REEL | Pedro Pascal Composes the 'Behemoth!' Collective

"I never thought you'd come back."

Searchlight Pictures

VIFF 2026—Seasoned Hollywood veteran screenwriter Tony Gilroy directs the orchestral drama Behemoth!, starring Pedro Pascal as a talented but troubled cellist who returns home to Los Angeles to compose film scores amidst his tumultuous personal and romantic life, with plenty of verve and style. From there, Pascal's Alex confronts his past relationships while navigating a rather messy series of conflicts he's been avoiding and running away from all his life by joining different prestigious orchestras across the United States.

VIFF 2026 | Adam Driver and Miles Teller Sell 'Paper Tiger'

"Everyone is on the take all the time."

Neon / Elevation Pictures

VIFF 2026—Accomplished New York filmmaker and dramatist James Gray continues his vein of workmanlike but heartbreaking crime sagas with his latest middle-class family drama, Paper Tiger. It stars Adam Driver and Miles Teller as troubled Jewish-American brothers in 1986 Queens, with a particularly emotional Scarlett Johansson as the latter's fierce (big-haired) wife.

VIFF 2026 | Cinematic Hope – Ryûsuke Hamaguchi Reacts 'All of a Sudden'

"It would be wonderful if the impossible was possible."

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 society.

VIFF 2026 | Jordan Firstman Looks After the Heartwarming 'Club Kid'

"Did you ever lose ten years?"

A24 / Elevation Pictures

VIFF 2026—Long Island native and gay comedian Jordan Firstman makes his impressive directorial debut in the surprisingly touching adult queer comedy, Club Kid. Essentially a riff on the basic premise of the Adam Sandler comedy, Big Daddy, Firstman's Peter is a hedonistic party promoter who learns he has an adorable ten-year-old son (Reggie Absolom) he never knew about when they are unceremoniously dropped on his New York City doorstep.

VIFF 2026 | Lee Chang-dong Documents South Korean 'Possible Love'

"But his eyes are so sad."

Pinehouse Film / Anonymous Content

VIFF 2026—Possible Love (aka Ga-neung-han sa-rang), South Korean auteur Lee Chang-dong's first film in eight years, follows two couples from opposite socioeconomic backgrounds in a class-conscious drama, similar to Parasite, also co-starring actress Cho Yeo-jeong. It's another maserfully slow burn interpersonal drama of simmering (possibly sexual) tension.

GENRE | Comic Book Villain Body Horror – DC Moulds A Feat of 'Clayface'

"I want my life back."

DC Studios / 6th & Idaho

Clayface, DC's Batman villain origin genre film, starring Welsh actor Tom Rhys Harries as the titular shapeshifting comic book antagonist and directed by English genre filmmaker James Watkins, goes full body horror in his fresh adaptation of the second, Matt Hagen incarnation of the character. Told as a gruesome Hollywood tragedy, the comic book adaptation is a gross (complimentary) piece of work that entertains in the (clay) mould of 1986's The Fly or The Substance.

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."

VIFF 2026 | Mahershala Ali Worships 'Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother'

"Is this your secret weapon?"

Orion Pictures

VIFF 2026—From the ashes of the never-made Blade reboot comes Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, a religious hitman thriller by Pakistani-American filmmaker Bassam Tariq and starring two-time Academy Award-winning actor Mahershala Ali, made after their long-in-development Marvel vampire film fell apart. It's a strange but searing crusade of faith and violence wrapped in a mission of Muslim fatherhood.

REEL | Investigating Facebook – Aaron Sorkin Disrupts 'The Social Reckoning'

"Connecting people is a virtous mission."

Sony Pictures / Escape Artists

Academy Award-winning The Social Network screenwriter Aaron Sorkin directs the largely unrelated Facebook drama follow-up, The Social Reckoning, based on The Wall Street Journal's 2021 investigation series, "The Facebook Files," exposing the social media giant's horrible manipulation of misinformation for its own profit.

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 fundamentalist Christian values and judgmental progressive liberal ideals.

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 on the big-budget satirical black comedy Digger. As a metatextual 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.

SCREEN | 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.

REEL | Dakota Fanning Gets Over 'The Sun Never Sets'

"I like you as a boat girl."

Independent Film Company / Mongrel Media

Micro-budget auteur Joe Swanberg is back with his latest indie romantic dramedy, The Sun Never Sets, starring Dakota Fanning as a thirty-something woman reflecting on her life and age-gap relationship. After spending the summer apart from her divorced but loving, long-term boyfriend (a shockingly clean-shaven Jake Johnson) with a family of his own, she runs into her toxic ex (Cory Michael Smith), and some predictable but hilarious romantic complications ensue.

GENRE | Adria Arjona Terminates 'Onslaught'

"Prolonged exposure breaks the mind."

A24 / VVS Films

After a stint in big-budget Godzilla vs. Kong fare, indie genre director Adam Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett reteam for The Terminator-inspired action-slasher thriller, Onslaught. Starring a battered and bruised Adria Arjona as a PTSD-suffering, former army sniper battling against an experimental rogue team of genetically engineered, chainsaw-wielding super-soldiers, the slick but ultimately underwhelming 1970-80s John Carpenter homage sets up a straightforward midnight movie.

GENRE | Na Hong-jin Never Loses 'Hope' x TIFF 2026

"Bring forth true fate."

Neon / Elevation Pictures

South Korean genre director Na Hong-jin's new sci-fi alien action thriller, Hope, boasts the highest budget ever for a film from the East Asian nation, while featuring some of the worst CGI in a major release in years. It's hard to describe how electric the first hour is as audiences are dropped into the eponymous harbour town, chasing monsters before the poorly rendered creatures are revealed.

REEL | 'Looney Tunes' Sues the Pants Off 'Coyote vs. Acme'

"You tawt you taw? I don't pay you to tink you taw. I pay you to taw!"

Ketchup Entertainment / VVS Films

Coyote vs. Acme, director Dave Green's nearly shelved (for tax write-down purposes) Warner Bros. Animation hybrid live-action comedy produced by James Gunn, is finally here, and it's pretty good. Its simple but somewhat ingenious premise of the famed loser Looney Tunes cartoon character, Wile E. Coyote, suing the Acme Corporation for its faulty products causing him injury, distress, and failure is a brilliant stand-in for some real-life (coincidental) business shenanigans by a certain media conglomerate and its parent companies.