Upping its ante even more as an Oscars indicator, the 2025 Toronto Film Festival will inaugurate an International People’s Choice Award, presented to the most popular international (non-Canadian, non-U.S.) film as voted by audiences throughout the festival.
The new award expands the festival’s tradition of celebrating audience favorites, which often anticipate Oscar voting. This is clearly seen in the last decade of TIFF’s People’s Choice Award, whose winners and two runners-up have scored a remarkable 20 best picture Academy Award nominations.
In 2024, the People’s Choice Award was won by Mike Flanagan’s “The Life of Chuck,” which unusually didn’t score an Academy Award. First runner-up, however, was “Emilia Pérez,” and second “Anora,” adding new awards season momentum first sparked at Cannes.
“The People’s Choice Award has become a bellwether for how films perform in the awards season. Also, for the industry, it allows audience reaction to be gauged, which is crucial when sales agencies are trying to sell a film,” Anita Lee, TIFF’s chief programming officer told Variety at Cannes.
Now, the new award may well anticipate voting for the international feature film category. There’s already a strong correlation between international films that were previous PCA winners at Toronto and Academy Awards’ international film nominations and winners, Lee noted. “We want to create greater opportunities for international films by establishing a dedicated award,” she said.
The new international award’s launch comes as Toronto audiences, especially globally networked younger spectators, show an ever larger interest in international films, Lee observed.
It’s also kicking into gear one year before Toronto launches an official market. “We want to lend greater support to international films moving forward, for the festival to further amplify as a critical international hub for festival selection as well as industry activity,” Lee said.
TIFF added a People’s Choice Documentary Award and People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award in 2009.
Parts of the Toronto Festival selection of movies has also become more international. In 2024, for instance, nine of the 10 titles in Toronto’s Platform were international and seven non-English language, some mixing foreign languages from the Ukrainian and Russian of “Viktor” to the French and Korean, such as in “Winter in Sokcho.”
