The 20 Most-Anticipated Films of the Season
The Toronto International Film Festival has long marked the start of the fall movie season, the time when new releases finally start to transition from mass-appeal blockbusters to something a little more grown-up and suited for the Oscars. After two years limited by the pandemic, TIFF returned in 2022 to its robust, splashy self, loaded with gala premieres and more than 200 new features. Below are some of the best films my colleague Shirley Li and I saw in Toronto; almost all of our selections will be released in theaters or on streaming over the next few months.
— David Sims
Catherine Called Birdy (in select theaters September 23, streaming on Prime Video October 7)
Being a 14-year-old girl wrestling with hormones and hopeless crushes can, like, totally suck. This being the 13th century, poor Catherine, a.k.a. Birdy (played by Game of Thrones’s Bella Ramsey), has it worse than most puberty-plagued teens: Her father is keen to marry her off to the richest suitor possible so that the family can get out of debt, her best friend is blossoming into a real babe, and no one will tell her what a virgin is even after she gets her period for the first time. The writer-director Lena Dunham isn’t often associated with crowd-pleasing material, but her adaptation of the beloved YA novel is a supremely playful romp. Many of Birdy’s girlhood trials are rooted in a medieval context, but her naive yet naughty perspective of the world around her—a Birdy’s-eye view, if you will—feels delightfully modern. — Shirley Li
Bros (in theaters September 30)
This romantic comedy isn’t just the first from a major studio to center on a gay couple; it’s also the first to feature a mainis astonishingly light. Directed by Nicholas Stoller (), it’s smart without being preachy, sweet without being cloying. The movie pays homage to queer history while being self-aware enough to skewer its characters’ blind spots. is clearly Eichner’s passion project, and he—along with an excellent Luke Macfarlane, who plays Eichner’s neurotic protagonist’s charming love interest—nails not just every rom-com beat, from meet-cute to make-up, but also every pop-culture zinger. At the very least, you’ll never see Debra Messing the same way again.
