By John Corrado The latest movie from Cartoon Saloon, the Irish animation studio behind beloved modern films like Wolfwalkers, The Breadwinner, Song of the Sea and The Secret of Kells, Julián is very sweet and charming story about a little boy who dreams of being a mermaid. The film centres around the titular Julián (voiced… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Julián (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado In his feature debut River, partially inspired by his 2018 short film In Sound, We Live Forever, director Joshua Giuliano crafts a fun slasher movie built around the deceptively simple yet effective premise of three siblings trapped on a river. The siblings are Lucy (Jane Levy), Carla (Jessica Rothe) and Drew (Max… Read More #TIFF26 Review: River (Midnight Madness)
By John Corrado A century after it was first published, Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel Mrs. Dalloway gets a contemporary adaptation from filmmaker brothers Arie and Chuko Esiri, who find a fresh angle by setting their version in modern day Lagos, Nigeria. Sophie Okonedo stars in the film as the titular Clarissa Dalloway, who is preparing… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Clarissa (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Director, writer and star Jordan Firstman delivers an accomplished debut feature with Club Kid, a major crowdpleaser which plays like the gay, indie, A24-backed answer to Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy. And it’s something special. Firstman stars in the film as Peter, a club promoter in New York City who is living a… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Club Kid (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Toy Gun Bandit, the new film from Quebec writer-director Rémi St-Michel, is a work that feels inspired by the scrappy, propulsive filmmaking of the Safdie brothers. That’s a lofty comparison, to be sure, but their influence is felt throughout this frenetic Québécois crime movie, which serves as both an entertaining and suspenseful… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Toy Gun Bandit (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado In Coward, his third and most ambitious feature yet, Belgian filmmaker Lukas Dhont (Girl, Close) takes us back to World War I. Dhont’s works all explore gender identity and burgeoning sexuality, and those themes get fine-tuned here as he explores the homoerotic tensions between young Belgian soldiers who arrive on the front… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Coward (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado The latest from Japanese filmmaker Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, All of a Sudden is primarily a film about the different ways we care for each other, weaving themes about the bureaucratic power structure of a nursing home into a character drama. It’s an ambitious undertaking, even more so when you account for the fact… Read More #TIFF26 Review: All of a Sudden (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival ran from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto The Kabin Crew, a group of aspiring child rappers and musicians in Cork, Ireland, went viral in 2024 with the high energy music video for their upbeat song “The Spark.” The kids behind the viral sensation are… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: Gealtra
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto In his documentary The Oldest Person in the World, filmmaker Sam Green focuses on people who have lived for over a century. These are the world record holders for longest lifespan, with French woman Jeanne Calment holding… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: The Oldest Person in the World
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto Soraya, the young subject at the centre of A Fox Under a Pink Moon, is an Afghan teen girl living in Iran, who is trying to flee across the Turkish border so she can make her way… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: A Fox Under a Pink Moon
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto Janay Boulos is a Lebanese journalist living in London, working as an Arabic correspondent for the BBC. Abd Alkader Habak is a photographer in Syria, forced to flee from the city of Idlib to Aleppo, as the… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: Birds of War
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto Director Tommy Avallone’s flashy documentary Myspace is a look at the rise and fall of the original social media platform, taking us back to the internet culture of the early to mid-2000s. Avallone explores the history of… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: Myspace
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto Kenny Loggins is the latest musical artist to get a career retrospective in the form of a documentary. Directed by Dori Berinstein, Kenny Loggins: Conviction of the Heart is a portrait of the musician, who scored massive… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: Kenny Loggins: Conviction of the Heart
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto Quebec filmmaker Jean-François Caissy’s Kindergarten unfolds almost like a nature documentary, only we are following human children instead of animals. Caissy’s film is set in a daycare centre in Quebec, and his approach involves just putting a… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: Kindergarten
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto The latest film from Canadian documentary filmmaker Barry Avrich (The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, Born Hungry), This Above All: The Theatrical Life of Antoni Cimolino serves as a polished biographical portrait of a man who… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: This Above All: The Theatrical Life of Antoni Cimolino
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto In the slice-of-life documentary On My Own Terms, director Tadeusz Chudy follows teenaged half-siblings Pawel and Julka, who are living together at an orphanage in Poland. Pawel is a promising young boxer, whose coach sees a lot… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: On My Own Terms
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto When Mahsa Amini was arrested by the morality police in Iran for violating the country’s mandatory hijab laws, and later died in custody, her death sparked the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement when activists would risk and in… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: A War on Women
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto The world is facing a loneliness epidemic, with people starved for connection but struggling to meet each other in real life. Dating apps are filling that void, but come with their own set of challenges; these apps… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: Love Apptually
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto In their documentary Gimme Truth, co-directors Simon Ennis and Brad Abrahams explore modern conspiracy theories, by introducing us to a variety of subjects who believe in them. Their views range from vaccine skeptics to 9/11 truthers. These… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: Gimme Truth
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto In her documentary Black Zombie, director Maya Annik Bedward ties the modern zombie lore we see in horror movies and TV shows back to the history of Haiti and the ancient spiritual practice of Vodou. Bedward traces… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: Black Zombie
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