The 10 Best Films of TIFF 2024

The 49th Toronto International Film Festival is winding down, and the audience winner will be announced tomorrow. What film will win the prize? My money is on either “Anora” or “Conclave.” Other possibilities include “The Life of Chuck,” “Emilia Perez,” “Saturday Night” and “The Wild Robot.”

Having seen close to 40 films in 7 days, I managed to find 10 that stood ahead of the pack and are worthy of being called one of the year’s best.

Of course, I’m not counting the essential titles I saw at Cannes, which also screened at TIFF, and they include Sean Baker’s “Anora,” Coraline Fargeat’s “The Substance,” Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez,” “Alain Guiraudie’s “Misericordia,” Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Boris Lojkine’s “The Story of Souleymane,” Ali Abassi’s “The Apprentice,” Leonardo Van Diji’s “Julie Keeps Quiet”, and Arnaud & Jean-Marie Larrieu’s “The Story of Jim.”

Having to cut it down to just 10 films wasn’t easy, I could have included Ron Howard’s “Eden,” far and away the darkest and most twisted film of his career. Paul Walter Hauser is great as a sad sack loser of a gameshow contestant in Samir Oliveros’ “The Luckiest Man in America.” I should also mention Morgan Neville’s Pharrell Williams doc “Piece by Piece,” which was a visually inventive treat.

It turns out that half my list is composed of films that premiered at Venice. Not a surprise. TIFF world premieres tend to be films that couldn’t get into Venice and/or Telluride. With that said, these are the 10 that stood out.

“April” (Dea Kulumbegashvili)

Maybe the only film this fall that deserves to be called a masterpiece. Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili’s “April” tackles Nina, an OB-GYN, facing accusations after a newborn's death. Her life undergoes scrutiny during the investigation. Blending elements of horror, realism and surrealism, Kulumbegashvili creates frames as tense, ambiguous, and visceral as any film I’ve seen this year. The film, banking on the promise of Kulumbegashvili’s debut, 2020’s “Beginning,” refuses to explain itself, instead opting to hypnotize you with its esoteric nature.

“The Brutalist” (Brady Corbet)

Corbet’s 3-hour 35-minute historical epic tackles a Jewish immigrant’s rise as a brilliant architect in post-WWII America. Adrien Brody’s performance is towering, and Guy Pearce is brilliant as the shady millionaire who hires him to build an ambitious project. Corbet's immigrant saga is so meticulously constructed that, despite a few narrative lapses, you can’t help but be astonished by the sheer audacity of it all. I was never bored. The film is stunningly lensed by cinematographer Lol Crawley in VistaVision no less, and some of the shots concocted, the audacious movements of the camera and editing, will make your jaw drop.

“Conclave” (Edward Berger)

In “Conclave,” the pope has just died. The papal conclave, led by the Dean (Ralph Fiennes), must now elect the next Pope for the Catholic Church. Edward Berger’s gorgeously shot thriller is filled with twists and turns; a knotty affair that might be a tad too silly but also immensely entertaining. The lies pile up, and so does the backstabbing. There’s never a dull moment. The cast is gangbusters; Fiennes is brilliant, but shoutouts must also be given to Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini. I wouldn’t be surprised if “Conclave” ends up becoming the frontrunner to win Best Picture.

“Queer” (Luca Guadagnino)

First of all, Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer” is gorgeous to look at. Thai cinematography wizard Sayombhu Mukdeeprom uses the dreamy Cinecitta sets to produce the most dreamy frames. Daniel Craig, in what might just be his best performance, plays a man spending his time in Mexico, surviving on the subsidies handed out by the US government following World War II. He has an alcohol problem, but also a dependence on heroin. Things get complicated when he becomes romantically obsessed with a young student named Eugene Allerton (Starkey). The last 20 minutes of the film are hard to describe. It’s a trip.

“The Room Next Door” (Pedro Almodovar)

Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton) were close friends in their youth, when they worked together at the same magazine. After years of being out of touch, they meet again, as Martha is dying of cancer, and decide to go on one final trip. Don’t listen to the naysayers who claim Almodovar’s latest melodrama, his first English feature, was a disappointment. There’s a reason why “The Room Next Door,” a meditation on death, won the Golden Lion, and it’s because Almodovar has made a real beauty of a film. Unlike Almodovar’s other works, “The Room Next Door” isn’t filled with twists and turns; rather, it’s a simple story, and beautifully told at that.

“Babygirl” (Halina Reijn)

I don’t think Nicole Kidman has given a better, and more fearless, performance in her career than in “Babygirl.” Kidman plays a married career woman who ends up having an affair with a controlling, and somehow sweet, 21-year-old intern (a deliciously manic Harris Dickinson). The wild and unpredictable nature of their affair kept me on the edge of my seat, and although Reijn doesn’t quite stick the landing in the film’s contrived finale, “Babygirl” has these deliriously shocking moments leading up to it that will stay etched in your memory for a good long time. Much like she did in “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies,” Reijn infuses her film with stylized direction, but this time around there’s a lot more depth to the characters.

“Hard Truths” (Mike Leigh)

Bewilderingly rejected by Venice and Cannes, it turns out that Mike Leigh’s “Hard Truths” is one of the more plotless and modest films of the iconic British filmmaker’s career, but it also turns out to be his best film since 2010’s “Another Year”. Leigh has concocted an episodic character study of a 60-something woman angry at the world. He uses Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s volcanic performance to drive his film forward, passing on anything that might constitute plot, and just letting the actress rip it on-screen with furious anger. Smart move. You can’t take your eyes off Jean-Baptiste. Shee oozes tension and despair in every frame.

“Presence” (Steven Soderbergh)

I missed Steven Soderbergh’s ghost story at this past January’s Sundance, but finally caught up with it at TIFF. Taking place in a suburban house that’s inhabited by an unknown force, what’s particularly original about “Presence” is that Soderbergh decided to shoot the entire thing from the point-of-view of the ghost, and it works. Soderbergh sacrifices jump scares for total and utter dread; “Presence” is an art film, experimental in nature, that uses its playful camera to spook you in ways no other film has before. Shooting in wide-angled long takes, Soderbergh tells his story via the most cinematic point of view: voyeurism.

“Saturday Night” (Jason Reitman)

Taking place in “real time,” 90 minutes before the first Saturday Night Live episode aired on October 11, 1975, Jason Reitman’s “Saturday Night” tackles the fearless young comedians and writers who attempted to launch the skit-based show. This is basically Reitman’s riff on Inarritu’s “Birdman” — lots of long takes that exude constant comic tension. “Saturday Night” is a very humorous film, and the one-liners keep coming at a feverish pace. There’s not much depth to the whole thing, but it’s a really entertaining film that just zips right by you.

“Friendship” (Andrew DeYoung)

After his viral, and Emmy-winning, sketch comedy series “I Think You Should Leave”, Tim Robinson has found his first lead film role in “Friendship,” a surreal buddy comedy co-starring himself and Paul Rudd. Filled with socially awkward characters, offbeat dialogue, and just plain weirdness, the film follows Craig (Robinson), a suburban dad who becomes obsessed with his new weatherman neighbor Austin (Rudd). This film has some of the year’s best laughs and is quite possibly the best comedy of 2024. Some of the irreverent gags and setpieces had me howling in laughter. It plays like a gonzo, derange riff on “I Love You Man.”