Jennifer Lopez, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep All Have Movies Coming to the Toronto Film Festival

The initial batch of movies for the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival has been announced

Published on July 23, 2019 11:32 AM

Toronto is going to get quite the dose of star power come September.

The Toronto International Film Festival announced its first batch of movies on Tuesday, promising major stars and some highly-anticipated titles.

Among them is A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, starring Tom Hanks as TV icon Mr. Fred Rogers. The movie’s trailer made its debut on Monday, with fans immediately falling in love with Hanks’ portrayal of the late star. The movie also features The Americans Emmy winner Matthew Rhys as the real-life journalist who formed a close relationship with Rogers after profiling him.

Also hitting the festival is Steven Soderbergh’s The Laundromat, a Netflix movie starring Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas and Gary Oldman. The film follows the journalist who uncovered the Panama Papers, linking powerful political figures to off-shore banking accounts in order to avoid taxes.

Adding even more star power is Bruce Springsteen, who co-directed a film based on his latest album Western Stars with Thom Zimny. Springsteen explained how movie came to be in a recent interview with Sirius XM.

“We made a film of the Western Stars album, where I play the record start to finish along with some other things,” he said. “’Cause we weren’t going to tour—we knew we weren’t going to tour—so I was looking for a way to get some of the music lives to the audience, and so we figured that was the best way to do it.”

Another highly-anticipated film making its debut is Jennifer Lopez and Constance Wu’s stripper-scam movie Hustlers. Starring Cardi B, Lizzo, Lili Reinhart, Julia Stiles, Mercedes Ruehl and Keke Palmer, the movie is based on the real-life story of a group of women who would trick and drug men into giving them their credit cards.

The rest of the list includes Renee Zellweger’s Judy Garland biopic Judy, Matt Damon and Christian Bale’s Ford v Ferrari, Michael B. Jordan’s Just Mercy and Hugh Jackman in Bad Education.“Some of the year’s biggest films will land in Toronto this September,” Cameron Bailey, Co-Head and Artistic Director of TIFF, said in a press release. “We’re thrilled to unveil Galas and Special Presentations that bring the brightest lights in film to our Festival audience. Our new programming team has been hard at work for months to deliver the compelling stories, acclaimed filmmakers, and top onscreen talent that mark our two highest-profile sections.”

The 44th Toronto International Film Festival runs Sept. 5 to 15.