Best of the Fest: The 2025 Toronto International Film Festival
Foremost Film
After ten frenzied days between September 4 and 14 in the Canadian capital’s Entertainment District, the landmark 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival has finally come to a close! Wowing public audiences and members of the press corps alike, Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet was unsurprisingly named the winner of the highly coveted TIFF People’s Choice Award, all but securing the movie’s award season prospects and making Zhao the only filmmaker to score the award twice, having previously won for Nomadland (2020). Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice received the inaugural International People’s Choice Award, following its notable failure to pick up any prizes at the Venice Film Festival just a few days ahead of its North American premiere at TIFF.
As always, this year’s TIFF brought plenty of celebrities to the red carpet and even a bit of controversy to the streets surrounding the festival’s crowded theaters and venues, most notably several protests surrounding the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. During our week-long stay in Toronto, Foremost Film managed to see 25 of the movies premiering as part of TIFF’s enormous lineup, mainly narrative features but also a handful of documentaries and shorts. While a majority of these titles proved to have considerable artistic merit and entertainment value, five in particular have remained deeply etched in our minds since the festival’s conclusion. Continue reading to check out this year’s TIFF titles that had us most excited:
‘Hamnet,’ courtesy of TIFF.
‘Hamnet’
Director: Chloé Zhao
TIFF Galas
Yes, Hamnet will make you cry. Starring Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley as William and Agnes Shakespeare, Hamnet is adapted from a 2020 novel of the same name, fictionalizing the account of their shared grief after losing their son, Hamnet, whose passing went on to inspire one of Shakespeare’s most famed works.
Zhao’s first foray into period filmmaking, Hamnet nails the look and feel of its 16th-century setting without ever glamorizing a world lit only by fire, a method perfectly reflected by the crimson dress Agnes wears throughout the film, which spans many years of her life. Cinematographer Lukasz Zal captures tranquil images of the rural oasis the Shakespeare family inhabits, a world still acutely informed by Mother Nature’s dramatic seasons of change. Building upon the director’s nuanced understanding of the human spirit –– glimpsed through her earlier work, including The Rider (2017)and Nomadland –– Hamnet touches upon some of life’s strongest emotions: falling in love, losing those closest to you, and learning to rebuild from tragedy. Both Irish leads deliver their most rousing performances to date, particularly Buckley, whose role offers a dynamic glimpse into the tremendous woman behind one of history’s most celebrated figures.
‘Orphan,’ courtesy of TIFF.
‘Orphan’
Director: László Nemes
Centrepiece
Somewhere between Nemes’ award-winning Son of Saul (2015) and the gorgeous but mystifying Sunset (2018) lives Orphan. Taking inspiration from his father’s account of growing up in post-war Budapest, Orphan revolves around 12-year-old Andor (Bojtorján Barabas in his debut role), who lives in the Hungarian capital with his single mother in the aftermath of the country’s historical uprising against its Soviet overlords in 1956. While his distant parent works at a grocery store to put a roof over their head, Andor and his young cronies traverse the city’s bombed-out buildings, finding guns and associating with revolutionaries on the run. Everything changes for Andor one day when a rugged butcher (Grégory Gadebois) from the countryside shows up, claiming to be the boy’s real father, despite Andor always being told his Jewish father never returned from the concentration camps during the war.
Shot on 35mm film, Orphan exhibits a gray-green sepia tone that reflects the drab world of the Communist era it captures, underscoring the filmmaker’s penchant for striking visual language. Through Andor’s complex and painful coming-of-age narrative, the film channels mid-century neorealist cinema, particularly Roberto Rossellini’s Germany, Year Zero, speaking to the tragedies experienced by the generations who grew up in post-war Europe, where life did not simply return to normal following the conflict’s conclusion in 1945. Orphan was recently announced as Hungary’s Best International Feature entry for the upcoming 98th Academy Awards.
‘Sirât,’ courtesy of TIFF.
‘Sirât’
Director: Oliver Laxe
Special Presentations
After winning the Jury Prize at Cannes earlier this year and walking away from the festival as one of its buzziest titles, Sirât made its North American debut at TIFF, where it blew the roof off public screenings and floored audiences with its incredibly bold imagery and ingenious soundtrack provided by Berlin-based DJ Kangding Ray.
Progressing in the fashion of a f•cked up epic journey through the deserts of Northern Africa as its central character, Luis (Sergi López) searches for his daughter, who disappeared at one of the area’s DIY illegal raves, Sirât overcomes you like a trance. Sand-swept scenes of the harshest brutality are contrasted with moments of communal joy as the movie’s ragtag ravers unite on the brink of World War III, creating an unrelentingly unpredictable and singular work that will likely end the year as one of Foremost Film’s favorites.
‘The Tale of Silyan,’ courtesy of TIFF.
‘The Tale of Silyan’
Director: Tamara Kotevska
TIFF Docs
Between 2019 and 2020, Kotevska’s career skyrocketed thanks to her universally beloved work Honeyland, which made Oscars history when it became the first film to be nominated for both Best Documentary and Best International Feature.
For her latest documentary, The Tale of Silyan, which world premiered at the Venice Film Festival before crossing the Atlantic to the Toronto International Film Festival’s 50th edition, Koteveska builds upon the themes of human diaspora and nature conservation introduced in Honeyland while adding wondrous folkloric flourishes that further link her work to her captivating homeland of Macedonia. Connecting the hardships of a peasant farmer facing a transforming world with that of a popular 17th-century fable about a boy turned into a white stork, The Tale of Silyan is another richly touching feather Koteveska can add to her cap, boasting an exquisite audiovisual design that evokes the timeless beauty of rural life and warns about the consequences that would come if it were left behind. The Tale of Silyan has recently been announced as Macedonia’s Best International Feature submission for the 98th Academy Awards.
Read our full ‘The Tale of Silyan’ review.
‘The Testament of Ann Lee,’ courtesy of TIFF.
‘The Testament of Ann Lee’
Director: Mona Fastvold
Special Presentations
Hot off the awards campaign for partner Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist (which she co-wrote) last year, Fastvold once again returns to the fall film festival circuit with The Testament of Ann Lee, which made its North American premiere at TIFF. The film stars Amanda Seyfried in the titular role, the founding leader of the Shakers, a late-18th-century Christian sect that promoted ideas emphasizing pacifism, egalitarianism, and celibacy in exchange for religious piety.
Shot on 35mm and projected on 70mm for its TIFF screenings, The Testament of Ann Lee in many ways mirrors The Brutalist in its explorations of figures hell-bent on uncovering their American dreams, only to have them dashed by the guilded foundations the country was founded upon. The film combines an intoxicating blend of gorgeous period-specific imagery, hypnotic song and dance numbers based on Shaker traditions, and the story of a woman who refused to be subservient to any man other than God. Seyfried delivers her best performance in many years, uplifted by a supporting cast that includes Christopher Abbott and Thomasin McKenzie, the latter of whom can do no wrong in our books. Despite its prolonged runtime (135 minutes) and somewhat cloying depiction of an impossibly zealous, Christ-like female figure, The Testament of Ann Lee has firmly stuck in our minds since we first saw it, and we wish the daring film all the best as it continues to seek a distributor.