VIFF 2026 | Ryûsuke Hamaguchi Reacts 'All of a Sudden'

"Are healthy people truly alive?"

Neon / Elevation Pictures

VIFF 2026—Celebrated Japanese auteur Ryûsuke Hamaguchi makes his French-language debut in the monumentally affecting care home dramedy, All of a Sudden (aka Soudain or Suddenly Feeling Unwell). Woven with thoughtful critiques and dissections of late-stage capitalism, the process of experimental theatre, caring for the elderly, and, of course, smoking cigarettes, the French-Japanese film is a moving treatise on treating everyone with the care and attention they deserve in a consumer-driven world.

VIFF 2026 | Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve Discipline 'Fjord'

"When violence is involved, they take it very seriously."

Neon / Elevation Pictures

VIFF 2026—Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu directs Fjord, a blistering Norwegian family legal drama starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve as conservative parents of five who move from Romania to her native (much more left-leaning) Norway, clashing with their more liberal newfound village community. The Palme d'Or winner revels in its divisive skewering of both close-minded traditional Western Christian right-wing values and judgmental progressive liberal ideals.

VIFF 2026 | Julianne Moore Stages 'The Debut' Named Mona

"You got the part!"

A24 / Elevation Pictures

VIFF 2026—Actor/filmmaker Jesse Eisenberg writes and directs The Debut, starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti as a meek New Jersey housewife and powerhouse community theatre director, in a blistering musical comedy, The Debut, which bears more than a few passing similarities to the famed The Simpsons episode, "A Streetcar Named Marge."

REEL | Staging 'Digger' – Tom Cruise Digs Deep and Deeper

"Digger's gonna dig us out!"

Warner Bros. Pictures / Legendary Pictures

Aging movie star Tom Cruise, nearly unrecognizable in a smattering of old-age prosthetics and heavy makeup, alongside pretentious Mexican auteur Alejandro González Iñárritu, collaborate for the big-budget satirical black comedy Digger. As a political farce in the mould of Dr. Strangelove, its murky and messy commentary on our contemporary global climate change crisis feels mild at best and severely misguided at worst.

GENRE | Ready, Set, 'Go' – Riding the Late-'90s Hyperlink Cinema Wave

"Pardon me if I'm not in a holly jolly mood right now!"

Sony Pictures / Arrow Video

During the tail end of the 1990s American independent film movement, director Doug Liman's sophomore 1999 feature, Go, rode the wave of the hyperlink cinema trend sparked by the popular influence and acclaim of Pulp Fiction (see also Magnolia, released the same year as Go). Somewhat forgotten and dwarfed by the phenomenon of The Matrix, Go was still a mild success at the box office that slowly grew into an alternative Christmas cult classic on DVD.

REEL | 'Primetime' – Robert Pattinson Catches the Real 'Predator'

"You see how this looks, right?"

A24 / Elevation Pictures

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Lance Oppenheim, known for his artful explorations of strange American subcultures, makes his narrative feature debut by directing Primetime, stylishly dramatizing the real-life controversy surrounding the eventual downfall of the wildly popular but highly problematic mid-2000s Dateline NBC news program To Catch a Predator, as reported on by journalist Luke Dittrich's 2007 Esquire article, "Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die."

REEL | Jay Baruchel Jumps 'The Stunt Driver' x TIFF 2026

"I'd rather be alive than macho and dead."

Independent Film Company / Mongrel Media

Canada's very own Jay Baruchel and writer/director Michael Dowse dramatize The Stunt Driver, based on the 1981 NFB documentary The Devil at Your Heels—its filming depicted within the film—about the life of daring Montreal-born stuntman and daredevil Ken Carter (aka "The Mad Canadian"), who famously tried to jump the St. Lawrence Seaway over a ninety-foot ramp in a rocket car. The film follows Carter as he sets out to top his rival, Evel Knievel (Ben Foster), and complete the greatest jump of all time that he was never able to.

GENRE | Zach Cregger and Austin Abrams Chase 'Resident Evil'

"I've only used guns in video games!"

Sony Pictures / Constantin Film

Sketch comedian-turned-genre auteur Zach Cregger inventively relaunches the survival horror franchise based on the popular, now thirty-year-old Capcom video game series Resident Evil—disconnected from the long-running Milla Jovovich-starring six-film series or the ill-received 2021 Welcome to Raccoon City reboot. His highly original adaptation uses the familiar world to tell a straightforward but new mission set over a few hours in a single night, when a biohazardous infection spread by the Umbrella Corporation turns people into mutant zombies.

VIFF 2026 | 10 Most Anticipated Films (You Should See)

"VIFF is quickly becoming the archetype of the modern film festival."

Image | Zak Design Studio

VIFF 2026—(August 26, 2026) Fall film festival season is on the horizon. Rejoice, as our city's eleven-day arthouse filmmaking showcase, the 45th edition of the Vancouver International Film Festival, is just around the corner next month. Plan accordingly for VIFF's yearly output of mixed-media entertainment programming, anchored by hundreds of Canadian and global films, screened across the city in celebration of contemporary cinema.