Best of the Fest Part 1: The Best Films We Saw at TIFF

An Unnatural Amount of Films

After 7 full days of cinema at the Toronto International Film Festival, we’ve come the end of our international film journey. While normal festival goers – press and public alike – usually top out at around 30-35 films in person with a handful of films screened pre-fest, I overindulged and overcommitted and managed to see about a full quarter of the entire slate. To put that in perspective, there are nearly 400 films -features, shorts and remastered classics – that screen at TIFF, which means I saw just over 100 total.

61 films screened pre-fest, 35 in person, 5 carryovers from Sundance and 1 holdover from Berline. With at least 4 films still sitting unwatched in my inbox, that brings the grand total to somewhere in the ballpark of 106 films. That is psychotic behavior, and at a certain point I was no longer actively watching films; they were simply happening TO me. Nevertheless, I’m here and ready to give a glimpse at some of the best films we watched during our time in Toronto. These won’t be in any ranked order as I don’t have the brain capacity to rank 100+ films at the moment.

Maybe after I take a nice little weekend coma and refresh I’ll be able to apply integers to each and every film watched. But for now, let’s take a look at some of my personal favorites from the fest. These films stood tall above the rest and really blew me away, meeting and/or exceeding my anticipation and some downright surprising me with how much I enjoyed them! For some sense of order, I’ll list them in order of viewing, starting with a few pre-fest standouts and moving to daily highlights on the ground.

Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, Ancestors, Rescue

Two features and doc walk into a film festival. Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother played like gangbusters at the premiere, and highlights probably the worst bag fumble by the MCU ever. Letting Basam Tariq slip through their fingers with Mahershala Ali attached proved to be a massive slip through the fingers, because what these two create in Your Mother x3 is something truly special and transcendent. It’s best to approach the film without any of your preconceived notions, because this is not ‘The Blade that Was Lost’ and that’s a great thing. Wholly singular, gritty, fully realized and beating with an emotional core, Your Mother x3 offers something more than just your typical struggling father story.

The way Tariq injects every ounce of himself and Ali transforms into the lead character is a marvel (pun intended) to behold, shot with exquisite cinematography and grounded reality of struggle and community. This was one of the first major releases I was able to check out, and I can’t wait to revisit it soon. Ancestors falls into the surprise category of TIFF. A film I knew nothing about heading in but couldn’t shake after it was over. The film highlights the queer community amid the aids crisis in London in the 80s, and beautifully crafts a devastating portrait of loss and found family with an ethereal atmosphere. The elliptical story structure takes a second to get into, but once the film makes sense it becomes a gut-punch of tears.

I was not ready to cry so early on in my festival run, but Ancestors moved me to tears more than once. A truly beautiful film that I hope more people get a chance to check out. Another surprise takes us to the TIFF Docs side of things with Rescue. A harrowing tale of survival and perseverance that had me on the edge of my seat. It opens with such an adrenaline rush of real-time open waters confrontations that I had to pinch myself to remind me that it was not a feature film. When it settles down a bit, it smartly follows a family separated by horrific circumstances and broken immigration policies. There were a lot of good docs this year, but few had me as locked in as Rescue.

Inherit, Minatour, River

Davika Hoorne has become one of my favorite Thai actresses, hitting my radar with A Useful Ghost and shooting to the top of my must sees. So when she was the poster for Inherit, I was immediately sat. And boy, was I not disappointed at all. A campy, gnarly, witchy, messy horror/thriller that teams with culture and folklore and generational curses. Hoorne is devilishly delightful, arriving as a sort of Thai Aunt Gladys and slaying in more ways more than one. While there’s no reason for this to be over 2 hours long and starts to lose some steam as it nears its end, it so darkly entertaining it doesn’t matter. Inherit is a lowkey banger that exceeded my expectations and keeps Hoorne atop of my performers to watch.

There was a lot of chatter about Minatour out of Cannes, so I was quick to make sure I included it in my lineup. Hype trains are often derailed by the time they reach TIFF, but Minatour more than earns its positive word of mouth. A sort Russian Unfaithful set amid the backdrop of impending war, it smartly trades out the erotic sleaze of its source material to deliver a more cold and calculating character study of the lengths we’ll go to maintain power over others and using this framework to criticize the Russian government. It’s wild that a film about an affair ends up being one of the most well crafted anti-war films of the year, but Minatour pulls it off. It takes a second to find its footing but once it locks in it delivers in spades.

I will typically reduce the midnight madness screenings as I am over 40 and simply can’t handle going to bed at 2am every night. But the opening night film in this section is usually worth the lack of sleep, and while River isn’t the best of the bunch it’s still perfect for midnight. Jane Levy returning to horror is more than welcomed, and paired with Jessica Rothe deliver a solid, well made scream queen horror film. There’s some sharp craft here even if the narrative can’t quite sustain it; the way Joshua Guliani uses sound as a weapon against your eyes to reveal things slowly rather than assault you with pure visuals is highly effective. River is best with a crowd, and will end up being the best thing you find on Shudder.

Furies, The Spiral, Ink

One of the best things about film festivals is going into films completely blind. All you have is a still image and a brief synopsis that rarely does it’s job of telling you what the film is actually about. This was the case with Furies, one of the last films I caught in my long, aggressive movie watching run and a major surprise. Set amid the financial crisis in Lebanon, two sisters hatch a plan to rob a bank and get their money back. I am a sucker for films that take me to places I’ve never been and examine the daily struggles of their people, and Furies does it with a supercharge of energy and comedy and heart.

The two leads are incredible. These women burst onto the scene with announcement of talent and Furies gives them plenty of meaty characters to chew on. While it is a heist thriller, it never forgets that it is a story about people just trying to make it in a world that has left them to die of poverty. This was the pick me up I needed and while it wanes it is plot mechanics and could be a little tighter, it is relentlessly entertaining and a major surprise of TIFF.

The Spiral is a film that has grown on me over time and one I think will continue to do so after a rewatch. Tightly wound and meticulously presented, it unravels with such deliberate ferocity and dizzying pieces that once you’ve put it all together, you’ll immediately want to revisit it now that it makes sense. It is, a spiral of tragedies all in the name of protecting those we claim to love, only to unravel everything we hold dear and reap the consequences of messing with the natural order of things. Smartly crafted and hauntingly scored, The Spiral is a new entry into the horror genre and one that doesn’t need to subvert expectations to push them forward. Sometimes all you need to do is tell familiar tales in singular ways, and The Spiral does just that to great effect.

Last but not least is Ink, Danny Boyle’s new film about the rise of tabloid journalism and reshaping of media as we know it at the hands of Lamb and Murdoch. Boyle is in peak form here, applying The Wolf of Wall Street debauchery to his tale of British journalism. It doesn’t all work and doesn’t quite earn its conclusions thematically, but it’s so entertaining and electric that it’s hard not to succumb to this shot of adrenaline. Sure, it only scratches the surface of its subject, opting for dynamism over anything more profound, but Ink is squarely in Boyle’s bag and I had a blast with it – the egregious use of AI notwithstanding. It is obvious and awful and unnecessary, as as someone shouted at him during the Q&A: never do that shit again.

Many more best films and festival recaps to come! Be sure to check out Part 2!