Surprises, letdowns, and more from TIFF 2024
After seeing more than 15 films at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, we came away with more than just a set of top five favorite films.
Author: Hannah Lodge
The Top 5 Best Films from TIFF 2024
After seeing 16 films at TIFF, here are ScreenRex’s Top Five best films from the festival.
TWISTERS is too polished for its own good
I recently realized there’s an incredibly small subgenre of blockbusters that fall into a particularly niche category. I’m not sure what to call this category, but it’s something along the lines of “In addition to everything else going on, for some reason the real bad guy here is corporate espionage!”
‘Furiosa’ succeeds in all ways but one
But it’s a big one.
CHALLENGERS serves lust without fault
Challengers centers around a tennis match that will define the lives of both men on the court. But if you asked me who won, I’m not sure I could tell you.
Godzilla x Kong is part wrestling, part gymnastics
You’ve heard the age-old adage: It’s about the journey, not the destination. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire banks on the opposite being true. It’s an exercise in reverse-engineering, taking a few key end points and mapping out a plot that could possibly get us there. We want a shot of Godzilla and Kong side-by-side and flying through the air in slow-mo while trying to punch an enemy – how do we do that? We want Kong to have a cool mecha-arm – why does he have it? Godzilla should be pink! But how?
But how? For a movie about prehistoric creatures prancing around the Earth’s crust like it’s the interior of a wrestling ring, it’s a question Godzilla x Kong is surprisingly concerned with.
DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS needs to turn up the volume
The Farrelly brothers, The Safdie Brothers, The Wachowski sisters – there’s no shortage of sibling director duos who have parted ways, either permanently or temporarily, to experiment on solo works. The Coen brothers joined their ranks with Joel Coen’s solo-directed film The Tragedy of Macbeth in 2021. If The Tragedy of Macbeth might have given any clue as to who the “serious one” of the duo was, Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls seems designed to give an equally emphatic answer as to the source of the duo’s comedic chops.
From best film to biggest letdown, the TIFF 2023 standouts
ScreenRex highlights five examples of creative work at TIFF that caught us off guard, for better or for worse
5 TIFF Films Directed by Actors – ranked
If you had to summarize the biggest trend at the Toronto Film Festival this year – apart from the effects of both writers and actors being on strike – it might be that 2023 was the year many actors made the jump to directing.
OPPENHEIMER changes the definition of a Nolan film
Christopher Nolan has made some of my favorite movies of all time. But every filmmaker has weaknesses, and over the years Nolan’s have crystallized.
PAST LIVES is a unique spin on a universal question
Past Lives, a feature debut for writer/director Celine Song, opens with a simple premise. The camera focuses on a trio, a woman sitting in the middle of two men. Off-camera, voices try to puzzle out their connections: is this a couple and a friend? Siblings and a couple? Are any of the three romantically entangled at all? It’s a hard one, they muse.
BEAU IS AFRAID is horror in disguise
Since hearing director Ari Aster describe his film Beau is Afraid as a “Jewish Lord of the Rings but he’s just going to his mom’s house,” my curiosity has been high.
You already know if you like M3GAN
Chances are, you already know about M3GAN.
AFCC selects Everything Everywhere All at Once as 2022’s film of the year
This year’s big winners include Eveything Everywhere All at Once, RRR, Top Gun: Maverick, and Banshees of Inisherin.
With NOPE, Jordan Peele takes his biggest risk yet by playing it safe
Every now and then, a film comes along that defies everything that came before.