The Most Anticipated Movies from the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival Lineup

You may still have your air conditioners on full blast but Starbucks is selling pumpkin spice lattes, Target is bringing out their Halloween candy and up north our friendly Canadian neighbors are getting ready to launch the 2024's Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). That, my friends, means that fall is upon us and for movie lovers that means its time for festival season. With the arrival of Labor Day, the 2025 Oscars race is officially underway with the four major fall festivals, Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York about to begin. While Venice and Telluride will premiere their movies first, TIFF is by far the biggest of the four festivals and boasts an impressive lineup of over 200 new movies.

TIFF 2024 will run from Sept. 5-15, taking over downtown Toronto, with cinephiles flying in from around the globe to watch movies alongside droves of Canadians. From big budget studio fare to tiny indie documentaries, the TIFF selections will be among the best of the year. The 2023 lineup after all included The Boy and the Heron, The Holdovers, American Fiction and Anatomy of a Fall so you know that many of this year's heavy hitters at the Oscars are lurking in the lineup.  So what will the hits of 2024 be? Glad you asked.

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To save you the trouble of combing through the expansive list of titles, we've scoured the 2024 TIFF lineup and pulled out the biggest and buzziest films. Here are some of the movies to watch.

13 most anticipated films from TIFF 2024

1. All We Imagine as Light

After a strong premiere at the Cannes Film Festival this summer, All We Imagine as Light is now headed to the fall festival circuit, hitting TIFF along with NYFF and likely Telluride. The first Indian movie to compete in Cannes' main competition since 1994, the feature from Payal Kapadia follows to nurses living in Mumbai who travel to the seaside. Its already established itself as one of the top international contenders of the year and will likely get a boost from the new audience at TIFF.

2. Anora

While winning the Cannes Film Festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or, hasn't always meant commercial success in the US, with Anatomy of a Fall, Triangle of Sadness and Parasite in recent years, we're on a bit of a hot streak. Sean Baker (who previously crafted masterpieces like The Florida Project and Tangerine) won the Palme this year for Anora, a dramedy about a Russian-American stripper (Mikey Madison) who falls in love with a young Russian oligarch (Mark Eydelshteyn). Playing a host of fall festivals, Anora is certain to be one of this year's Oscar season's darlings, and like All We Imagine as Light should bring in plenty of eager fans in Toronto.

3. Conclave

I don't know how it has taken this long for us to get a suspenseful thriller involving the Papal power struggle, but we've got one at TIFF this year. Think Game of Thrones, but it's a bunch of Cardinals fighting over the Popemobile. Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow star in Edward Berger's follow up to All Quiet on the Western Front, which played TIFF in 2022. Based on a Robert Harris novel, Conclave examines the top secret proceedings that follow the death of one Pope as another is elected. TIFF is known for its crown pleasers and this thriller seems prime for a big audience reaction.

4. Dahomey

Perhaps not the flashiest film in the TIFF lineup, Mati Diop's documentary Dahomey took home the Berlin International Film Festival's top prize, the Golden Bear, this winter. The semi-fictional doc focuses on 26 royal treasures from the African Kingdom of Dahomey (which is now modern day Benin) that were held in a museum in France. The doc focuses on how the artifacts came to be in French possession and how they were later returned to Benin. Dahomey is certainly one of the top documentaries to watch this awards season and will also play NYFF.

5. Diciannove

Premiering at Venice, this Italian coming of age story ("diciannove" translates to "nineteen") follows a young man on a quest of self exploration from Italy to to London and back. His studies, travels and sexual explorations are all vibrantly filmed by director Giovanni Tortorici in his directorial debut. If you're looking for something to fill your Call Me By Your Name slot this year, perhaps this is the movie to do it.

6. I'm Still Here

Another Venice title that will be making a stop at TIFF this year is Brazilian drama based on the true story of a Labour Party congressman who disappeared during the Brazilian Military Dictatorship of the 1970s. Based on a book by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, the son of missing congressman Rubens Paiva, the movie follows the wife and five children left behind when Rubens goes missing. I'm Still Here is another likely entry into the Best International Feature race in the 2025 Oscars.

7. The Last Showgirl

One of TIFF's world premieres, Gia Coppola's The Last Showgirl is sure to be an exciting (and perhaps divisive) addition to the lineup if her previous movies Palo Alto and Mainstream are any indication. This drama provides Canadian Pamela Anderson with a plum starring role as a seasoned showgirl whose show closes abruptly. Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis and the hilarious duo of Brenda Song and Billie Lourd co-star in what will be one of the biggest question marks headed into the festival.

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8. Nightbitch

Six-time Oscar loser Amy Adams is returning to the big screen this year after a string of disappointments (Hillbilly Elegy, The Woman in the Window, Dear Evan Hansen and Disenchanted is quite the run). Marielle Heller is directing this adaptation of Rachel Yoder's novel of magical realism that watches a stay-at-home mother turn into a dog. Having read the book, I really have no idea how they'd even begin to make this a movie, but I'm praying Amy Adams as a dog turns out better than Taylor Swift as a cat. Nightbitch will also be making its world premiere at TIFF where pundits will be eager to declare Adams' likelihood of finally winning her Oscar.

9. The Piano Lesson

Perhaps Netflix's biggest play this awards season is The Piano Lesson, the third in Denzel Washington's 10-part saga based on August Wilson's Pittsburgh Cycle of plays after Fences and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. The Piano Lesson is a Washington family affair with Denzel producing, his son Malcolm Washington directing and his other son John David Washington starring alongside Samuel L. Jackson and Danielle Deadwyler. Coming off a lauded run on Broadway with some of the same cast members, The Piano Lesson will certainly be a threat in acting races and hits Netflix on Nov. 22 after a brief theatrical run.

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10. The Room Next Door

After years of working primarily in Spanish, Pedro Almodóvar has finally decided to make a full-length English movie. Based on a novel by Sigrid Nunez, this drama stars Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore as a pair of journalists and friends. Premiering at Venice and playing NYFF later this year, The Room Next Door is looking to follow Almodóvar's previous films Pain and Glory and Parallel Mothers to Oscar success.

11. Saturday Night

Saturday Night Live is well documented as having one of the most chaotic and volatile work environments in showbiz. Just read any memoir from a former cast member if you don't believe me. By all accounts, however, no show was more chaotic than the first. Jason Reitman's upcoming ensemble comedy documents the hours leading up to the first episode of SNL with a massive cast of fresh faces playing legends like Lorne Michaels, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner and Dan Aykroyd. Brat summer's sweetheart Rachel Sennott is joined by The Fabelmans' Gabriel LaBelle, Succession's Nicholas Braun, Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard and Licorice Pizza's Cooper Hoffman in the raucous flick. Expect a big red carpet moment for this expansive cast at TIFF.

Related: Everything to Know About 'Saturday Night' 

12. The Substance

After a strong premiere earlier at Cannes, distributors are certainly hoping that the Demissance will charge full steam ahead at TIFF. In what feels like her first truly meaty role in quite some time, Demi Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle in this Cannes breakout. An actor-turned-fitness guru who is fired for her age, Sparkle is offered a mysterious "substance" by a lab that promises to make her "the best version" of herself. Obviously things don't go as planned in this body horror flick that also stars Margaret Qualley and Dennis Quaid. We could be seeing another Oscar nom for Moore come winter.

13. We Live in Time

This season's tear jerker seems to be the British romantic drama from Brooklyn director John Crowley, which will be making its world premiere at TIFF. Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh star as a couple and based on the trailer, it seems like Miss Flo is headed towards a potentially terminal illness. The sweeping love story will follow the couple across many years as they meet, fall in love and eventually come to terms with their mortality. Bring Kleenex and only watch with someone you're comfortable seeing you ugly cry.

Next, The Best Movies of 2024 (So Far)