Jennifer Aniston, Robert Downey Jr., Reese Witherspoon Headline the Toronto International Film Festival

The festival's lineup includes two buzzed-about films starring Witherspoon in the kickoff for the Oscar race

Published on July 22, 2014 03:15 PM

The Oscars don’t take place until February next year, but for awards hopefuls like Robert Downey Jr., Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell, the campaign starts in September at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The festival announced its lineup Tuesday, featuring several fall films with lots of buzz, including two from Witherspoon: Wild, based on the best-selling memoir by Cheryl Strayed, and The Good Lie, a drama about several of the Lost Boys of Sudan, who are taken in by an American (see the trailer below).

Other noteworthy films include Cannes favorite Foxcatcher starring Carell and Channing Tatum, The Equalizer with Denzel Washington, Jennifer Aniston‘s drama Cake, and closing-night choice A Little Chaos, a period drama starring Kate Winslet, directed by Harry Potter alum Alan Rickman.

More and more, the annual film festival in Toronto has become the place to launch an awards campaign, as exemplified over the past two years with Oscar-winners 12 Years a Slave and Argo, not to mention recent acting winners Lupita Nyong’o, Colin Firth (The King’s Speech) and Natalie Portman (Black Swan).

The festival, which runs from Sept. 4-14, will be jam-packed with A-listers, as usual. In addition to Aniston, Downey and Witherspoon, other stars expected to attend include Robert Pattinson, Tina Fey, Jake Gyllenhaal, Salma Hayek and Liam Neeson.