Good morning from Canada!
The 40th annual Toronto International Film Festival kicks off tonight with the premiere of Jake Gyllenhaal and Naomi Watts' new dramedy Demolition.
The quirky film follows a man (Gyllenhaal) who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a woman who works at a vending machine company (Watts) after his wife's tragic death. Directed by Jean-Marc Vallée (the man behind Dallas Buyers Club and Wild), Demolition is already picking up at a lot of Oscar buzz.
What else are we excited about seeing at TIFF? With more than 400 films being shown at the fest, there are a lot. And it's hard to boil them down to just a few. Here, we give you 15 more films that are on our radar...
The Danish Girl: Long before there was Caitlyn Jenner, there was Lili Elbe. Eddie Redmayne stars in the Tom Hopper-directed The Danish Girl as Lili, the first transgender woman to undergo sexual reassignment surgery in Europe in the 1920s. Alicia Vikander co-stars are his wife, fellow artist Gerda Wegener. The film is adapted from David Ebershoff's book of the same name.
The Martian: Matt Damon is an astronaut stranded on Mars after a storm hits the red planet. The odds may not be in his favor, but NASA officials (Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean and more) and Damon's fellow crew members (Jessica Chastain, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan and Aksel Hennie) will risk everything to save Damon and bring him back to Earth.
About Ray: Elle Fanning is a transgender boy fighting to be his authentic self. Naomi Watts is his mom and Susan Sarandon is his grandmother.
Beasts of No Nation: Netflix's first feature film stars Idris Elba as a West African warlord who forces a young boy into a brutal civil war.
Our Brand Is Crisis: Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton are American political consultants hired by opposing presidential candidates in Bolivia. If you like Scandal and House of Cards, this is definitely for you.
Black Mass: Johnny Depp's stellar acting is back—at least according to the rave reviews coming out of the Venice Film Festival for his portrayal of Boston's most infamous mob boss Whitey Bulger. The all-star cast also includes Dakota Johnson, Joel Edgerton, Corey Stoll, Kevin Bacon, Peter Sarsgaard and Julianne Nicholson.
Freeheld: Julianne Moore could be popping up at many awards shows for her work in this true story about a New Jersey police officer with terminal cancer fighting Kim Davis-like local government officials who refuse to grant her pension benefits to her domestic partner (Ellen Page).
The Dressmaker: Talk about a hot couple! The sparks fly between a big city fashionista (Kate Winslet) and a childhood friend (Liam Hemsworth) when she returns to her small Australian hometown.
Miss You Already: Get the tissues ready. Drew Barrymore stars as a woman whose best friend (Toni Collette) has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Sicario: Emily Blunt is an FBI agent enlisted by Josh Brolin to join a shady unit of the agency trying to take down a Mexican drug cartel.
Stonewall: After the first trailer for the film was released earlier this summer, critics slammed director Roland Emmerich for what appeared to be a lack of diversity in telling the story of the Stonewall Riots. However, Roadside Attractions just released a new clip from the film that focuses on Marsha P. Johnson (Otoja Abit), a black transgender activist believed to have launched the modern day gay rights movement when she threw the first brick during a police raid of New York City gay bar the Stonewall Inn in the summer of 1969.
Equals: Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult live in a world where people no longer have emotions. Things go awry when the two are infected with a disease that allows them to have feelings.
Spotlight: An ensemble cast including Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Liev Schreiber tells the story of the Boston Globe's investigation of the Massachusetts Catholic Church's sex abuse cover-up.
I Saw the Light: Yee-haw! Tom Hiddleston plays the late legendary country singer Hank Williams. Written and directed by Marc Abraham, the cast also includes Hiddleston's maybe real-life girlfriend Elizabeth Olsen.
It gives me great pleasure to introduce the first clip from I SAW THE LIGHT. @TIFF_NET tomorrow! #MoveItOnOver
https://t.co/0xC30AghNF
— Tom Hiddleston (@twhiddleston) September 10, 2015