TIFF 51: Hamaguchi’s “All of a Sudden” is the best film of the year, bar none

by Cláudio Alves

Everyone gets to vote for the TIFF People’s Choice Award, even the press. And while I can’t reveal some personal award votes later in the season, I can safely tell you my pick this one time. I voted for Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Franco-Japanese production of All of a Sudden. The best film at TIFF, it’s also my favorite world premiere so far into 2026, a masterpiece that feels like a return to basics for a director whose early works owed much to the likes of Antonioni and Rohmer. Well, a return to basics that also runs over three hours long and contains some of the most direct discussions of Marxist theory you’ll see in a film, of this or any year. But please, don’t get apprehensive when you read those words. For all the putative intellectualism coursing through its veins, All of a Sudden is a deeply humanistic, even accessible, text that should have something to say to, and resonate with, almost every viewer out there.

I confess that, as the end credits rolled, I hurried out of the TIFF Lightbox screening room, missing Virginie Efira’s Q&A because the tears streaming down my face were too much. In that moment, I needed time and a bit of privacy to compose myself. Since then, I’ve been trying to organize my thoughts on this breathtaking picture and can only hope to do it justice in my review. If I fail to communicate its brilliance, be assured it’s my fault and not the film’s…

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TIFF 51: “La Bola Negra” is this year’s People’s Choice Award champion!

by Cláudio Alves

Ever since its third edition, the Toronto International Film Festival has allowed its audiences to vote for their personal favorites. Back in 1978, Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends took the prize, and, to this day, remains in the minority of titles to win the TIFF public’s favor without scoring any Oscar nomination. Populist appeal reigns supreme in this honor’s storied history, as does Hollywood's overshadowing of world cinema in the mainstream mindset. Before this year, we need to go back to 2011’s Where Do We Go Now? to find a victor not spoken in English. And if we’re talking about Spanish film in particular, Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown from 1988 was the only People’s Choice champion with a Spaniard production behind it. Until La Bola Negra, that is.

Los Javis’ Best Director prizewinner from Cannes is now well positioned in the awards race to come, backed all the way by Netflix, and having even convinced the Toronto crowd to deliver one of those protracted standing ovations that go viral every year directly from the major European fests. The Best International Film nomination seems all but secured for Spain, maybe even the win. Some are considering it a Best Picture frontrunner, already, which would be unheard of for a Spanish flick. And that’s it for awards chatter. Now, let’s focus on what really matters – the film itself…

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TIFF 51: Andrew Scott delivers an Oscar-worthy performance in “Elsinore”

by Eurocheese

Heading into my screening of Elsinore on the last day of the festival, I had heard a number of mixed things on the ground. Some said the film pulls too readily at heartstrings without much plot. I’d heard rumblings that it was likely to win an audience prize, and it ended up taking the International People’s Choice Award before I saw it (yes, it’s eligible since it’s a UK production and La Bola Negra became automatically disqualified for the honor when it won TIFF’s general People’s Choice Award). There were those who thought Olivia Colman didn’t have enough to do, and I heard folks say it flat-out didn’t work. Since this was one of my most anticipated titles heading into the festival, I was beyond curious about how I would ultimately feel…

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TIFF 51: Best Actress Watch – “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” and “Prima Facie”

by Eurocheese

Rinko Kikuchi could become the first Japanese Best Actress Oscar nominee ever if HA-CHAN, SHAKE YOUR BOOTY! goes all the way.

Continuing our quest to find potential Best Actress contenders among TIFF screenings, we have already seen nomination potential in The Debut, Being Heumann and Onwards and Sideways. Next up, we have the Canadian premiere of Rinko Kikuchi’s performance in Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty! after its Sundance competition slot earlier in the year, and the international premiere of Cynthia Erivo’s work in the film adaptation of Suzie Miller’s one-woman play, Prima Facie…

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TIFF 51: Mahershala Ali learns to be a better father in “Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother”

by Cláudio Alves

In the current political climate, it feels incredible, nigh impossible, for such a movie as Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother to come out of a major Hollywood studio. Yet, here it is, in all its MGM-backed glory with a TIFF world premiere to boot.

Bassam Tariq’s third feature and follow-up to 2020’s Mogul Mowgli, concerns a man of that profession which seems ever-so-common in moving pictures, but not so much in real life – the contract killer. He’s Latif, whom we meet in a peculiar scenario, intercutting between the mess of murder in a public toilet and a mysterious dialogue spoken by childish voices, illustrated by intertitles that disrupt the violence. It’s about Islamic scripture, a reflection of Latif’s devotion and a prelude to the news that is about to shake him to his core. Whom do you owe the most respect? The prophet, asked this three times, answers the same words each time: your mother. And who have Latif’s children lost while their father was away, spilling blood? Their mother…

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