TIFF 2023 lineup adds Nickelback and Sylvester Stallone documentaries, Anna Kendrick's serial killer film

The 2023 Toronto International Film Festival is almost here — and, as usual, likely Oscar contenders and star-studded vehicles are headed north as part of this year's lineup.

While the number of projects among TIFF's 2023 lineup is expected to grow by the hundreds, the festival has revealed dozens of titles so far, led by the world-premiere screening of writer-director Taika Waititi's buzzy sports drama Next Goal Wins starring Michael Fassbender and Elisabeth Moss in a tale about the 2001 American Samoa soccer team's attempt to rise through the ranks as one of the worst teams in the world at the time.

Closing the festival will be Netflix's Thom Zimny-directed Sylvester Stallone documentary Sly, which highlights the Rocky actor's "perseverance, triumph, and his indelible mark left on the world of film" across the last 50 years, according to a statement from TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey.

The festival earlier announced that Hate to Love, a documentary about widely derided band Nickelback, will also world-premiere at the festival alongside Woman of the Hour, Anna Kendrick's directorial debut about serial killer Rodney Alcala's appearance on The Dating Game in 1978, Chris Pine's directorial outing Poolman, Colman Domingo's highly anticipated Bayard Rustin biopic, and Hayao Miyazaki's latest animated fantasy The Boy and the Heron.

Midnight Madness programming will again welcome oddball and horror-leaning cinema to the festival, including Seinfeld writer Larry Charles' Megan Thee Stallion-starring film Dicks: The Musical and director Harmony Korine's AGGRO DR1FT to its lineup, while a new directorial effort from Oscar-winning actress Patricia Arquette (Gonzo Girl) will also screen.

As previously announced, Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan's latest will also debut at the festival, with his Amanda Seyfried-starring thriller Seven Veils slated for a world premiere at the 2023 edition alongside French helmer Ladj Ly's second film, Les Indésirables, which follows the release of his 2019 Oscar-nominated feature Les Misérables.

Other high-profile figures releasing projects at TIFF include Richard Linklater (Hit Man), Kore-eda Hirokazu (Monster), Craig Gillespie (Dumb Money), Viggo Mortensen (The Dead Don't Hurt), Alex Gibney (In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon), Michael Keaton (Knox Goes Away), Kristin Scott Thomas (North Star), Ethan Hawke (Wildcat), Justine Triet (Cannes Palme d'Or winner Anatomy of a Fall), and Jonathan Glazer (The Zone of Interest).

More titles are expected to be unveiled soon, as the overall awards landscape takes shape amid the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which will likely impact star presence at the major fall festivals, including similar events in Telluride, Venice, and New York City.

TIFF — the largest public festival in the world — plays a vital role in the global film industry, regularly propping up big-budget commercial projects as well as smaller, independently, and internationally funded prestige releases. The event also has a strong reputation for building buzz for Oscar contenders ahead of the Academy Awards. Across the past decade, nine of the last 10 TIFF People's Choice Award winners have gone on to win or be nominated for the Academy's Best Picture prize — including last year's The Fabelmans.

TIFF 2023 runs from Sept. 7-17 in Toronto. See this year's full lineup below, updating as more additions are announced.

2023 TIFF lineup

Gala Presentations

The Boy and the Heron (dir. Hayao Miyazaki) — Opening night film
Concrete Utopia (dir. Um Tae-Hwa)
Dumb Money (dir. Craig Gillespie)
The End We Start From (dir. Mahalia Belo)
Fair Play (dir. Chloe Domont)
Flora and Son (dir. John Carney)
Hate to Love: Nickelback (dir. Leigh Brooks)
Lee (dir. Ellen Kuras)
The Movie Emperor (dir. Ning Hao)
The New Boy (dir. Warwick Thornton)
Next Goal Wins (dir. Taika Waititi)
NYAD (dir. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi)
Punjab '95 (dir. Honey Trehan)
The Royal Hotel (dir. Kitty Green)
Sly (dir. Thom Zimny) — Closing night film
Solo (dir. Sophie Dupuis)

Special Presentations

A Difficult Year (dir. Éric Toledano, Olivier Nakache)
A Normal Family (dir. Hur Jin-ho)
American Fiction (dir. Cord Jefferson)
Anatomy of a Fall (dir. Justine Triet)
The Beast (dir. Bertrand Bonello)
The Burial (dir. Maggie Betts)
Close to You (dir. Dominic Savage)
The Convert (dir. Lee Tamahori)
The Critic (dir. Anand Tucker)
Days of Happiness (dir. Chloé Robichaud)
The Dead Don't Hurt (dir. Viggo Mortensen)
El Rapto (dir. Daniela Goggi)
Ezra (dir. Tony Goldwyn)
Fingernails (dir. Christos Nikou)
Four Daughters (dir. Kaouther Ben Hania)
His Three Daughters (dir. Azazel Jacobs)
Hit Man (dir. Richard Linklater)
The Holdovers (dir. Alexander Payne)
In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon (dir. Alex Gibney)
Kidnapped (dir. Marco Bellocchio)
Knox Goes Away (dir. Michael Keaton)
La Chimeara (dir. Alice Rohrwacher)
Last Summer (dir. Catherine Breillat)
Les Indésirables (dir. Ladj Ly)
Memory (dir. Michael Franco)
Monster (dir. Kore-eda Hirokazu)
Mother Couch (dir. Niclas Larsson)
North Star (dir. Kristin Scott Thomas)
One Life (dir. James Hawes)
Pain Hustlers (dir. David Yates)
The Peasants (dir. DK Welchman, Hugh Welchman)
Poolman (dir. Chris Pine)
Reptile (dir. Grant Singer)
Rustin (dir. George C. Wolfe)
Seven Veils (dir. Atom Egoyan)
Shoshana (dir. Michael Winterbottom)
Sing Sing (dir. Greg Kwedar)
Smugglers (dir. Ryoo Seung-wan)
Swan Song (dir. Chelsea McMullan)
The Zone of Interest (dir. Jonathan Glazer)
Together 99 (dir. Lukas Moodysson)
Unicorns (dir. Sally El Hosaini, James Krishna Floyd)
Uproar (dir. Paul Middleditch, Hamish Bennett)
Wicked Little Letters (dir. Thea Sharrock)
Wildcat (dir. Ethan Hawke)
Woman of the Hour (dir. Anna Kendrick)

TIFF Docs

Boil Alert (dir. Stevie Salas, James Burns)
Bye Bye Tiberias (dir. Lina Soualem)
The Contestant (dir. Clair Titley)
Copa 71 (dir. Rachel Ramsay, James Erskine)
Defiant (dir. Karim Amer)
Flipside (dir. Chris Wilcha)
God Is a Woman (dir. Andrés Peyrot)
Homecoming (dir. Suvi West, Anssi Kömi)
In the Rearview (dir. Maciek Hamela)
Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros (dir. Frederick Wiseman)
The Mother of All Lies (dir. Asmae El Moudir)
Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa (dir. Lucy Walker)
Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe (dir. Robert McCallum)
The Pigeon Tunnel (dir. Errol Morris)
Silver Dollar Road (dir. Raoul Peck)
Songs of Earth (dir. Margreth Olin)
Sorry/Not Sorry (dir. Caroline Suh)
Stamped From the Beginning (dir. Roger Ross Williams)
Summer Qamp (dir. Jen Markowitz)
Viva Varda! (dir. Pierre-Henri Gibert)
Walls (dir. Kasia Smutniak)
The World Is Family (dir. Anand Patwardhan)

Midnight Madness

AGGRO DR1FT (dir. Harmony Korine)
Boy Kills World (dir. Moritz Mohr)
Dicks: The Musical (dir. Larry Charles)
Hell of a Summer (dir. Finn Wolfhard, Billy Bryk)
KILL (dir. Nikhil Nagesh Bhat)
NAGA (dir. Meshal Aljaser)
Riddle of Fire (dir. Weston Razooli)
Sleep (dir. Jason Yu)
When Evil Lurks (dir. Demián Rugna)
Working Class Goes to Hell (dir. Mladen Dordević)

Discovery

Achilles (dir. Farhad Delaram)
After the Fire (dir. Mehdi Fikri)
A Match (Sthal) (dir. Jayant Digambar Somalkar)
Andragogy (dir. Wregas Bhanuteja)
An Endless Sunday (dir. Alain Parroni)
Arthur&Diana (dir. Sara Summa)
Backspot (dir. D.W. Waterson)
Frybread Face and Me (dir. Billy Luther)
Gonzo Girl (dir. Patricia Arquette)
Hajjan (dir. Abu Bakr Shawky)
How to Have Sex (dir. Molly Manning Walker)
I Don't Know Who You Are (dir. M.H. Murray)
La Suprema (dir. Felipe Holguín Caro)
Mandoob (dir. Ali Kalthami)
Mimang (dir. Kim Taeyang)
Seagrass (dir. Meredith Hama-Brown)
Solitude (dir. Ninna Pálmadóttir)
Tautuktavuk (What We See) (dir. Carol Kunnuk, Lucy Tulugarjuk)
The Teacher (dir. Farah Nabulsi)
The Tundra Within Me (Eallugierdi) (dir. Sara Margrethe Oskal)
The Queen of My Dreams (dir. Fawzia Mirza)
Valentina or the Serenity (Valentina o la serenidad) (dir. Ángeles Cruz)
Widow Clicquot (dir. Thomas Napper)
Wild Woman (dir. Alán González)
Without Air (dir. Katalin Moldovai)
Yellow Bus (dir. Wendy Bednarz)

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