With 289 features playing at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, picking favorites can be impossible. But here are some on TheWrap's to-do list
"Trumbo"
Director Jay Roach has found a niche in political movies for HBO, and here he tackles the Hollywood blacklist with Bryan Cranston as banned author and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo and Helen Mirren as powerful gossip columnist Hedda Hopper.
"I Saw the Light"
British actor Tom Hiddleston has the lean, haunted look to play country music icon Hank Williams, but can he nail the voice in Marc Abraham’s biopic?
"Where to Invade Next"
Michael Moore hasn’t made a documentary since "Capitalism, a Love Story" six years ago, but the current political climate seems ready-made for his fiery and funny approach.
"Spotlight"
With its top-notch ensemble cast including Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams, director Tom McCarthy’s journalism procedural wowed audiences in Venice and Telluride with its depiction of a team of Boston Globe reporters uncovering the Catholic Church’s sex-abuse scandal.
"Beasts of No Nation"
It’s reportedly hard to watch, but Cary Fukanaga’s child-soldier drama has early critics throwing around comparisons to "Apocalypse Now."
"Freeheld"
Peter Sollett’s timely true story of a lesbian couple in New Jersey who went to court to fight for pension rights stars Julianne Moore and Ellen Page, a formidable team.
"Every Thing Will Be Fine"
After he made the brilliant 3D dance documentary "Pina," German director Wim Wenders said he was going to make an intimate 3D drama – and the result is this film, which stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Rachel McAdams and James Franco, who apparently must by law have at least one film in every film festival.
"The Martian"
Is Ridley Scott’s space odyssey a popcorn movie, or a true awards contender? TIFF audiences will be the first to decide.
"Room"
The buzz out of Telluride is that 8-year-old Jacob Tremblay is a revelation, and maybe an awards contender, for his role in Lenny Abrahamson’s dark drama about a boy raised inside a small room where he and his mother (Brie Larson) are imprisoned.
"Our Brand Is Crisis"
Produced by George Clooney and Grant Heslov and starring Sandra Bullock, Billy Bob Thornton and Scoot McNairy, the new film from David Gordon Green ("Undertow," "Pineapple Express") deals with American political consultants hired to work on a Bolivian election.
"Black Mass"
Reactions from Venice and Telluride say the violence is brutal but Johnny Depp is great (and a strong Oscar contender) as mobster Whitey Bulger, making Scott Cooper’s drama a hot ticket.
"Un Plus Une"
French director Claude Lelouch, best-known for his 1996 film "A Man and a Woman," is working with "The Artist" star (and Oscar winner) Jean Dujardin in a story about a film composer finding love on a trip to India.
"Anomalisa"
Charlie Kaufman, the writer of "Being John Malkovich" and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," made his directorial debut with the thorny "Synecdoche, New York" seven years ago, and his second film (a collaboration with Duke Johnson) is a stop-motion animation production that sounds just as odd and intriguing as his past work.
"The Program"
On the heels of the Oscar-nominated "Philomena," director Stephen Frears turns his sights to the Lance Armstrong saga, with Ben Foster as the disgraced cyclist.
"Stonewall"
Roland Emmerich, the director best known for disaster epics like "Independence Day," gets serious and intimate with the story of the game-changing 1969 New York City riots that helped launch the gay rights movement.
"Heart of a Dog"
Laurie Anderson’s first film in almost 30 years is ostensibly about her dog, but fans of the musician and performance artist know it’ll really be about far, far more than that.
"The Danish Girl"
Tom Hooper’s "The King’s Speech" had a coronation of sorts in Toronto on its way to winning Best Picture, giving his transgender drama with Eddie Redmayne a high bar to reach.
“Desierto”
Writer-director Jonás Cuarón was working on this script when he joined his father Alfonso and took a detour to make the Oscar-winning “Gravity,” but this tale of tensions along the U.S./Mexican border couldn't be timelier.
“Thru You Princess”
Ido Haar’s documentary has one of TIFF’s wildest true stories: Israeli musician Kutiman, who assembles videos from the work of amateur performers he finds on YouTube, in the process making an unlikely star out of a New Orleans caregiver who posts her own videos under the name Princess Shaw.
