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TIFF 2025

Exclaim! •

Park Chan-wook Explores Fragile Yet Relatable Masculinity in 'No Other Choice' │ Exclaim!

"Korea, especially, has stronger traces of a patriarchal society of the past," director Park Chan-wook muses about his country's culture, "and especially Korean men with a family."Speaking to Exclaim! through an interpreter the day after the North American premiere of his latest film, No Other Choice, at the Toronto International Film Festival, the Korean auteur is pensive and possibly a bit road-weary, having hit the festival circuit going from Venice to Toronto within a week's time. After scre...
Exclaim! •

Richard Linklater Optimistically Celebrates Films for "Throwing Off the Dictator" │ Exclaim!

Since his debut in 1990 with Slacker, Richard Linklater has built his career upon the autobiographical hang-out movie — with a few exceptions, of course. His latest film, Nouvelle Vague, on the surface, seems to be one of these exceptions.It's a hang-out film to be sure, but one that chills on the sidelines as Jean-Luc Godard makes Breathless with Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo, and François Truffaut, Roberto Rossellini and Agnès Varda stop by on occasion. Not Linklater's typical gang of sla...
The Asian Cut •

The Asian Cut’s Top 5 Films at TIFF 2025 - The Asian Cut

And so ends ten days filled with glitz and glam, but more importantly, a multitude of films that moved us to our core. 


Asian filmmakers and stories from the continent and across the diaspora were well represented at the 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet took home the coveted People’s Choice Award, while Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice claimed the inaugural honour of the International People’s Choice Award and The Furious was voted in as second runn...
Exclaim! •

The Best and Worst Films We Saw at TIFF 2025 │ Exclaim!

The 50th instalment of the Toronto International Film Festival has come to a close after 10 days of sleep-deprived movie- and celebrity-watching. Some of Canada's brightest talent premiered soon-to-be cult classics, while filmmakers from around the world brought murder, drama and Elvis to downtown Toronto.It's been a wild couple of weeks, and while we may be Varda-clapped out, we're still buzzing about our favourite titles (and the ones that made us scratch our heads and roll our eyes). Here are...
Exclaim! •

TIFF 2025: 'EPiC' Shows Why Elvis Is Still the King │ Exclaim!

According to Baz Luhrmann, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert is neither a documentary nor a concert film — it's "EPiC." Putting aside the corny acronym, in reality, Luhrmann's latest is both. Editing together rehearsal and on-stage footage into a 96-minute frenetic concertgoing experience, the Australian filmmaker brings the Las Vegas era of Elvis to life in the way only Luhrmann can, creating the best Elvis-related film since the singer's death in 1977.For those familiar with the singer's '68 Come...
POV Magazine •

Palimpsest: The Story of a Name Review - What’s in a Name? - POV Magazine

Palimpsest: The Story of a Name
(France/Hong Kong/Taiwan, 108 min.)
Dir. Mary Stephen
Programme: Centrepiece (World Premiere)
 
I first heard Mary Stephen’s name in 2023 after the Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival named the Stephen the Fire Horse Award Recipient in recognition of her extensive film career. Admittedly, I expected, with a surname as Anglo as Stephen, that the filmmaker must either be mixed race or married to a white person — an ill-informed assumption I’m sure Stephen...
POV Magazine •

Aki Review: Mother Nature Prevails in Gorgeous Essay Film - POV Magazine

Aki
(Canada, 83 min.)
Dir. Darlene Naponse
Programme: TIFF Docs (World Premiere)
 
Set in Northern Ontario, Aki observes life in Atikameksheng Anishnawbek territory. Taking us inside the land and its people, Darlene Naponse creates a soundscape and visual essay that captures the past and future without any spoken dialogue. Naponse’s ability to build such tangible intimacy makes Aki a film to behold, feel, and hear — the latter largely due to Juno Award–nominated cellist Cris Derkson’s tremendous...
Exclaim! •

'The Smashing Machine' Is an Understated Bodyslam │ Exclaim!

Like many, I grew up knowing (and loving) Dwayne Johnson as the Rock, only to see the man who whooped so many candy-ass jabronis become a billionaire box office star by playing himself to various heightened degrees. So to hear that Johnson would be taking on a proper acting role with a prestigious director and co-star (unfairly) felt like the former wrestler pursuing a vanity project in the hopes of catching up to Dave Bautista's recent run of awards-worthy performances. But Benny Safdie had bet...
Exclaim! •

'Roofman' Disneyfies a Life of Crime │ Exclaim!

Channing Tatum and Chris Evans began their careers in very different ways, but they've ended up pretty much the same place — that of the former 20-something good looking heartthrob seeking to find roles and movies that will take them into the respected-actor stratosphere, while still maintaining that charm that brought them to us in the first place. For Evans, that's meant taking roles in films like Honey Don't and Sacrifice (the latter of which is also playing at TIFF this year); for Tatum, it'...
Exclaim! •

TIFF 2025: 'Rental Family' Is Sweetly Superficial │ Exclaim!

The theme of loneliness has become something of a common occurrence in Asian cinema as of late, especially in Japan and South Korea. Speaking to the issues of contemporary society, and with a greater acknowledgement of mental health issues in the region than ever before, East Asian cinema has been reckoning with the damage related to creating a high-pressure society, and its effects on the interpersonal dealings of a generation at large. Rental Family, the sophomore film by Japanese filmmaker HI...
POV Magazine •

Origin: The Story of the Basketball Africa League Review: A Four Hour Advertisement for the Next Investors' Meeting - POV Magazine

Origin: The Story of the Basketball Africa League
(Rwanda/UK/USA, 113 min.)
Dir. Richard Brown, Tebogo Malope
Programme: Primetime (World premiere)
 
For much of the modern era, sports have been geographically dependent, with perhaps football/soccer being a notable exception. While sports like cricket and rugby moved across the commonwealth, North America long stood as the odd one out, developing professional leagues that existed primarily in the US, with Canada receiving a team or two (except f...
Exclaim! •

TIFF 2025: 'Youngblood' Matures the Hockey Hijinks of the '80s │ Exclaim!

Peter Markle's Youngblood enjoys a far better reputation today than it did when it released in theatres in 1986, gaining cult status through home video rentals and incessantly being shown on television. While Rob Lowe's Dean "Pretty Boy" Youngblood and the aggressively '80s cinematography, dialogue and score eventually struck a chord, we can all agree it's a film to be enjoyed more ironically than genuinely.In remaking Youngblood for a contemporary audience, co-writers Charles Officer, Josh Epst...
Exclaim! •

TIFF 2025: 'Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie' Is by Canadians, for Canadians │ Exclaim!

During the promotion of Filth in 2013, James McAvoy appeared on Alan Carr: Chatty Man, where Carr asked McAvoy how the film would go down in Hollywood, specifically referring to Filth's dark British humour. The Scottish actor responded thoughtfully, saying that the British filmmaking industry has "got to make British films for British people and not really worry too much about what Hollywood thinks."It's a sentiment I think about often, especially in relation to the Canadian film industry, which...
Exclaim! •

TIFF 2025: 'No Other Choice' Finds Humour in the Bleak Job Market │ Exclaim!

Comparing No Other Choice to The Thomas Crown Affair feels odd. On the surface, this comedy-esque film about the depths of desperation an unemployed person will hit has little in common with a stylish '60s heist. Yet Norman Jewison's '60s classic kept coming to mind while watching Park Chan-wook's latest entry in an already impressive filmography. Perhaps it's Park's stylish aesthetic, replete with Dutch angles and swishy transitions, that so wonderfully celebrates the legacy of Jewison; or perh...
Exclaim! •

TIFF 2025: Like Life, 'Dinner with Friends' Comes at You Fast │ Exclaim!

Dinner with Friends appears deceptively simple: a group of eight friends in their 30s attempting to find time for one another in an increasingly busy world of children, work commitments and aging parents. The film follows their very sporadic gatherings, weaving in and out of just as many moments of laughter and friendship as arguments.Directed by Sasha Leigh Henry, Dinner with Friends takes on the form of an iceberg, where the surface barely hints at what lies beneath. What begins as a seemingly...
Exclaim! •

TIFF 2025: 'Sentimental Value' Showcases One of Cinema's Best Actor-Director Relationships │ Exclaim!

Few films have been able to translate the complicated murkiness of family like Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value. By layering multiple relationship dynamics atop one another, Trier and co-writer Eskil Vogt peel back the resentments, emotional walls and begrudgingly unconditional love that holds a nuclear family together.Stellan Skarsgård stars as Gustav Borg, a famed director making his return to film after a 15-year absence. His journey to becoming a celebrated director, though, involves Gustav...
Exclaim! •

'Nouvelle Vague' Is a Breathless Throwback to French New Wave │ Exclaim!

Like so much of Richard Linklater's tremendous filmography, the director creates a relaxed atmosphere in Nouvelle Vague, as if we're casually hanging out with the sunglasses-loving Jean-Luc Godard (played by Guillaume Marbeck) as he makes cinematic history with Breathless. Linklater takes us through the early days of the French New Wave and Godard's journey to his firs time directing a feature film — a feat that doesn't feel like much of an accomplishment to Godard, who laments being the last wr...
Exclaim! •

Exclaim!'s 10 Most Anticipated Films of TIFF 2025 │ Exclaim!

The Festival of Festivals has been a standing appointment in the city and film community's calendar for half a century, and after some recent setbacks (including the COVID-19 pandemic, the lengthy Hollywood labour disputes in 2023, and the loss of Bell as the primary sponsor last year), the Toronto International Film Festival is celebrating its milestone 50th anniversary with a bang and the odd celebrity.World-famous filmmakers will return to the festival, while emerging talents continue to esta...
The Asian Cut •

The Asian Cut's 10 Most Anticipated Films at TIFF 2025 - The Asian Cut

The Toronto International Film Festival is back for its 50th edition and as we prepare ourselves to run around King Street, live off stale popcorn and copious amounts of coffee, while fighting the inevitable hoards at the Criterion Closet, we look ahead to this year’s catalogue. As in previous years, TIFF’s programmers are bringing some of the most highly anticipated titles of the year to Toronto, as well as a multitude of gems from emerging filmmakers and international talents.


Grab your not...