The Toronto Film Festival (TIFF), which takes place in September, is heralded as the beginning of the annual Oscar race. That is to say, studios often save up the films they think will be contenders to release in the fall (they don't trust the Academy's memory to reach back more than a few months come nomination time), and often debut said films at the TIFF.
So what are some of the films on the TIFF lineup that are being buzzed about?
Rendition, a Middle East political thriller starring Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin and Peter Sarsgaard, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age, a costume drama about Queen Elizabeth I with Cate Blanchett and Geoffrey Rush (reprising their roles from Elizabeth) lead the pack.
Other potential TIFF Oscar candidates: Tony Gilroy's directorial debut Michael Clayton, a law firm drama starring George Clooney; Peter Greenaway's historical drama about Rembrandt, Nightwatching; the Indian drama Before the Rains; the Jodie Foster revenge drama The Brave One; a Joaquin Phoenix-Jennifer Connelly drama about coping with the death of a child entitled Reservation Road; the biography about paralyzed Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Beauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; and Alan Ball's (American Beauty) drama about the struggles of an Arab-American girl, Nothing is Private.
Source: Variety.com.