Watch these TIFF Movies Before the Oscars
Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has been premiering future Oscar winners for over a decade. TIFF 2018’s best films in theaters now are:
GREEN BOOK
Dramatic feature from director Peter Farrelly (the Farrelly Brothers) follows actors Mahershala Ali (Academy Award winner for Moonlight) and Viggo Mortensen.
Green Book is the engrossing story of a working-class Italian-American bouncer who takes a job chauffeuring a Jamaican-American classical pianist across the American South during the 1962 Jim-Crow era when it is perilous for a black man to travel alone. It won TIFF’s prestigious Audience Award.
CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?
Melissa McCarthy shows another side of her acting repertoire in this memoir adaptation true story of best-selling celebrity biographer (and friend to cats) Lee Israel who made her living in the 1970s and 80s profiling the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead, Estee Lauder and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen.
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
Auteur Barry Jenkins’ (Oscar® Best Picture winner Moonlight) adapts James Baldwin’s poignant novel about a woman fighting to free her falsely-accused husband from prison before the birth of their child.
This visually enticing love story deals with political issues in the 1970s that are still relevant today.
DESTROYER
Nicole Kidman is unrecognizable as a young cop, playing Erin Bell when she went undercover to infiltrate a gang in the California desert — with tragic results. You decide if her wig and makeup are believable.
WIDOWS
If you love British TV shows, this film based on a U.K. series will be your cup of tea. Academy Award®-winning director Steve McQueen (“12 Years a Slave”) and co-writer and bestselling author Gillian Flynn (“Gone Girl”) craft a blistering, modern-day thriller set against the backdrop of crime, passion and corruption in Chicago.
Four women with nothing in common except a debt left behind by their dead husbands’ criminal activities. During a time of turmoil, tensions build when Veronica (Oscar® winner Viola Davis), Linda (Michelle Rodriguez), and friends take their fate into their own hands and conspire to forge a future on their own terms.
THE OLD MAN & THE GUN
Hopefully star Robert Redford is joking about this being his last film. This true story of Forrest Tucker’s audacious escape from San Quentin at the age of 70 to an unprecedented string of heists that confounded authorities and enchanted the public.
Sissy Spacek plays the woman who loves him in spite of his chosen profession.
A PRIVATE WAR
One of the most celebrated war correspondents of our time, Marie Colvin (Oscar® winner Rosamund Pike), is an utterly fearless and rebellious spirit, driven to the front line of conflicts across the globe to give voice to the voiceless. This riveting biographical film’s cast also includes Stanley Tucci.
JEREMIAH TERMINATOR LEROY
A young woman spends six years pretending to be the celebrated author JT LeRoy, the made-up literary persona of her sister-in-law. Starring Kristen Stewart, Diane Kruger and Laura Dern.
Interested in movies directed by women? Here are the top female-helmed films from TIFF 2018.
Laala Matias is an award winning filmmaker and blogger. Her website is LAaLALand.com