TIFF 2026 Gala Lineup: 'I Play Rocky' and 'Misty Green'
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- TIFF announced its 2026 Gala and Special Presentations programs on Monday, featuring films from close to 30 countries for the 51st edition running September 10–20 in Downtown Toronto.
- "I Play Rocky", Peter Farrelly's biographical sports drama about the making of Sylvester Stallone's 1976 film with Anthony Ippolito as Stallone, headlines the Special Presentations as a world premiere.
- Chris Rock's "Misty Green", which he wrote, directed and stars in alongside Adam Driver, Daniel Kaluuya, Anna Kendrick, Topher Grace, Rosalind Eleazar and Anthony Anderson, earns a Gala world premiere slot.
- "Villeneuve: The Rise of a Legend", a sports drama about Canadian F1 racer Gilles Villeneuve (not filmmaker Denis Villeneuve), closes the festival on Saturday, Sept. 19; Siân Heder's "Being Heumann" serves as the Opening Night Film.
- The Special Presentations slate features new work from Danny Boyle ("Ink"), Pedro Almodóvar ("Bitter Christmas"), Cristian Mungiu ("Fjord"), Mike Leigh ("Tender Loving Care"), Ryûsuke Hamaguchi ("All of a Sudden") and Hirokazu Kore-eda ("Look Back").
Why it matters: The lineup announcement gives distributors and awards strategists their first concrete look at TIFF 2026's slate — pairing Cannes-decorated auteurs (Boyle, Almodóvar, Mungiu, Hamaguchi, Kore-eda, Leigh) with celebrity-driven world premieres like the Stallone biopic to span prestige and mainstream audiences over the Sept. 10–20 festival.
