The Toronto International Film Festival® (TIFF) is marking a milestone year with an impressive slate of Academy Award® nominations for its recent Official Selections. Following the Festival’s 50th edition, the Academy has recognized 17 films from TIFF 2025 and one from TIFF 2024, amounting to a remarkable 50 nominations across major categories.
For decades, TIFF’s People’s Choice Award has served as a reliable predictor of Oscar success, with past winners including The King’s Speech, 12 Years a Slave, La La Land, Nomadland, and American Fiction. That legacy continues this year. Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet—the 2025 People’s Choice Award winner presented by Rogers—earned eight nominations, among them Best Picture, Best Director, and a Best Actress nod for TIFF ’17 Rising Star Jessie Buckley. The film marks Zhao’s return to the People’s Choice spotlight after her TIFF ’20 feature Nomadland went on to win Best Picture.
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, the People’s Choice Award runner‑up, emerged as one of the year’s most celebrated titles with nine nominations. Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, runner‑up for the International People’s Choice Award, also secured recognition from the Academy.
Canadian filmmaking is prominently represented as well. Two titles from TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten program earned Oscar nominations: The Girl Who Cried Pearls (TIFF ’25), directed by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, for Best Animated Short Film; and perfectly a strangeness (TIFF ’24), directed by Alison McAlpine, for Best Documentary Short Film.
Several nominees were previously honoured at the 2025 TIFF Tribute Awards, underscoring the Festival’s role in spotlighting exceptional talent. Among them:
- Jafar Panahi, recipient of the TIFF Special Tribute Award, nominated for Best International Feature Film and Best Original Screenplay for It Was Just an Accident.
- Guillermo del Toro, TIFF Ebert Director Award honouree, recognized with nine nominations for Frankenstein, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay.
- Kazu Hiro, TIFF Variety Artisan Award recipient, nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for The Smashing Machine.
Audiences can revisit this year’s Oscar‑nominated titles—including Sirāt, The Voice of Hind Rajab, Arco, Hamnet, and One Battle After Another (70mm)—at TIFF Lightbox. Additional screenings will be announced on tiff.net and in The Weekly newsletter as more nominated films join the lineup.
The 98th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Dolby® Theatre at Ovation Hollywood and will be televised live on ABC, streamed live on Hulu and airs live in more than 200 territories worldwide.
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