TIFF50: Most Anticipated Films From The 2025 Festival

Feature First is heading back to the Toronto International Film Festival for its 50th edition! Here are a few of our most anticipated films that we are looking forward to and hoping to catch at TIFF 2025.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (dir. Rian Johnson)

I caught Glass Onion the morning after its premiere at TIFF 2022, along with Rian Johnson, a very hungover Daniel Craig, and the rest of the cast. It was a total blast to watch with an enthusiastic audience, an experience not many received, given its eventual release on Netflix. As a long-time fan of Johnson and his various murder mysteries (check out Brick and Poker Face if you haven’t yet), Wake Up Dead Man is a high festival priority for myself and I imagine many others. Details are scarce, with a new all-star ensemble cast led by Craig, Josh O’Connor, Josh Brolin, Cailee Spaeny, Jeremy Renner and many more. The film appears to be more gothic and somber in tone based on its teaser than previous installments (inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue), seemingly centered around a rural church, priests, police officers and “an impossible crime” dressed up as a miracle. Wake Up Dead Man will release on Netflix on December 12th, but will be making its international premiere on September 6th at TIFF 2025.

No Other Choice (dir. Park Chan-Wook)

The Korean master’s latest film will be making its North American premiere at TIFF 2025, following an international premiere a week after debuting at Venice. It stars Lee Byung-hun (Joint Security Area, I Saw The Devil, The Magnificent Seven, Squid Game) as “a newly unemployed man who, desperate to land a coveted position, hatches a ruthless plan to dispatch his competition.” The film is based on The Ax, a novel by Donald E. Westlake. Everything Park makes is worth checking out and more than likely a “best of the year” contender.

Nouvelle Vague (dir. Richard Linklater) and Blue Moon (dir. Richard Linklater)

One of the most prolific and versatile filmmakers working today, Linklater returns to TIFF with not one but two films screening at TIFF50. I missed out on Hit-Man at TIFF 2023 and always regretted it, so these two are high priorities for me.

Nouvelle Vague dramatizes the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s groundbreaking 1960 film Breathless, which kicked off the titular Nouvelle Vague or, French New Wave. It stars Guillaume Marbeck as Godard, and Zoey Deutsch and Aubry Dullin as Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo, the stars of Breathless.

Blue Moon, another historical dramatization, centers on songwriter Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) during the premiere night of his former partner’s newest play; Richard Rodgers’ Oklahoma. This is Hawke’s first collaboration with Linklater since Boyhood in 2014, and the film also stars Margaret Qualley and Andrew Scott (who is also in  Wake Up Dead Man). I’ve had a pretty good track record with Qualley movies at previous editions of TIFF (Sanctuary in 2022, The Substance in 2024), so this could continue the streak.

Hamlet (dir. Aneil Karia) and Hamnet (dir. Chloe Zhao)

The first film adaptation of Hamlet with a predominantly non-white cast, Aneil Karia’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s classic is set in the present day London South Asian community and stars Riz Ahmed in the titular role. Karia and Ahmed won an Oscar in 2022 for their short film The Long Goodbye. The film is premiering at TIFF50, also starring Morfydd Clark as Ophelia and Joe Alwyn as Laertes.

Speaking of Shakespeare and Oscars, Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet is also premiering at TIFF 2025. The film centers on William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Jessi Buckley) grieving the death of their 11-year old son, Hamnet. Zhao’s 2020 film Nomadland was awarded the People’s Choice Award at TIFF 2020, and went on to win Best Picture and Best Director.

The Smashing Machine (dir. Benny Safdie) and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (dir. Mary Bronstein)

Following their 2019 masterpiece Uncut Gems, the Safdie Brothers are pulling a Coen Brothers and tackling their next films on their own. Benny’s film, The Smashing Machine, follows UFC Champion Mark Kerr (Dwayne Johnson) and his girlfriend Dawn (Emily Blunt). 

Also at TIFF50, Mary Bronstein (longtime Safdie Brothers collaborator and wife of Uncut Gems and Good Time co-writer Ronald Bronstein) returns with her first film in 17 years, the dark comedy If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. Rose Byrne won the SIlver Bear for Best Leading Performance at Berlin this year, for her turn as Linda, a working wife and mother “faced with escalating anxieties and pressures looking after a sick daughter while dealing with a home that’s literally caving in”. A$AP Rocky and Conan O’Brien also star.

It’s a shame that Marty Supreme (dir. Josh Safdie, co-written by Ronald Bronstein) isn’t also playing at TIFF 2025, otherwise we could have had the complete Safdie-Bronstein 2025 trifecta.

The Testament of Ann Lee (dir. Mona Fastvold)

The creative couple behind The Brutalist (dir. Brady Corbet, co-written by Mona Fastvold) returns with The Testament of Ann Lee (dir. Mona Fastvold, co-written by Brady Corbet), a historical musical drama about the leader of the 18th-century Shaker religious sect, Ann Lee (Amanda Seyfried). The film also features rising stars Thomasin McKenzie, Lewis Pullman and Christopher Abbott. Any musical with Amanda Seyfried is worth checking out, and the talent in front of and behind the camera for this film makes it feel undeniable.

Ballad of a Small Player (dir. Edward Berger)

Berger follows up his recent hits All Quiet on the Western Front (TIFF 2022) and Conclave (TIFF 2024) with Ballad of a Small Player, starring Colin Farrell as a desperate travelling gambler attempting to lay low in Macau, and Tilda Swinton as a detective trying to find him. I’ve tried to catch Berger’s last two films at TIFF with no success, and this is yet again another target. Any film set in the world of gambling and casinos, whether it be high end or seedy, tends to appeal to me.

The Wizard of the Kremlin (dir. Olivier Assayas)

The French master’s latest film is set in 1990s post-Soviet Russia and follows Vadim Baranov (Paul Dano), a TV producer who stumbles into the role of spin doctor for a rising Vladimir Putin (Jude Law). Alicia Vikander and Jeffrey Wright also star. Assayas is a consistently fascinating filmmaker, and I am extremely excited to see his take on what sounds like his most mainstream movie yet. It also sounds like a fascinating companion to Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice from last year.

Fuze (dir. David Mackenzie)

David Mackenzie directed Hell or High Water. This is the description for Fuze:

“A long-buried WWII bomb found in central London sparks a mass evacuation, providing the perfect cover for a bank heist.”

Not sure what else I need to sell you on. Hell yeah. Fuze stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Sam Worthington, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Theo James.

Honourable Mentions:

• Frankenstein (dir. Guillermo Del Toro)
• Sentimental Value (dir. Joachim Trier)
• The Lost Bus (dir. Paul Greengrass)
• It Was Just an Accident (dir. Jafar Panahi)
• The Secret Agent (dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho)

You can see a list of all the TIFF50 films here.

See you at the movies, and keep up with our TIFF 25 coverage here at Feature First.