris Rock — who is world premiering his latest directorial effort, Misty Green, at the festival — and Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams.
Last month, TIFF released the full roster for the 51st edition, led by a star-powered collection of Gala and Special Presentations. As Gold Derby predicted, Peter Farrelly’s latest Oscar hopeful, I Play Rocky, is among the world premieres. Hailing from Amazon MGM, the film stars Anthony Ippolito as Sylvester Stallone and the action icon’s onscreen alter ego, Rocky Balboa, in a dramatization of all the blood, sweat, and tears that went into the making of the 1976 Best Picture-winning boxing classic, Rocky.
Other high-profile movies making their world premieres in Toronto include A Talent for Murder from acclaimed Dutch filmmaker Anton Corbijn; Evil Genius, directed by Courteney Cox and starring David Harbour; Onwards and Sideways from Shakespeare in Love director John Madden; Diary of a Mad Old Man, the latest film from American indie pioneer Wayne Wang; and Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo, a new film from cult Japanese auteur Takashi Miike.
TIFF also unveiled an extensive collection of North American and Canadian premieres of hot-ticket titles from other festivals, led by the Cannes breakouts Fjord, All of a Sudden, and Club Kid. Sundance sensations Josephine and The Only Living Pickpocket in New York also return to the festival circuit since their Park City peek-outs. And Danny Boyle’s Venice-premiering Ink — freshly acquired by Netflix — will cross the Atlantic to Canada as well.
Below is everything you need to know about TIFF 2026, which unfolds Sept. 10-20 in Toronto.
Opening Night and Closing Night titles
TIFF’s opening-night presentation will be Apple Original Film’s Being Heumann, the directorial follow-up from Oscar-winning CODA filmmaker Siân Heder. The film stars Ruth Madeley alongside Mark Ruffalo, and tells the inspiring real-life story of Judy Heumann, the disability rights advocate who spearheaded a historic weeks-long sit-in in 1977.
The festival’s closing-night pick is Villeneuve: The Rise of a Legend from Yan Lanouette Turgeon. The sports drama tells the story of the Canadian F1 champion, Gilles Villeneuve, who electrified the global racing scene in the 1970s and ’80s. Both films are making their world premieres at the festival.
Gala Presentations
Other films making their world premieres at TIFF ’26 as Gala Presentations include Susanna White’s legal drama Prima Facie and South Korean filmmaker Hur Jin-ho’s political thriller The Assassin(s). Prima Facie is adapted by Suzie Miller from her own Tony Award-winning one-woman stage play. The film, starring Cynthia Erivo as Tessa Ensler, follows an ambitious, working-class British defense barrister whose life and view of the legal system are upended after she is sexually assaulted by a colleague. The Assassin(s)is a historical thriller set in 1974 during the real-life aftermath of the attempted assassination of South Korean President Park Chung-hee. The film features an ensemble cast, including Yoo Hae-jin, Park Hae-il, and Lee Min-ho.
See the full lists of Gala Presentation world premieres and North American/Canadian premeires below.
World Premieres: A Talent for Murder (Anton Corbijn); Always Lalisa (Sue Kim); Babies (Lauren Miller Rogen); Diary of a Mad Old Man (Wayne Wang); Evil Genius (Courteney Cox); Girl Group (Rebel Wilson); Man in Motion: The Rick Hansen Story (Adrian Buitenhuis); Misty Green (Chris Rock); Onwards and Sideways (John Madden); Pretenders (Joss Crowley); Run Terry Run (Sean Menard); The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd (Tim Blake Nelson); Up Against It (Trudie Styler)
North American/Canadian Premieres: All About Corinne (Marc Fitoussi); Atonement (Reed Van Dyk); Bunker (Florian Zeller); It’s My Time (Bai Xue);Spirit Guardians: The Last Secret of the First Emperor (Nguyen Phan Quang Binh, International Premiere); Tenzing (Jennifer Peedom); The Only Living Pickpocket in New York (Noah Segan)
Special Presentations
TIFF 26’s lineup of Special Presentations include some of the Oscar-contending movies that played earlier film festivals and are looking to make a big splash as award season officially kicks off, as well as select world premieres hoping to crash the party.
World Premieres: All That She Wants (Scarlett Bermingham, Andrew Rhymer); Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo (Takashi Miike); Closing Night (Cody Fern); Everybody Wants to F*** Me (Jonathan Schey); Faith (Paul Andrew Williams); Glaxo (Benjamín Naishtat); Growth of a Soul (Hans Petter Moland); Happily Ever After (Feng-I Fiona Roan); I Play Rocky (Peter Farrelly); In Alaska (Jaap van Heusden, Vinnie Karetak); Le Faux Soir (Michaël R. Roskam); Love of Your Life (Rachel Morrison); Paradise Lost (Yeon Sang-ho); Phoolan (Richie Mehta); The Age of Goodbyes (Edmund Yeo); The Housewife (Ben Shirinian); The Julia Set (Niki Byrne); The Road Not Taken (Peter Ho-Sun Chan); The Stunt Driver (Michael Dowse); Watcha Want (Mina Shum); Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother (Bassam Tariq)
International/North American/Canadian Premieres: A Good Little Soldier (Stéphane Brizé); A Long Winter (Andrew Haigh); All of a Sudden (Ryusuke Hamaguchi); Alpha Gang (David Zellner, Nathan Zellner, International Premiere); Bitter Christmas (Pedro Almodóvar); Bucking Fastard (Werner Herzog); Clarissa (Arie Esiri, Chuko Esiri); Club Kid (Jordan Firstman); Coward (Lukas Dhont); Elsinore (Simon Stone); Everest: The Other Side (Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi); Fjord (Cristian Mungiu); Gentle Monster (Marie Kreutzer); Hombre el agua (Gael García Bernal); Ink (Danny Boyle); It Will Happen Tonight (Nanni Moretti); Josephine (Beth de Araújo); La Bola Negra (Javier Calvo, Javier Ambrossi); Look Back (Hirokazu Kore-eda); Minotaur (Andrey Zvyagintsev); Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People? (Shinya Tsukamoto); Neil Peart: No One’s Disciple (Scot McFadyen, Sam Dunn); Possible Love (Lee Chang-dong); Tender Loving Care (Mike Leigh); The Beloved (Rodrigo Sorogoyen); The Debut (Jesse Eisenberg); The Idiot(s) (Małgorzata Szumowska, Michał Englert); The Liberation (Guy Nattiv); The Man I Love (Ira Sachs); The Unknown (Arthur Harari); Wild Horse Nine (Martin McDonagh)
Centerpiece
The festival’s main section features a mixture of titles from around the globe.
World Premieres: Dorothy (Karthik Subbaraj and producer Guneet Monga); Four Seasons in Java (Kamila Andini); Inherit (Banjong Pisanthanakun); Lemonade (Kim Bartley); Long Long Night (Kyu Bock Youm); Love is the monster (Neto Villalobos Brenes); Our Loves (Avi Nesher); The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives (Daniel Oriahi); The Surgeon (Roshan Sethi); Trash Mountain (Kris Rey)
International, North American, and Canadian Premieres: Back in Black (Ron Murphy); Ben’Imana (Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo); Conversation With The Sea (Muayad Alayan); Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! (Josef Kubota Wladyka); How We Stand (Marie Clements); Iron Boy (Louis Clichy); Julián (Louise Bagnall); L’AUTRE (Alexandre Franchi); La Gradiva (Marine Atlan); Light Pillar (Xu Zao); Muyi (Julien Chheng); Neverman (Rodrigo Barriuso); Smudge the Blades (Cody Lightning); Sunburn (Serville Poblete); The Betrayers (David Bezmozgis); The Dreamed Adventure (Valeska Grisebach); Tangles (Leah Nelson); The Violinist (Ervin Han and Raúl García); Toy Gun Bandit (Rémi St-Michel); Viva Carmen (Sébastien Laudenbach); Where the River Begins (Juan Andrés Arango); Woman Unknown (May el-Toukhy)
Midnight Madness
TIFF’s celebration of all things genre gifted movie theaters with Obsession last year, and Curry Barker will be doing a victory lap during the 2026 edition. Here are the titles hoping to be the next Obsession.
World Premieres: Half (Samjad); Kick On (Nick Kozakis); Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney (Matthew Rankin); River (Joshua Giuliano); The Face of Horror (Anna Biller); Vintage Violence (
Eugene Kotlyarenko)
International, North American, and Canadian Premieres: Anchors Aweigh (Matt Barats); Arrested Memory (Sabu); Rogue Trooper (Duncan Jones); The Spiral (Paolo Strippoli)
Platform
TIFF’s lone competitive program enters its 11th year with its largest lineup yet, boasting 12 features from around the world. Created as a way to launch auteur-driven films onto the awards circuit, past Platform premieres have included Moonlight from Barry Jenkins and Lady Macbeth from William Oldroyd and starring Florence Pugh. The 2026 roster of world premieres will be competing for the Platform Award, decided on by a five-member international jury.
World Premieres: Angh (Theja Rio); Brace Your Heart (Amanda Kernell); Children Untold (Miwa Nishikawa); Djinn Wedding (Ferit Karahan); Idda (Irene Dionisio); In the Heart of the South (Nyla Innuksuk); Masc (Bertil Nilsson); On Behalf of My Son (Gabriel Martins); Silenced Nights (Lawrence Fajardo); The Smell of Apples (John Trengove); The World Before (Yoon Dan-bi); Wild Wild East (Jan Holoubek).
Discovery
Theo Rhys’s Stuffed will serve as the opening night presentation of TIFF’s annual Discovery program, devoted to showcasing the work of new and emerging global filmmakers. Fast and Furious franchise star Sung Kang will unveil his directorial debut, Drifter, and Stephanie Ahn’s acclaimed Sundance premiere, Bedford Park, will also be screened as part of the lineup.
World Premieres: Ancestors (David Turpin); Arne Goes to Space (Lars Vega); Drifter (Sung Kang); Head to Head (Ghasideh Golmakani); Krux (Tony Vahl); Magazine (Alexandra Pechman); Nosotros (Joaquín Ruano); Purgatory (Lindsay Lanzillotta); Salvation (Tom Nicoll); Seventeen (Justin Ducharme); Sisters (Ione Hernández); Strong Son (Ian Bawa); Stuffed (Theo Rhys); The Fortunate Isles (Helena Girón, Samuel Delgado); We Are Born Good (Leung Cheun Yeung); What Lies Between Us (Amalie Næsby Fick); Zjili: A Story of Sisterhood and The Burdens of Excess (Christine Boateng, Hajara Musah Chambas)
International Premieres: A Common Story (Anna Foglietta); Bedford Park (Stephanie Ahn); I Am Mario (Sharon Kleinberg); In Waves (Phuong Mai Nguyen); Memories of a Forest (Katharina Rabl); The Daughters of Abraham (Hanaël El Yousfi); Voices (Deantè Gray)
Primetime
TIFF’s television-dedicated program will feature the debuts of new series starring Jon Hamm, Charlie Heaton, and Carre-Anne Moss, among others. Hamm headlines American Hostage, a new MGM+ thriller that dramatizes the same true crime story depicted in last year’s TIFF entry, Dead Man’s Wire. On the horror front, Mike Flanagan is bringing his limited series adaptation of Stephen King’s Carrie to Toronto, and Peacock will premiere its Friday the 13th prequel, Crystal Lake, starring Emmy nominee Linda Cardellini as Jason Voorhees’s equally-murderous mother.
World Premieres: 2.6 Seconds: Death in the Outback (Darren Dale); Alice (Virginie Verrier, Guillaume Lonergan); American Hostage (Shawn Ryan, Eileen Myers, Adam Arkin); Below (Jesse McKeown); Blindspot Berlin (David Nawrath); Carrie (Mike Flanagan); Crystal Lake (Brad Caleb Kane, Michael Lennox); Yaga (Kat Sandler, Rachel Talalay, David Frazee)
Docs
TIFF Docs 2026 features 21 titles from 20 countries, including 18 World Premieres. Opening with Rebeca Huntt’s Rapinoe — a personal portrait of U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe — the program celebrates non-fiction storytelling from both emerging voices and acclaimed directors like Alex Gibney, Barry Avrich, Sophie Fiennes, and Barbara Kopple. More than two-thirds of this year’s slate is directed by women, with legendary documentarian Kopple returning to the festival with Union Town, an exploration of modern labor battles in New York City.
High-profile World Premieres in the section span a global range of subjects, from archival historical studies and front-line war dispatches to intimate character portraits. Key highlights include Maiken Baird’s Edward Said: Between Worlds, tracing the legacy of the Palestinian-American intellectual; Lacey Schwartz Delgado’s Re/Pair, examining Black-Jewish relations in America; Andrew Morgan’s alt-country music story Bleeding Hearts; Emanuele Gerosa’s winemaking study Low Lies The Land; Taimi Arvidson’s cowgirl documentary Cheyenne; Sine Plambech’s harrowing migration drama Rescue; and Barry Avrich’s soul icon profile Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been.
World Premieres: Ba’s Book (Ashley Duong); Black Sunflowers (James Marcus Haney); Bleeding Hearts (Andrew Morgan); Cheyenne (Taimi Arvidson); Darlene Love: I Know Where I’ve Been (Barry Avrich); Edward Said: Between Worlds (Maiken Baird); Gail (Michael Maxxis); Like Magic (Melissa Saavedra Gil); Low Lies The Land (Emanuele Gerosa); Rapinoe (Rebeca Huntt); Re/Pair (Lacey Schwartz Delgado); Rescue (Sine Plambech); Still Night, Burning House (Carol Nguyen); Tehran, Under the Skin (Afsaneh Salari); The Final Act (Sophie Deraspe); The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs (Èlia Gasull Balada, Matteo Norzi); The Ultra Runner (Mila Aung-Thwin); Turtle Island Rap (Alexandra Lazarowich)
North American Premieres: Musk (Alex Gibney); The Pervert’s Guide to Utopias (Sophie Fiennes); Union Town (Barbara Kopple)
Short Cuts
This year’s lineup features 45 short films representing 30 countries across seven curated programs, encompassing live-action narratives, documentaries, animation, and hybrid works. Returning for its third year as the festival’s genre-focused strand, the “Strange Cuts” sub-program showcases boundary-pushing projects ranging from surreal animation and offbeat comedies to folklore-infused horror and intense psychological dramas. Featured titles in this section include Elia Kalogianni’s visually striking Mammalia and Quebec filmmaker Daniel «Tètèl» Chérubin’s atmospheric short Koden’n, which explores inherited spiritual traditions.
World Premieres: Bloodline (Fala Chen); Call Me Tim (Shamier Anderson); Fight Kid (Michael Del Monte); Termite (Shaunak Sen); The Day I Smoked a Cigarette with my Father (Sameh Alaa, Robin Vouters); The Highway (Yung Chang); Untitled Woman (Camille Summers-Valli)
TIFF Tribute Awards
The first group of TIFF Tribute Award recipients are:
- Penélope Cruz: TIFF Special Tribute Award
- Lee Chang-dong: TIFF Ebert Director Award
- Rosalind Eleazar: TIFF Tribute Performer Award
- Isabelle Huppert: TIFF Tribute Performer Award
- Siân Heder: TIFF Tribute Award in Impact Media
In Conversation With
The following artists will be interviewed in front of a live audience during this year’s TIFF.
- Lee Min-ho
- Rachel Morrison
- Chris Rock
- Andrew Scott
- Hudson Williams
New additions
For the first time, the festival is introducing TIFF: The Market (running Sept. 10–16), an official standalone film industry hub operating out of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. As part of this expansion, the Convention Centre’s John Bassett Theatre has been added to the festival’s official screening venue roster. In addition, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced 16 winners of the 53rd Student Academy Awards joining the ranks of distinguished alumni including Patricia Cardoso, Pete Docter, Spike Lee, Patricia Riggen, and Robert Zemeckis. The winners will receive their awards during a ceremony inside TIFF Lightbox at Reitman Square on Monday, Sept. 14.
The date
TIFF returns Sept. 10 and runs through the 20th.
This post was originally published on July 7, and was updated July 20, 21, 22 and 23, Aug. 5 and 11 with new programming information.
