The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is getting sporty! TIFF unveiled the selections for its Galas and Special Presentations programmes today and the documentary slate includes several films about iconic athletes and adventurers. On the Canadian side, the Galas boast two doc profiles Canucks who went the distance for worthy causes. Man in Motion: The Rick Hansen Story chronicles the Paralympian’s global tour from 1985 to 1987 as he pushed himself around the world after an accident left him paralysed. The film directed by Adrian Buitenhuis has its world premiere at the festival. Buitenhuis has previously captured the stories of many famous faces in arts and culture through his I Am series.
Meanwhile, Run Terry Run revisits Terry Fox’s heroic run to raise awareness for cancer. The film directed by Sean Menard (299 Queen Street West) shares the story of Fox’s cross-country marathon that inspired many Canadians. The documentary features an extensive archive of never-seen-before footage from Fox’s journey. The film marks something of an outlier in TIFF’s glitzy red carpet slate, which often focuses heavily on premiere status, as it screened in a public “preview” event back in November at Roy Thomson Hall with a live concert by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. There’s no word yet if the festival will repeat the live music angle.
Meanwhile, the TIFF Galas include the Canadian premiere of Jennifer Peedom’s Tenzing. The drama from the long-time documentary director profiles mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, arguably the most famous Sherpa and the first mountain guide to reach the top of Mount Everest in his historic 1953 summit. Peedom’s Sherpa previously screened in TIFF Docs and she chronicled mountain culture in the aptly titled doc Mountain.
It’s a double dose of mountain movies at TIFF this year, too, as festival favourites Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi return with Everest: The Other Side. The documentary has its Canadian premiere in the Special Presentations line-up and returns the prolific duo to the festival after debuting Love + War in TIFF Docs last year to great acclaim. Chin and Vasarheyli are noted adventurers themselves with their love for the outdoors fuelling some of the most well-received docs in recent festival history with Free Solo and The Rescue both winning the People’s Choice Award for documentary and the former going on to score the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
The Canadian side of TIFF’s Galas and Special Presentation announcement also includes the “documentary adjacent” title of The Stunt Driver, Michael Dowse’s dramatic take on stunt driver Ken Carter’s gonzo attempt to jump the St. Lawrence River in a rocket car. Carter’s story was previously chronicled in Robert Fortier’s NFB doc The Devil at Your Heels. The filmmaker reportedly served as a consultant on Dowse’s film and his crew appears as characters in the drama. Carter’s story was remade in the 2016 doc musical Aim for the Roses.
Other docs on the ticket include Always Lalisa about BLACKPINK K-pop idol Lisa in this backstage portrait from Sue Kim (Last of the Sea Women). Another rockumentary comes in Pretenders, Jess Crowley’s look at the titular band. Both docs are world premieres with the forming hitting the red carpet in the Gala slate and the latter landing in Special Presentations.
Outside the documentary side, TIFF’s announcement today includes a robust line-up of films expected to generate Oscar buzz. Among them is the based-on-a-true-story Elsinore, which recounts the final performances of late Chariots of Fire star Ian Charleson as he gives a swan song in Hamlet before dying of AIDS. Early word for Andrew Scott’s performance is very strong, as is hype for Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti in Jesse Eisenberg’s The Debut. Also based on a true story is TIFF’s closing night feature Villeneuve: Rise of a Legend, Yan Lanouette Turgeon’s biopic about racing star Gilles Villeneuve. The drama bookends the Gala slate with true stories as the festival kicks off with Being Heumann, a drama about disability rights activist Judith Heumann.
The full slate of TIFF Galas and Special Presentations announced today is as follows:
Galas
A Talent for Murder | Anton Corbijn | United Kingdom, Italy
World Premiere
All About Corinne | Marc Fitoussi | France
North American Premiere
Always Lalisa | Sue Kim | USA
World Premiere
Atonement | Reed Van Dyk | USA
North American Premiere
Babies | Lauren Miller Rogen | USA
World Premiere
*Being Heumann | Siân Heder | USA
World Premiere
Opening Night Film
Bunker | Florian Zeller | France, Spain
North American Premiere
Diary of a Mad Old Man | Wayne Wang | USA
World Premiere
Evil Genius | Courteney Cox | USA
World Premiere
Girl Group | Rebel Wilson | United Kingdom
World Premiere
Man in Motion: The Rick Hansen Story | Adrian Buitenhuis | Canada
World Premiere
Misty Green | Chris Rock | USA
World Premiere
Onwards and Sideways | John Madden | United Kingdom
World Premiere
Pretenders | Joss Crowley | United Kingdom
World Premiere
*Prima Facie | Susanna White | Australia, United Kingdom
World Premiere
Run Terry Run | Sean Menard | Canada
Spirit Guardians: The Last Secret of the First Emperor | Nguyen Phan Quang Binh | Vietnam
International Premiere
Tenzing | Jennifer Peedom | USA, Australia
Canadian Premiere
*The Assassin(s) | Hur Jin-ho | South Korea
World Premiere
The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd | Tim Blake Nelson | USA
World Premiere
The Only Living Pickpocket in New York | Noah Segan | USA
Canadian Premiere
Up Against It | Trudie Styler | United Kingdom
World Premiere
Villeneuve: The Rise of a Legend | Yan Lanouette Turgeon | Canada
World Premiere
Closing Night Film
2026 Special Presentations
*previously announced
A Long Winter | Andrew Haigh | Canada, United Kingdom
Canadian Premiere
All of a Sudden | Ryûsuke Hamaguchi | France, Japan, Germany, Belgium
North American Premiere
All That She Wants | Scarlett Bermingham, Andrew Rhymer | USA, Canada
World Premiere
*Alpha Gang | David Zellner, Nathan Zellner | USA
International Premiere
Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo | Takashi Miike | USA, United Kingdom, Japan
World Premiere
Bitter Christmas | Pedro Almodóvar | Spain
North American Premiere
Clarissa | Arie Esiri, Chuko Esiri | Nigeria, USA
North American Premiere
Club Kid | Jordan Firstman | USA
Canadian Premiere
Coward | Lukas Dhont | Belgium
North American Premiere
Elsinore | Simon Stone | United Kingdom
Canadian Premiere
Everest: The Other Side | Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi | USA
Canadian Premiere
Everybody Wants To F*** Me | Jonathan Schey | United Kingdom, France, USA
World Premiere
Faith | Paul Andrew Williams | United Kingdom
World Premiere
Fjord | Cristian Mungiu | Romania, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark
Canadian Premiere
Gentle Monster | Marie Kreutzer | Austria
Canadian Premiere
*Glaxo | Benjamín Naishtat | Argentina, Brazil
World Premiere
Growth of the Soil | Hans Petter Moland | Norway
World Premiere
Happily Ever After | Feng-I Fiona Roan | Taiwan
World Premiere
Hombre al agua | Gael García Bernal | Mexico
North American Premiere
I Play Rocky | Peter Farrelly | USA
World Premiere
In Alaska | Jaap van Heusden, Vinnie Karetak | Netherlands, Canada
World Premiere
Ink | Danny Boyle | United Kingdom, France, USA
Canadian Premiere
Josephine | Beth de Araújo | USA
Canadian Premiere
La Bola Negra | Javier Calvo, Javier Ambrossi | Spain, France
Canadian Premiere
Le Faux Soir | Michaël R. Roskam | Belgium, France
World Premiere
Look Back | Hirokazu Kore-eda | Japan
North American Premiere
*Love of Your Life | Rachel Morrison | USA
World Premiere
Minotaur | Andrey Zvyagintsev | France, Germany, Latvia
Canadian Premiere
Mr. Nelson, Did You Kill People? | Shinya Tsukamoto | Japan
North American Premiere
Paradise Lost | Yeon Sang-ho | South Korea
World Premiere
Phoolan | Richie Mehta | India
World Premiere
Possible Love | Lee Chang-dong | South Korea
North American Premiere
Tender Loving Care | Mike Leigh | United Kingdom
Canadian Premiere
The Age of Goodbyes | Edmund Yeo | Taiwan, Malaysia
World Premiere
The Beloved | Rodrigo Sorogoyen | Spain
North American Premiere
The Debut | Jesse Eisenberg | USA
International Premiere
*The Housewife | Ben Shirinian | USA
World Premiere
The Julia Set | Niki Byrne | USA
World Premiere
The Man I Love | Ira Sachs | USA
North American Premiere
The Stunt Driver | Michael Dowse | Canada
World Premiere
The Unknown | Arthur Harari | France
North American Premiere
Whatcha Want | Mina Shum | Canada
World Premiere
*Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother | Bassam Tariq | USA
World Premiere
