Toronto watchlist: singing Jodie Comer, Tokyo bad cop and new British premieres
Variety has named 20 international titles to track at the Toronto International Film Festival, which runs Sept. 10-20, 2026, with British world premieres, a competitive Platform slate and new work from Asia, Latin America and Europe leading the list Variety.
Britain arrives in force. Three U.K. titles will have world premieres at Toronto with Helen Mirren, Laura Linney, Rhys Ifans, Erin Doherty and James McAvoy among the stars, according to the selection published Sept. 13. A fourth British entry, gothic rom-com "Stuffed," features Jodie Comer singing.
Toronto's Platform section sits at the centre of the list. Platform is the festival's competitive strand for distinctive new cinema. Variety notes that 42% of this year's Platform titles come from female directors, and that the section winner now heads straight into the Oscar race for international feature.
The tracking list is deliberately forward-looking. It focuses on new titles and leaves out "Jim Queen" and Spain's trio from the Cannes main competition. That choice puts the spotlight on discoveries rather than festival-circuit returners.
Two of those discoveries come from the British Isles. Variety points to Scotland's Tom Nicoll and Ireland's David Turpin as new and noteworthy voices. Turpin directs "Ancestors," an Ireland-U.K. co-production from Samson Films and Lunatica screening in Discovery, the section reserved for first and second features.
"Ancestors" follows Beau, a young gay man in 1980s London searching for his missing friend Tiny, in the aftermath of the AIDS crisis. The cast includes Éanna Hardwicke, Jack Wolfe, Jessica Reynolds, Rupert Everett and Christina Hendricks. International sales are handled by Mister Smith Entertainment.
India has a single entry in Platform. "Angh," from director Theja Rio, expands his 2021 short into a feature from Winter Hymns Films and Undercover Squirrel. It centres on Anghba, a chief in Nagaland in the 1960s, with Douglas Henshall playing a missionary.
Latin America is led by Brazil. Gabriel Martins' "On Behalf of My Son" plays in Platform, which Variety describes as the biggest international hope this year from a Brazilian director.
Big names meet genre fare in Special Presentations, Toronto's showcase for high-profile premieres. "Bad Lieutenant: Tokyo," from director Miike Takashi, is a U.S.-U.K.-Japan-France co-production from OLM, Nippon TV, Pressman Film, Recorded Picture Company and TF1 Films. It is the third film in the lineage after Abel Ferrara's 1992 original and Werner Herzog's New Orleans reboot.
Shun Oguri stars as a gambling-addicted Tokyo cop, with Lily James as a missing politician's daughter, and the film had its world premiere at Toronto. The script is by Daisuke Tengan, who wrote Miike's "13 Assassins."
What makes this stand out for festival watchers is the mix of sales titles and awards pointers. "Wild Wild East," for example, is teased as a story of many twists and turns with an ending that throws what Variety calls a straight punch to the head. For fans, this means the next wave of arthouse releases and awards submissions is taking shape in Toronto this week.
