Vulture’s Eleven Most Anticipated Toronto 2012 Films

Have we already seen this ambitious sci-fi film, which will be opening the fest tomorrow? Maybe we have, and maybe we're still under embargo! But trust us when we say that Rian Johnson's time-travel opus — which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a man tasked to kill his future self, played by Bruce Willis — will have people tossing around appreciative comparisons to 12 Monkeys, and that's heady company to keep.

Now that Gangster Squad has been pushed back to 2013, The Place Beyond the Pines is our only chance to get a hit of Ryan Gosling this year after his breakout star turns in Drive, Crazy Stupid Love, and The Ides of March in 2011. For Pines, he's retimed with his Blue Valentine director Derek Cianfrance on a generations-spanning saga of two families at odds; along for the ride are Bradley Cooper and Gosling's real-life flame Eva Mendes.

Joss Whedon made one of the biggest movies of all time with The Avengers, and usually, a director working at that level will stay in that high echelon. Instead, Whedon found time to shoot an ultra low-budget, modern-day take on Much Ado About Nothing featuring a cadre of his former stars. For filmmaker whiplash alone, we gotta see it.

No movie at Toronto is as wildly ambitious as this one — nor as expensive, we'd guess. Set in several distinctly different time periods and requiring its troupe of actors (including Tom Hanks and Halle Berry) to play different characters, genders, and ethnicities, this wild-looking sci-fi whatsit from the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer could make a major splash up north before its imminent theatrical release.

Since Kristen Wiig wasn't really the lead of Jennifer Westfeldt's Friends With Kids, this ranks as the Saturday Night Live alumna's first official Bridesmaids follow-up, and it's an intriguing choice: a lower-budgeted indie where Wiig plays a depressed woman who moves in with her Jersey mom (Annette Bening) and has a fling with a boyband member (Darren Criss). Wiig's ability to mine the dark undercurrent of a character is one of her primary strengths, so we're curious to see what she has come up with here.

Gossip Girl's Penn Badgley as ethereal crooner Jeff Buckley? It seemed sort of unlikely that Badgley's window-shaking deep voice could go there … and yet, we'll be damned if that recent YouTube of Badgley singing in concert didn't give us goosebumps. Might he be able to pull this one off?

Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence ballroom dance in this, so the movie is very important to us. There are other potential pluses — David O. Russell directed it, Cooper and Lawrence play two literal crazy people drawn into a combustible romance, Chris Tucker was somehow enticed to return to the screen for this — but here at Vulture, we're all about the dance. Begin!

Mark Ruffalo and Gwyneth Paltrow as sex addicts? Yes, we're in, tell us more. Thanks For Sharing was directed by The Kids Are All Right co-writer Stuart Blumberg, and the man definitely knows how best to present Ruffalo; also in the cast is Pink, for some reason. Guys, we already told you we were in. (Also, Iron Man is going to be so pissed when he finds out about this movie.)

Remember in the eighties, when teen movies could be dark and uncommonly full of feeling? Perks of Being a Wallflower is set in that decade, and it's not simply so it can employ so many classic rock songs (though it does that quite well); it also seems to be channeling a John Hughes vibe and adapting it for a modern sensibility. Starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, and a terrific Ezra Miller, this tale of a high school freshman with a secret is one to remember.

With the Best Actress category still somewhat underpopulated at this point, buzz is building for Naomi Watts in this effects-driven drama, where Watts and Ewan McGregor find their family torn apart by a tsunami. The emotional trailer, released recently, promises something big and bold … can it deliver?

Writer/director Martin McDonagh has reteamed with his In Bruges star Colin Farrell — and added a host of other terrific actors, including Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, and Tom Waits — for this comedy about three friends in over their heads when they kidnap a gangster's dog. Sure to be profanely well-written.