Which Future Oscar Contender Will Get Christened at TIFF?

The Toronto Film Festival may currently lag well behind Venice and Telluride when it comes to prestigious world premieres, but it can still lay claim for its top prize having a far more tangible impact on the impending Oscars season. Sure, Venice’s Golden Lion has an air of European class, but over the past 25 years, only seven winners have gone on to land a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars. Contrast that with Toronto’s more democratic People’s Choice Award, which has awarded 16 future Best Picture nominees during that same time period. Even coming close to winning is fruitful; since 2012, 14 People’s Choice runners-up — including Guillermo del Toro last year for Frankenstein — went on to snag the Oscar nom. The TIFF award is one of the most reliable Oscar bellwethers around.

So how does a film manage to win one of these very influential awards? In trying to guess which films are likely to contend for the TIFF People’s Choice, the most basic criteria is: “Did people like it?” Is it a movie that you overheard people raving about in line or at the poutine place down the street from the theater? What was the reaction to the film in the room? And “in the room” is big; “Such-and-such went over very well in the room” is a sentence you’ll hear a lot in Toronto. Thankfully, TIFF isn’t one of those get-out-your-stopwatch standing-ovation-measurer festivals. The reaction that matters is palpable engagement with a film as it’s playing. It’s the gasps, the sobs, the laughter — all the Nicole Kidman AMC stuff. Hearing that a performance got a mid-movie applause break? Mark that movie down in ink as a top People’s Choice contender.

Sure, it’s mostly vibes, but there are tangible signs too. Does the festival start adding additional public screenings to meet demand? That’s a very good sign. Are the rush lines to get into a screening particularly testy? That’s the word of mouth doing its job. Movies that have more screenings also mean more audience members who could cast their vote, and as is the case with midterm elections, this is a turnout game. 

After spending nine days on the shores of Lake Ontario attending both press and public screenings, speaking to people on the ground, and doing some polite eavesdropping, I can say with a decent bit of confidence that there are four to six movies that are in the conversation for the TIFF People’s Choice. 

I Play Rocky 

The fact that most of the media attending TIFF didn’t regard I Play Rocky all that seriously heading into the festival plays perfectly into this movie’s surprise-triumph appeal. This is an underdog story about an underdog story about an underdog story, a nesting doll of the kind of narrative that awards voters have always loved. Unknown actor Anthony Ippolito is a dead ringer for Sylvester Stallone in this movie about the making of Rocky, which reportedly had the Princess of Wales Theatre rocking and rolling.

Press members who’d been doubting the film based on its bona fides (director Peter Farrelly last graced Toronto with the instantly forgotten The Greatest Beer Run Ever) immediately changed their tune, and overnight I Play Rocky was being talked up as the festival’s populist hit. Anecdotally, multiple TIFF attendees I spoke to told me the film had broken containment and that family members and friends back home were asking about this Rocky movie that’s supposed to be so good. By the time I saw the Ringer’s Craig Horlbeck raving about the movie on its fantasy-football podcast (Horlbeck attended TIFF as a producer on Matt Belloni’s The Town podcast), I knew this was a genuine breakout hit.

If Farrelly’s film wins, he will join Chloé Zhao (Nomadland; Hamnet) in the ranks of two-time People’s Choice winners. His last win was for Green Book in 2018, which jump-started that movie’s run to the Best Picture Oscar win.

The Debut

Having just premiered in Telluride days earlier, Jesse Eisenberg’s latest film was riding a huge wave of buzz for Julianne Moore’s lead performance, but opinions on the movie itself were harder to nail down. I’d heard “weirder than I expected” and “not for everyone.” After attending the TIFF premiere screening, I can say with full confidence that “who this movie is for” is the TIFF audience. The film played to one of the hottest crowds I’ve ever experienced, one that was rolling with every one of Eisenberg’s tonal shifts and oddball character quirks. Moore received a mid-movie applause break for one particularly stratospheric monologue, leading many of my contemporaries to declare the Best Actress race over. The mood in the room was one of unceasing delight and appreciation.

That said, the people who said the movie was weird and not for everyone weren’t wrong. How well this movie’s elastic reality and obtusely angled performances play with broader audiences is definitely a consideration. If I Play Rocky is an Italian Sunday dinner (satisfying, comforting), The Debut is an armful of bananas (to get your energy up for the big show).

Club Kid

Director and star Jordan Firstman’s debut feature was a surprisingly uncontroversial crowd-pleaser at Cannes back in May, and the word of mouth out of Telluride was just as positive. So it was no longer a surprise to see the TIFF crowds reacting warmly (and with no shortage of emotional sniffles in the audience) to this story of a busted queer nightlife promoter suddenly learning he’s got a 10-year-old son he has to care for. It’s an incredibly easy movie to love and to congratulate oneself for loving. Firstman’s character is a hard-charging party boy, and the film is awash in a permeating drug culture. There’s an air of “Cokeheads can be good dads too if they want to be!” to the movie that is inexplicably very sweet.

The Toronto audiences were so into the movie that TIFF added an additional public screening midway through the festival. The savvy Toronto audiences enjoy their festival’s reputation as an Oscar kingmaker, too, so the idea of helping launch Club Kid to an unusual but increasingly plausible Oscar run could appeal to the voters.

Elsinore

The drumbeat heading into Toronto was all about Andrew Scott’s lead performance as the actor Ian Charleson. The film depicts the Chariots of Fire star as he is cast in a National Theatre production of Hamlet while also dying of AIDS. Scott’s performance has received across-the-board raves, but even more so than The Debut, the film itself has both fans and detractors. But what’s undeniable about it is the emotional gut punch it leaves you with. My public screening was awash — nearly literally — with sniffles and sobs. Big emotional movies are always going to motivate people to cast a vote; look no further than Hamnet winning People’s Choice last year. The comparisons between that movie and Elsinore, what with all the Hamlet being performed and poignantly referring back to our characters’ circumstances, have been impossible to ignore.

One other quirk regarding Elsinore is that because it’s a British film, it’s eligible for the newly created International People’s Choice Award. This was first instituted last year — Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice won, with the eventually Oscar-nominated Sentimental Value coming in second place. And while Elsinore stands a decent shot at winning that prize, I’ve seen most people predict the International PC to go to …

La Bola Negra

This was another Cannes premiere that had the Europeans all excited. There’s been a mood of trepidation about how well it would translate in North America, and I’d seen several people make worrying comparisons to the trajectory that Emilia Pérez took two years ago. The film, directed by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, is a maximalist queer epic spanning three timelines and encompassing the Spanish Civil War, multiple musical numbers, Glenn Close in glasses, explosions, sex, longing, the whole nine yards. As is the case with The Debut, a movie that is willing to shake an audience out of their festival complacency can really move the needle when it comes to a public vote.

Whether La Bola Negra’s feast for the senses can best I Play Rocky’s rags-to-riches appeal, The Debut’s comedic triumph, Club Kid’s tears of joy, or Elsinore’s tears of sorrow is a question that will be answered on Sunday at the TIFF awards presentation. Were I a betting man, I’d be foolish not to place my chips on Rocky. It manages to be a sports movie and a movie about making movies, and it gives the vote-casting audience members the subliminal feeling of giving the underdog his big break. Yo, Adrian, eh?