TORONTO — At this year’s TIFF, audiences rallied around underdog stories, many of them involving actors going the distance. (Cue the “Rocky” theme.) And while an Oscar front-runner or two may have been unofficially coronated, we found plenty else to like — particularly these nine movies we’ll be taking home and mulling over in the weeks ahead.

‘Babies’

Not even making a comedy about the assassination of Kim Jong Un — or a cartoon secretly about Israeli-Palestinian tensions — caused as much of a viral commotion as Seth Rogen’s insistence that he’s happy to be childless. “Babies,” his wife Lauren Miller Rogen’s dramedy, explains why, with sparkle and charm. Los Angeles couple Annie (Anna Kendrick) and Aaron (Rogen) adore their friends’ kids, even letting newly seperated Eliza (Kate Berlant) and her daughter Eve (Delaney Claire Evans) crash in their living room for months, forgoing their right to smoke weed on their own couch. Kendrick’s Annie keeps up a running monologue in her head listing the pros and cons of parenthood, spilling everything that’s hard to say aloud, including how her best friend and business partner Becky (Issa Rae) is so distracted by pregnancy that it’s hurting their attempt to open an art studio. Light and likable, “Babies” is a strong step for Lauren Miller Rogen’s directing career and for a conversation that should be easier to have. — Amy Nicholson

‘Bucking Fastard’

Real-life sisters Kate and Rooney Mara appear onscreen together for the first time in the latest film from ever-eccentric director Werner Herzog. And it is more than anyone might have hoped for, as the Maras play sisters who dress alike and talk oddly in unison and live their lives completely together. (The story is based on a real-life pair.) It is a tandem performance genuinely unlike any you have seen before, utterly mesmerizing and charming. After an affair with a neighbor (a delightfully louche Orlando Bloom) results in a restraining order against them, the sisters move to the countryside and land on the idea to tunnel their way through a mountain to whatever magical land of love and light they might find on the other side. The movie is deadpan-funny but also shares the sisters’ romantic conviction that the world could reveal something truly wondrous. Herzog’s adventurous spirit has led him to explore the furthest reaches of the globe, but also inward to map the strangest recesses of the heart. — Mark Olsen

‘The Debut’

Julianne Moore can do anything, even play an actor so lousy she can’t even convincingly walk across the stage of her local community theater. Her Mona, an overlooked mother-of-two in a miserable marriage, is the only person in town who wants the small role of a building super in a cornball musical called “Nosy Neighbors.” To Mona, this thankless part is the opportunity of a lifetime. At last, she’ll truly be seen, although she might not be heard over our own laughter. This hysterical comedy by writer-director Jesse Eisenberg has deep affection for artists clinging to the bottom rung of showbiz. Some, like the play’s lead (Halle Bailey), may hope they’ll eventually climb up. Others, including the show’s director, a beret-wearing Paul Giamatti, just love to create. His scenes with Moore are a master class in how to find a character’s motivation — and a scream. — A.N.

‘The Life and Deaths of Wilson Shedd’

The riskiest movie I saw at this year’s TIFF — and also the worthiest of those risks — was Tim Blake Nelson’s triple-tragic prison movie, which deserves to find the uncompromising audience that can roll with its turns. The title character (a spookily committed Scoot McNairy) does some despicable things, ones that some viewers won’t be able to forgive. But Amanda Seyfried’s Karen, a creative-writing teacher of convicts in Oklahoma, is nonetheless drawn to this man, someone who pays her the attention she is otherwise lacking. Nelson prefers a slow build — it’s basically the opposite of the prison movie he co-starred in, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” — and the final sequence he approaches, a botched execution via fatal injection, has no equal in terms of depicting the brutal methodology of American punishment. You leave haunted by the characters’ bad choices. — Joshua Rothkopf

‘Misty Green’

Chris Rock is famous for a lot of things but I wish it was for being a writer-director of movies that are unfailingly bold, intelligent and nourishing to an audience that wants to see different kinds of Black characters. “Misty Green” would be enough if it merely introduced more people to Rosalind Eleazar, whose work in the title role — a former starlet who squandered her moment — is powerful for not being a Pam Grier-like force of nature but, rather, a flawed but talented survivor who continues to make mistakes. Even more impressively, Rock has his own spin on the Hollywood industry movie, a well-worn format that’s fresh in the right hands. This one’s about the proximity of wealth to poverty; even a power agent skimps on tipping the delivery guy because he’s got no cash on hand. Running jokes are about money and what you’ll do to get it. And, as with Robert Altman’s “The Player,” there’s an endgame that feels biblically vicious. — J.R.

‘Possible Love’

Korean filmmaker Lee Chang-dong landed at TIFF after picking up the second-place grand jury prize at the Venice Film Festival and proceeded to launch a stealth charm offensive with a series of speeches and appearances that were, like his movie, warm, slyly funny and wise. His first film since 2018’s “Burning” and this year’s selection by Korea for the international feature Oscar is Lee’s latest examination of wealth inequality. Yet this may be his first that’s less eat-the-rich and more invested in empathetic understanding. The wife of a loaded investor dabbles in documentary filmmaking and befriends the spouse of a laid-off factory worker. Soon the two couples are intertwined, each looking to find some common ground. Lee’s film is motivated less by anger and more by curiosity, compassion and a general confusion, as no one quite knows how to behave or feel or just be. Aiming for connection is the best they, or any of us, can do. — M.O.

‘River’

In an unusual move, IFC and Shudder sold the rights to the opening-night title of this year’s Midnight Madness program to Blumhouse and Universal for more than $10 million after the film’s roof-raising premiere. It is an acknowledgment of “River’s” apparent commercial potential in a world where horror movies like “Obsession” and “Backrooms” have shown a path to connecting with young audiences. Writer-director Joshua Giuliano, making his feature debut, understands the mechanics of the slasher-thriller in a deep way, having fun with audience expectations as a trio of siblings take a boat trip to dispose of their father’s ashes. They soon find themselves stranded in a remote spot and under siege from a man who seems more like a relentless creature than human. There is something both stripped-down and incredibly inventive here, as co-stars Jane Levy and Jessica Rothe more than earn their scream-queen bona fides as they work together to defeat an attacker who may join the pantheon of movie maniacs-turned-Halloween costumes. Giuliano’s inventive approach to the mayhem is such that even a mid-credits scene that opens the door to more sequels feels fresh. — M.O.

‘The Spiral’

A rapturously silly, ultra-enjoyable Italian horror movie that demands its own franchise pronto, director Paolo Strippoli’s third solo feature belongs in theaters where it can work its diabolical magic on audiences. A stylish, well-off family braces for the worst when its youngest member is mauled by a dog during a glitzy lawn party. In the hospital’s lurid Dario Argento-worthy chapel, the mother prays desperately — and is visited by a stranger in a crisp trench coat (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, owning her bid for monster status) who promises the kid will be OK, provided another sacrifice is made. Yes, it’s a Faust story, with hints of the “Final Destination” films and an unrepentant love of ominous weather and cringeworthy class warfare. But “The Spiral” also suggests that, as in America, a new wave of global horror is just about to bubble over. — J.R.

‘Stuffed’

Every musical number in “Stuffed” is made of morbid razzle dazzle. A loner named Bernie (Harry Melling) sings about his collection of obituaries. A taxidermist named Araminta (Jodie Comer) croons a lullabye to a dead poodle as she tenderly filets its fur. And a nursing home of senior citizens belts out its fear of being forgotten after they die. “Everyone knows their postman’s name — right?” a bedridden retiree nervously trills. First-time feature filmmaker Theo Rhys and co-writer Joss Holden-Rea have concocted a macabre romance in which boy meets girl, boy agrees to let girl poison, pose and mount him as the centerpiece of her collection of stuffed birds, cats and bears. At least in death, Bernie will be special to Araminta. The plot is singular, the anxieties universal. It’s lovely to see our own stress about mortality memorialized onscreen, especially in a dark comedy with showstopping production values. Just wait till you see the industrial sandwich factory where Bernie works. — A.N.

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