Oscar buzz for Russell Crowe and other Toronto Film Festival highlights

2 days ago 6

In a sea of red carpets and flashing cameras, all eyes at the Toronto International Film Festival naturally fall on the A-list stars there to promote their films: Dwayne Johnson, who stars in The Smashing Machine, and Ryan Reynolds, who produced John Candy: I Like Me.

But the strange thing about motion pictures – strips of plastic film coated in a light-sensitive emulsion – is that when you un-spool them and shine a projector light through them, they have a way of taking on a life of their own.

Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst in Roofman.

With a guest list that included Keanu Reeves, Emily Blunt, Daniel Craig, Paul Mescal, Jodie Foster, Dustin Hoffman, Ralph Fiennes, Josh O’Connor and Scarlett Johansson, it is clear that Toronto is a magnet for both big films and their very big stars.

The 50-year-old festival is one of the film industry’s big four, along with Berlin, Cannes and Venice. These are the festivals which lay the groundwork for the so-called “awards season”, a road map that will take us to the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards in January, and the Oscars in March.

Angelina Jolie and Louis Garrel in Couture.

Angelina Jolie was there to promote Couture, written and directed by Alice Winocour, in which Jolie plays Maxine Walker, an American filmmaker who takes a film crew behind the scenes of Fashion Week in Paris. Baz Luhrmann was there too, promoting EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert.

And Netflix’s travelling Frankenstein roadshow – director Guillermo del Toro, and actors Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi – flew in direct from the Venice Film Festival, where they were surfing a wave of buzz.

But away from the red carpets and big-media energy, Toronto’s big difference to the other three industry-facing festivals is that it throws open its doors to the public, with something in the order of 700,000 people watching movies across the 11-day festival schedule.

Tessa Thompson in the 2025 film Hedda, based on Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen.

And in an era where people might think the advent of streaming and the splintering of the content landscape means it’s harder to find good films, the good news is there’s no shortage of great films coming down the pipeline. And none of them have superheroes in them.

Here are my top five:

Matthew McConaughey as Kevin McKay in The Lost Bus.

The Lost Bus, directed by Paul Greengrass
Based on the non-fiction 2021 book Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson, this is an amplified interpretation of the events of California’s Camp Fire in 2018, where a busload of children and their teacher were led to safety by bus driver Kevin McKay.

Matthew McConaughey brings considerable charm to the role of McKay, and America Ferrera is brilliant as Mary Ludwig, the school teacher who finds herself battling impossible odds alongside him.

The film might otherwise have been a textbook survival thriller, but McConaughey’s performance is loaded with nuance and complexity, and as Greengrass turns up the tension, you’re left clutching your seat, white-knuckled and praying for the best outcome.

Stellan Skarsgård and Elle Fanning in the Norwegian comedy-drama film Sentimental Value.

Sentimental Value (Affeksjonsverdi), directed by Joachim Trier
When director Gustav Borg (Stellan Skarsgård) split from his wife, the family drifted and daughter Nora (Renate Reinsve) became an actress, while Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) became a wife and mother.

Now, after their mother’s death, the two sisters must contend with their newly resurfaced father and his acquaintance, Rachel (Elle Fanning), an American actress who may star in a film he is writing about the family.

In lesser hands, this slow-moving Norwegian character drama might have been an arty flick consigned to the fringes, but Skarsgård’s Gustav is alternately lovable and frustrating, and Reinsve and Lilleaas are sisters wrestling with their own demons. It is surprising, delightful and compelling.

Channing Tatum stars as a returned serviceman who begins breaking into business via the roof in Roofman.

Roofman, directed by Derek Cianfrance
Maybe the best movies are the ones that defy your expectations, and Roofman certainly ticks that box. Channing Tatum plays Jeff Manchester, a former soldier who became known in the American media as “Roofman” because he broke into businesses via the roof.

Manchester escapes from jail, hides behind a display wall at the local Toys’R’Us store and eventually meets and falls in love with one of the store’s employees, Leigh (Kirsten Dunst).

That summary, however, doesn’t capture either the brilliance of Cianfrance’s directing, or Tatum and Dunst’s chemistry. Honourable mentions: Ben Mendelsohn as the kindly local pastor, and Peter Dinklage as the irascible store manager Mitch.

2+2=5, directed and produced by Raoul Peck, about the life of author George Orwell.

Orwell: 2+2=5, directed by Raoul Peck
At first glance, a documentary about the life and published words of author George Orwell, Orwell: 2+2=5 quickly transforms into something infinitely more complex.

The documentary makes good use of adaptations of Orwell’s work, particularly Animal Farm (1954) and 1984 (1956), and juxtaposes both of those to contemporary headlines and newsreels to illustrate with devastating effect how the themes of Orwell’s work are as relevant in the present day as they were when first written, perhaps even more so.

Orwell: 2+2=5 is produced by Alex Gibney, the director/producer whose work includes Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012) and Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015).

Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring in Nuremberg.

Nuremberg, directed by James Vanderbilt
Based on the 2013 book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai, Nuremberg is the story of psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), who comes to the post-war ruins of Germany to interview Nazi second-in-command Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe) and determine if he is fit for trial.

Both turn in illuminating performances, as the audiences quickly loses its certainty of who is manipulating who. But this is no two-hander: John Slattery plays prison commandant Burton C. Andrus, Michael Shannon plays prosecutor Robert H. Jackson and Leo Woodall turns in what could be a career best performance as Sgt Howie Triest.

Nuremberg is not easy viewing, it’s brutal at times, and leaves the cinema in stunned silence at others, but it is a formidable piece of work which, if the Oscar buzz that dominated the post-screening chatter is any indicator, could transform into a career-defining performance for Crowe, and an early contender for the little gold man.

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