The Toronto International Film Festival celebrates its 50th year in 2025, and this year will play host to a number of exciting world premieres. For TIFF 50, the festival announced 11 new Galas and Special Presentations on Wednesday morning, including heavy hitters like “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” at the September festival.
TIFF 50 will also have Special Presentations for “Franz,” “The Lost Bus,” “Rental Family” and “Steal Away.” The six newly-announced Galas include “The Choral,” “Homebound,” “Hamnet,” “A Private Life,” “Roofman” and “She Has No Name.” Both the Special Presentations and the Galas are meant to platform high-profile premieres from notable creators with significant audience buzz.
By far the standout of this announcement, “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” sees writer/director Rian Johnson return to the world of detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) for his third mystery movie in the franchise. “Knives Out” had its world premiere at TIFF in 2019 to a raucous reception. Like “Glass Onion,” Netflix will release “Wake Up Dead Man” on its streaming service, possibly with a limited theatrical run beforehand.
Johnson has teased a darker, more gothic tone for this entry, which features Craig joined by Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack and Thomas Haden Church. The film will have its world premiere at TIFF ahead of its appearance at BFI London Film Festival on Oct. 8.
Another notable inclusion at the festival will be “Hamnet.” The movie marks Chloé Zhao’s return to filmmaking after 2021’s MCU film “Eternals” and, before that, the Best Picture winner “Nomadland.” Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal star as Agnes and William Shakespeare in this fictionalized story about the couple following the death of their son, Hamnet. Zhao adapts the 2020 novel of the same name alongside original author Maggie O’Farrell. TIFF will host the film’s Canadian premiere.
Derek Cianfrance’s “Roofman” will have its world premiere at the festival only weeks before its Oct. 10 release. The Channing Tatum crime film tells the true story of a man who, after robbing a series of McDonald’s locations and escaping from prison, starts a love affair while hiding from the police and living in a Toys “R” Us. This will be Cianfrance’s first film since 2020’s “Sound of Metal” (for which he received a story credit), and his first directorial credit in film since 2016’s “The Light Between Oceans.”
“The Lost Bus,” based on true events, stars Matthew McConaughey as a bus driver who saves a group of children from a wildfire in a Paul Greengrass feature for Apple TV+. “Rental Family” from director Hikari features Brendan Fraser as an actor in Tokyo hired out to play stand-in roles for other people’s personal lives. Both films will premiere at the festival before releasing this fall.
TIFF 50 will from Sept. 4 through Sept. 14 with more announcements to be made in the coming weeks. A full schedule will be released Aug. 12.
