The 2018 Toronto International Film Festival announced part of its roster, and it is awesome

By Allison Shoemaker  |  July 24, 2018 | 4:45pm
Aux News TIFF

Usually, you’re lucky if you look at a film festival lineup and see a handful of interesting movies in the mix. But this year’s Toronto International Film Fest is no ordinary beast.

Variety reports that TIFF has released its first wave of films that will screen at the festival, which takes place from September 6–16. What’s more, of the 17 films included in this announcement, five are directed by women, and six by directors of color. Cameron Bailey, the festival’s artistic director, told Variety that he anticipates that when the roster of films is finalized, roughly one-third will come from female directors. That’s a welcome piece of news, but holy shit, so is this lineup, including likely Oscar contenders, a Palme d’Or winner, and at least one hotly anticipated film that might be good, or might be a horror show.

Here are some of the most noteworthy titles making an appearance at Toronto this year:

  • Widows, Steve McQueen’s Viola Davis-starring crime drama, and his follow-up to 12 Years a Slave.
  • Damien Chazelle’s Neil Armstrong movie, First Man, which stars Ryan Gosling (quick, someone find out how Armstrong felt about jazz).
  • Shoplifters, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Palme d’Or winner.
  • The Keira Knightley-starring Colette, a Colette biopic in which she plays Colette.
  • Claire Denis’ High Life, the director’s English-language debut.
  • Roma, Alfonso Cuaron’s first film since winning the Oscar for Gravity; it is apparently semi-autobiographical, and thus unlikely to be set in space. (But who knows?)
  • An adaptation of Angie Thomas’s best-selling YA novel, The Hate U Give, starring Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Issa Rae, Common, and K.J. Apa (a.k.a. Hot Archie).
  • Beautiful Boy, which stars Steve Carrell, Timothée Chalamet, and (insert peach-related joke here). But yeah, this movie looks great.
  • Oh, and Bradley Cooper’s Lady Gaga-starring A Star Is Born, which is, by the way, the might-be-good, might-be-yikes situation.

That is a lineup. For the full roster, head over to Variety; for full coverage, wait patiently until September, and then watch this space.

 
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