No Country for Old Men, Slumdog Millionaire, The Hurt Locker, The King’s Speech… The Artist?
That’s right, Toronto has dibs on Oscar night bragging rights. Every year, the Toronto International Film Festival serves as an essential launching pad for all things Oscar. This year, 16 films that played or premiered at the fest are nominated for an Academy Award. Suck it, Cannes.
For our Toronto Standard Oscar predictions, click here
Every September, the festival catapults its featured films into the Oscar conversation. Even if the movies premiered in Europe prior to the festival, TIFF gives movies the critical attention and public affection they need to build momentum and stamina for the long, six-month race.
With The Artist as the race’s clear frontrunner, it looks like Toronto is, once again, a vital element in pushing films down the red carpet.
The star-studded festival has a near-perfect history of bringing films to Oscar. In the past 10 years, most of the Best Picture category has been full of festival selections. In fact, since 2001, only The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Chicago, and The Departed won Best Picture in spite of skipping the fest. Even TIFF’s foreign language films have received near-unanimous Academy acclaim, including four of this year’s nominees.
Going back even further, films like American Beauty, Chariots of Fire and Shine, amongst others, have also received plenty of golden attention after bowing in Toronto.
Of the nine films nominated for Best Picture this year, Moneyball, The Artist and The Descendants all debuted in some form at the fest, with Moneyball making its world premiere at TIFF.
While the number of festival admissions is lesser this year, still, no other festival or marquee array of films can boast the same track record.
But what makes TIFF a kingmaker? A lot of it has to do with the audience.
When director Danny Boyle introduced his film 127 Hours at its premiere at TIFF 2010, he said, “We felt enormous obligation to get this film ready, especially, for Toronto, because Toronto makes a filmmaker feel a hundred feet tall. It’s a wonderful festival, because the crowds are so warm, and not just because of the success we had here with Slumdog [Millionaire].”
Slumdog Millionaire, eventual Best Picture winner of 2008, was going to be released direct-to-video by studio Fox Searchlight until it received an excellent critical and public reception at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, encouraging Fox to release it to a wider audience.
The question is no longer about whether Oscar frontrunners will emerge from Toronto’s festival in the spotlight, but, rather, which will not.
So, gloat all you want at your Oscar party on Sunday, especially if you were lucky enough to catch the movies in September, three months before the rest of us.
The 16 films that premiered at TIFF, and will be strutting down the red carpet on Sunday include:
The Artist
The Descendants
Moneyball
Monsieur Lazhar
Footnote
In Darkness
Drive
Albert Nobbs
A Separation
Undefeated
Pina
Paradise Lost 3
W.E.
Anonymous
A Better Life
The Ides of March
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This is the second of four articles in our Toronto Standard Oscar Crash Course series.
Toronto Standard’s Oscar predictions
Uncover how producer and Hollywood kingmaker, Harvey Weinstein turned The Artist, a silent, black-and-white movie into an Oscar frontrunner
Oscars 2012: A final five list of possible upsets, and snubs that still sting
Joanna Adams is a reporter for Toronto Standard. She obsesses about the Academy Awards year-round, and her favourite Oscar host is David Letterman.
Join the Toronto Standard on Sunday as Joanna Adams, Jessica Carroll, and Scott MacDonald live blog the Academy Awards. Or, watch alongside them at 7 p.m. on CTV, or ABC.
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