Greetings from the Great White North, where the Toronto International Film Festival rolls to the end of its first weekend. |
As packed as our viewing schedules have been, Amy Nicholson notices something lacking at this year’s festival: big Hollywood. In her first critical dispatch, she sees no “Frankenstein” or “Wake Up Dead Man” in the lineup. |
Toronto has even resorted to rebooking the under-the-radar smash “Obsession,” the little movie that grew from a 2025 midnight TIFF launch into a global phenomenon. |
Director Curry Barker and star Inde Navarrette delighted festgoers who lined up around the block to watch a special conversation. |
There’s still plenty of time left. Amy is finding indies to like. Some of her early recommendations are here. |
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Our portrait studio is heating up |
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Cynthia Erivo of the film “Prima Facie,” photographed in the Los Angeles Times Studio at RBC House during the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times) |
Cynthia Erivo stunned us in our studio space, looking fierce in a dark ensemble and scary nails. We also saw the likes of the luminous Laura Linney and the dapper Korean cast of “Possible Love.” Click through for more celebrity photos and daily surprises. |
And do we have video interviews? Do we. |
Sarah Paulson, Naomi Watts, and director Cody Fern discuss their new film, “Closing Night.” Chase Infiniti of “One Battle After Another,” Jason Isaacs and more talk “The Julia Set.” |
And only minutes after they won the grand jury prize at Venice, we were speaking to the cast of “Possible Love.” |
What are we watching tonight? |
‘Club Kid’ |
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Jordan Firstman, center, in the movie “Club Kid.” (A24) |
It takes thermonuclear moxie to write, direct and star in your debut feature — and cast yourself as the cad. No wonder Jordan Firstman‘s uproarious dramedy “Club Kid” blew away expectations at Cannes and has landed in Toronto ready to shake up awards season. |
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Firstman plays Peter, an aging New York City party promoter whose scene-y shindigs and subsequent hangovers are starting to feel old. |
Enter Arlo (a self-possessed Reggie Absolom) the 9-year-old kid he never knew he had and never fathomed he would have, given that women aren’t his thing (except for that one drug-fueled night with a British girl he barely remembers). |
You may think you know where the story is headed and you aren’t entirely wrong, but the route there is a riot. — Amy Nicholson |
‘Alpha Gang’ |
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A scene from the movie “Alpha Gang.” (TIFF) |
The latest from filmmaking siblings Nathan and David Zellner rolls into Toronto after having just had its world premiere at Telluride. |
Their oddball sensibilities and elastic imagination means that you never quite know what to expect from one of their films and this is no exception: a wholly unpredictable story of an alien invasion told from the aliens’ point-of-view that is inscrutably absurd and touched by a startling romantic fatalism. |
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Two alien cadres, having assumed the looks of 1950s biker gang members, bicker and fight with one another even as they largely overlook their common enemy, the humans. |
The cast is likewise a preposterous mash-up of performers you would not wholly expect to see together, including Cate Blanchett, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Léa Seydoux, Riley Keough, Chris Pine, Dave Bautista and others, making the film’s very existence seem like something dropped from outer space. — Mark Olsen |
‘The Spiral’ |
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A scene from the movie “The Spiral.” (TIFF) |
Italian horror is my happy place and this is where I’ll be tonight at midnight, sopping up what many early viewers have already described as stylish and vicious. |
Director Paolo Strippoli’s domestic drama got sharp reviews out of Venice; it sounds like a cross between a Bava film and “Parasite.” I’ll investigate. — Joshua Rothkopf |
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