Anthony DeSanctis Senior Programming Manager, Cinema Spills His Top 5 Films of the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival! 🍿

1. Hamnet – Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet left me an absolute emotional wreck—it shatters you into a million pieces and then somehow puts you back together. Jessie Buckley delivers a career-best performance that feels destined to make her the front-runner for Best Actress, anchoring a story that captures the raw, unpredictable ways we process grief. Zhao’s direction is intimate and lyrical, turning loss into something both devastating and life-affirming. It’s no wonder the film claimed the festival’s top honor, the People’s Choice Award. I can’t stop thinking about it and cannot wait to experience it again.

Fuse Cast and Crew including director David Mackenzie, and stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Sam Worthington

2. It Was Just an Accident  – A simple story, masterfully told. Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident hooked me from the first frame and never let go—I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. It’s a taut, gripping thriller with elegant pacing and beautifully precise direction. By the end, its slow-burn tension lands with a finale that’s both powerful and haunting, making it one of the most riveting films I’ve seen this year.

3. No Other Choice – NO OTHER CHOICE is another darkly funny, twisted, and razor-sharp commentary from Park Chan-wook, this time aimed squarely at the cutthroat fight to build a future. Park is one of my absolute favorite directors—one of the rare filmmakers whose name alone sells the ticket. His inventive camera work and jaw-dropping editing left me stunned, and Lee Byung-hun is phenomenal as a desperate man who truly has no other choice. It’s a sick, dazzling masterwork that reminds me why I get excited every time Park has something new on the horizon.

4. EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert – Easily my favorite TIFF experience – maybe ever. The audience was on its feet, dancing from start to finish as Baz Luhrmann’s electrifying edit and roof-shaking sound made it feel like the King himself was back in the building. More cinematic fever dream than traditional concert film, it fuses newly restored Las Vegas footage and archival interviews into a dazzling, larger-than-life celebration of Elvis at his peak. It’s pure big-screen magic and a concert film experience I’ll never forget.

Baz Luhrmann

5. Eternity – ETERNITY is the romantic comedy of the year. David Freyne turns a clever high-concept hook—finding yourself in a love triangle after death—into something imaginative, hilarious, and deeply romantic. Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, and Callum Turner shine, with Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early stealing every scene, and the production design and beautifully evocative score make it feel like a rom-com you’d happily spend forever with. It’s charming, heartfelt, and laugh-out-loud funny, and I walked out grinning, already eager to see it again.

Driver’s Ed Cast and Crew including star Molly Shannon and director Bobby Farrelly