The first weekend of the Toronto International Film Festival 2026 is finishing up. I have seen four films and have two more to go. Here are the six that I got tickets to (description courtesy of of the film's TIFF page):
1. The Smell of Apples (dir. John Trengove)
In 1974, in an insulated and sunny white apartheid South Africa, 11-year-old Marnus (Dawian van der Westhuizen) lives his best life. His amazing father (Hilton Pelser) plays a lot with him, his beautiful mother (Maude Sandham) is a devoted spouse, his friend Frikkie (Wian Carstens) is almost a brother and his nanny Doreen (Celeste Matthews Wannenburgh) discreetly takes care of everyone.
But when Mr. Smith (Alejandro Goic), a secretive Chilean colleague of his father, turns up at their home, the peaceful harmony of Marnus’s idyllic life is suddenly shattered. In just five days, his wonderful world begins to crumble. Realizing that the beauty around him is actually tinged with cruelty and oppression, Marnus comes to see that everything he once believed was nothing more than a mirage.
Adapted from South African writer Mark Behr’s 1993 bestselling novel, The Smell of Apples offers an intimate and radical insight into the apartheid regime from the perspective of those who benefited from it — whether they were aware of it or not. Behind every privilege and advantage lies a sordid truth that everyone prefers to ignore. By facing that reality head-on, director John Trengove offers us not only a brilliant exploration of human baseness, but also a stark reminder that responsibility is shared with those who pretend it does not exist.
CLAIRE DIAO
TIFF, cercamon, wikipedia, BALDR
2. Lemonade (dir. Kim Bartley)
After years in Ireland’s foster care system, Danny is required by law to leave the home that has been his world. On the day he turns 18, he finds himself alone in a tiny Dublin studio apartment, working an entry-level factory job, and navigating the bewildering freedoms and responsibilities of adulthood. As he struggles to find his footing — and a way back to the younger brother he was forced to leave behind — the reappearance of his former social worker Josh (Barry Keoghan, TIFF ’24’s Bring Them Down and Bird) offers both an unexpected lifeline and a painful reminder that trust, once broken, is never easily rebuilt.
Drawing on a distinguished documentary career, including time spent alongside young people living on society’s margins, writer-director Kim Bartley brings humanity and compassion to her first narrative feature. Yet Lemonade never settles for the conventions of grim social realism.
Instead, Bartley observes Danny tenderly, discovering warmth, humour, romance, and gentle beauty in everyday moments while refusing to define him by the circumstances that have shaped his life. Lewis Brophy is a revelation as Danny, carrying the film with extraordinary authenticity, honesty, and emotional intelligence as he adroitly traverses the fragile threshold between adolescence and adult life. Co-star and executive producer Keoghan is a grounding force as the social worker who knows all too well the challenges Danny faces.
Lemonade is ultimately less about the failures of a system than the resilience and dignity of a young man determined to build a life on his own terms.
JASON RYLE
TIFF, wikipedia, iMDb
3. The Final Act (dir. Sophie Deraspe)
With growing access to medically assisted dying in jurisdictions worldwide, many of us are facing the kind of moral and ethical questions we may prefer to avoid lest they challenge us too deeply. And however we may answer those questions, there’s no denying the choices that we or our loved ones make about how to depart the world of the living carry profound weight.
In her extraordinary new documentary, filmmaker Sophie Deraspe approaches the subject with grace and sensitivity. Part of what makes The Final Act so remarkable is the balance that the director — whose films Antigone (TIFF ’19) and Shepherds (TIFF ’24) both won the Festival’s Best Canadian Feature prize — strikes between the film’s two carefully integrated components.
The first is a philosophical enquiry into humankind’s attitudes toward death and dying, with invaluable contributions by big thinkers like American social psychologist Sheldon Solomon. In the second, Deraspe’s film brings viewers into the lives and final moments of a variety of subjects who have decided to undertake medically assisted death.
Achieving an uncommon degree of intimacy while maintaining all the respect and reverence such moments deserve, Deraspe creates a space for contemplation. Yet for all the weight that The Final Act itself possesses, the film is suffused with great warmth, beauty, love, and lightness, too.
JASON ANDERSON
TIFF, wikipedia, iMDb
4. Tangles (dir. Leah Nelson)
Sarah Leavitt’s graphic memoir Tangles: A Story about Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me comes to life in hand-drawn 2D animation, in director Leah Nelson’s deeply moving feature debut.
Set in San Francisco in the ’90s, Tangles follows the story of Sarah, a young woman whose life is just beginning to tip into the stuff her dreams are made of — new opportunities to illustrate, a new romance with a bad-ass motorcycle-riding girlfriend named Donimo — when the pull of responsibility calls for her. Sarah’s lively mother Midge is battling Alzheimer’s disease, and the rest of the family is struggling to come to terms with the diagnosis.
The animation is perfectly paired with an incredible cast. Sarah is voiced by Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Enough Said, TIFF ’13) is unforgettable as Midge, Bryan Cranston (The Upside, TIFF ’17) voices Midge’s husband Rob, Beanie Feldstein plays Sarah’s sister Hannah, and Samira Wiley is Donimo.
Levity — the film’s top-notch supporting voice cast also includes comedians Seth Rogen, Bowen Yang, Sarah Silverman, Wanda Sykes, and Pamela Adlon — balances the heavy material, as Sarah tries to make sense of what’s happening with her mom’s failing mental acuity and the sudden, daunting role reversal of caring for a parent.
Tangles deals with memories, family, and, most importantly, love, rendered in black and white animation, with bursts of colour. A film about memories, this one will stay with you.
KELLY BOUTSALIS
TIFF, wikipedia, iMDb
5. Re/Pair (dir. Lacey Schwartz Delgado)
“I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that now we’re in a crisis around Black and Jewish community,” says Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors who sits in discussion with her former camp counselor, Rabbi Susan Goldberg. This is just one of many riveting talks that are staged in Re/Pair between members of American Black and Jewish communities.
Filmmaker Lacey Schwartz Delgado has a stake in both identities, a personal history she explored in her documentary Little White Lie. Here, she creates a lively format to foster communication, by pairing up prominent Black and Jewish personalities from across different disciplines in conversation with one another. They include writers W. Kamau Bell and Adam Mansbach; commentators Van Jones and Batya Ungar-Sargon; actors Harry Lennix and David Schwimmer — to name a few of the 19 different pairings. Their conversations are interwoven into a wide-ranging discourse characterized by respect, candor, and humour.
The flow of topics brings up historical moments both good and bad. The civil rights alliance between Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Heschel reminds us of the common causes these communities once found. Now how do we process divisive moments that trigger deep hurt, including the polarizing debates around Israel and Palestine? Today, as hateful demagogues push ideas like “replacement theory,” we can see how racism and antisemitism are continually twinned together. Re/Pair doesn’t offer simple solutions. But it does demonstrate the need for us to move away from our social media feedback loops and hold our own dialogues where listening is as important as speaking.
THOM POWERS
TIFF, iMDb
6. Rehearsals for a Revolution (dir. Pegah Ahangarani)
Celebrated Iranian actor Pegah Ahangarani’s breakout performance came at a young age in The Girl in the Sneakers (1999). Her career flourished over the years, appearing in approximately 40 films before pivoting to stepping behind the camera. Ahangarani’s debut feature is grounded in the Iranian concept of yād — mining memory — through an essayistic form, weaving together home movies, family photographs, and news broadcasts to construct a vivid portrait of Iran’s modern history in the four decades since the revolution.
Balancing the personal with the political, the film unfolds in five chapters, each devoted to a figure who shaped Ahangarani’s life: her revolutionary filmmaker father, Jamshid Ahangarani; her beloved teacher, Shermin Sarra; her uncle, Rashid; her close friend, Amir; with the final section dedicated to her young daughter, Lily. Each chapter confronts seismic turning points in Iranian history — moments when hope and the promise of change were palpable — from the 1997 election of Mohammad Khatami and the 2009 protests to the persistent oppression of the current regime and the ongoing destruction from U.S. and Israeli missiles.
Now living in exile, Ahangarani grapples with her role in the ongoing struggle — one that is resolute and unwavering. She clings fiercely to hope and to the “people who didn’t give up, who rehearsed for the revolution,” remaining steadfast in the fight for justice and freedom.
The winner of Cannes’ L'Œil d'Or documentary prize, Rehearsals for a Revolution skillfully fuses the political with the personal, resonating powerfully with current events.
THOM POWERS
TIFF, wikipedia, iMDb, Sony Pictures
