TIFF 2025: Studio Absences, a Disability Rights Drama and a Taxidermy Musical

The 51st Toronto International Film Festival is underway, with a steady parade of premieres moving through downtown Toronto. This year's edition has also revived a question that has followed the fall festival circuit: where are the major studio films?

The unease dates back to last September, when Warner Bros. bypassed the fall festivals entirely to launch Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another" directly in theaters — even premiering it while TIFF was running. The strategy was vindicated when the film won best picture at the Academy Awards.

Studios now rarely produce the kind of adult-driven, non-franchise films that traditionally launch at fall festivals. For the few that do get made, the risks of a festival — unpredictable critical response and an inconvenient release date — have sometimes outweighed the rewards. The producers of "Joker: Folie à Deux," which was panned immediately after its Venice Film Festival launch in 2024, can attest to that.

This fall, Warner Bros.' anticipated "Digger," directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and starring Tom Cruise, is skipping festivals. So are Sony's "The Social Reckoning," Aaron Sorkin's follow-up to "The Social Network," and Netflix's "The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth," from David Fincher and Brad Pitt.

Yet a festival can still generate enormous attention. A small surprise screening at Telluride of A24's "You Can See Everything," Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's documentary on Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, was enough to make it one of the year's most buzzed-about titles.

TIFF has traditionally been home to the populist, midbudget movies Hollywood seldom makes now. To fill that gap, the festival has increasingly programmed films up for sale, hoping to lure studios to acquire something that resonates with Toronto audiences. This year, it officially launched a movie market.

Netflix, Apple, Amazon MGM, Neon, A24 and Mubi tend to dominate the festival circuit, so the picture depends on where you look and how "major studio" is defined. Warner Bros. leadership was present on Thursday night: Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, co-chairs and chief executives of the Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group, attended to promote the studio's new specialty label, Clockwork. Its first release will be "Ti Amo!" from Sean Baker, whose "Anora" went from Palme d'Or winner at Cannes to best picture winner at the Oscars.

Opening night belonged to Siân Heder's "Being Heumann," a true-story drama about disability rights pioneer Judy Heumann and the 1977 sit-in that helped spark the movement leading to the Americans with Disabilities Act. As with her best picture-winning "CODA," Heder assembled an ensemble rarely seen on screen, with actors with disabilities in many major roles, including Ruth Madeley as Heumann. Apple will release the film in November.

Among the first premieres was "Stuffed," one of the festival's most peculiar, macabre and oddly sweet entries. Theo Rhys' debut feature, which opened TIFF's Discovery section, stars Jodie Comer as Araminta, a reclusive taxidermist whose long-held dream of stuffing a human is answered when a lonely sandwich-factory worker named Bernie (Harry Melling) volunteers. Araminta, something like an inverse Dr. Frankenstein, promises death but a strange frozen-in-time immortality. The quirkily gothic tale is also a tender romance, and Melling remains a singular screen presence.