Happy Tuesday, dear readers! Each week, we’ll rank the top 10 films in a specific category. While we aim to tie these lists to big releases, that won’t always be the case. Our goal? For you to enjoy, share your own lists, and join in on a lively, friendly debate. This is an interactive space to build community here at The Contending.
No fancy intros, no long essays – just a category and a list. Sound good?
The Toronto International Film Festival is in full swing, which means one of the most important audience awards of the year will soon be handed out.
TIFF’s People’s Choice Award has been around since 1978, when Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends became its first winner. Unlike the top prizes at Cannes and Venice, there is no jury deciding the festival’s highest honor. The TIFF audience chooses the winner, which seems fitting for a festival that has always prided itself on being as much for moviegoers as it is for the industry.
Just three years after the festival’s inaugural prize, Toronto audiences selected Chariots of Fire, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Over the decades, plenty of other winners found themselves in the Oscar race, but the award really started becoming a reliable bellwether in 2008, when Slumdog Millionaire won in Toronto before steamrolling its way to Best Picture.
Since then, the connection has become impossible for awards enthusiasts to ignore. Sixteen of the last 18 People’s Choice winners have gone on to receive Best Picture nominations, with four of them, The King’s Speech, 12 Years a Slave, Green Book, and Nomadland, ultimately winning the Oscar. The only two that missed the Best Picture lineup during that span were Where Do We Go Now? (2011) and The Life of Chuck (2024). The former failed to even make the shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film, while the latter was pushed to the following year and ultimately got lost in the shuffle following a midsummer release.
That’s why we’ll be paying close attention to this year’s winner. I Play Rocky, La Bola Negra, Wild Horse Nine, and Club Kid are among the films I currently have my eye on. All but I Play Rocky made the trip through Telluride before arriving in Toronto, where they played extremely well with both festival’s audiences.
Whether one of those films takes home the prize or another contender emerges, the winner will add its name to a remarkable list that stretches back nearly five decades. Before we find out which film earns that distinction this year, let’s look back at the very best of them.
Here are the ten greatest TIFF People’s Choice Award winners.
10. The Big Chill (1983)
9. Amélie (2001)
8. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
7. Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
6. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
5. Life Is Beautiful (1998)
4. The Princess Bride (1987)
3. American Beauty (1999)
2. La La Land (2016)
1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
When I was 14 years-old, I watched The Big Chill on HBO – it had to be 1984. I've watched it countless times since then. The film's soundtrack played on my Sony Walkman almost nonstop for a year. If there had been a casting Oscar category back then The Big Chill surely would have been nominated.