It’s all about the star-studded thrillers and gruesome horrors this year at the Toronto International Film Festival, and the world premiere of Academy Award-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio‘s documentary The Turning Point is leading the pack.
The full list of this year’s movie lineup of docs and shorts, as well as some dark, twisted and boundary-pushing films set to play during the edgy Midnight Madness program, was unveiled by organizers Tuesday.
Among the highlights is DiCaprio’s The Turning Point, a climate-change documentary he made with actor/filmmaker Fisher Stevens, who won an Oscar for producing The Cove.
READ MORE: Toronto Film Festival 2016: 12 must-see movies of the year
Ben Wheatley’s Free Fire – starring The Room’s Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy and Armie Hammer – follows the story of a gun sale that goes awry.
The Cult classic franchise Blair Witch is back with a follow-up and a new cast. This time around, main character James finds what he believes is video footage of his sister’s experiences in the woods all those years ago, and he sets out with friends to find his missing sister.
Anne Hathaway is the focus of the Vancouver-shot Colossal by Nacho Vigalondo, in which a giant creature attacks South Korea. The film also stars Jason Sudeikis.
Jim Carrey and Keanu Reeves star in the dystopian cannibal fairy tale The Bad Batch, which follows a group of society’s rejects that inhabits a Texas wasteland. Also in the cast are Jason Momoa, Giovanni Ribisi and Suki Waterhouse.
Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Saturday Night Live’s Maya Rudolph and Susan Sarandon will be lending their voices to My Entire High School Sinking Into The Ocean, a story about a calamity that strikes a school. The animated short is a first for graphic novelist and animator Dash Shaw.
Other feature highlights include: the sci-fi thriller The Girl With All the Gifts with Glenn Close, The Autopsy of Jane Doe with Emile Hirsch and Paul Schrader’s crime thriller Dog Eat Dog starring Nicolas Cage and Willem Dafoe.
READ MORE: TIFF 2016 to include ‘Birth of a Nation,’ films by Dennis Villeneuve, Oliver Stone
Documentary highlights:
- The horror doc Rats by Morgan Spurlock; the film looks into the history of rat infestations in major cities around the world
- The 6th Beatle, about promoter Sam Leach
- Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary, about the revolutionary jazz artist
- Amanda Knox, which looks at the American woman who was convicted and acquitted of the brutal killing of her British roommate
- Werner Herzog’s volcano documentary Into the Inferno, which he shot in regions including North Korea and Ethiopia
- Jim Jarmusch’s Gimme Danger, about American rock band the Stooges
- Citizen Jane: Battle for the City by Matt Tyrnauer, about the late urban activist and writer Jane Jacobs, who lived in Toronto
The 41st Toronto International Film Festival runs from Sept. 8 to 18.
With files from The Canadian Press