Featured Events in Toronto in 2026 (September Updated)

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is a major film festival in the English-speaking world, held annually in Toronto, Canada, in September. Its highest honor is the People's Choice Award. Founded in 1976, the TIFF initially screened films from other festivals. Through years of development and numerous transformations, it has become one of the world's largest film festivals. In recent years, it has become considered a preview of the Academy Awards, with many films choosing the TIFF for their world or North American premieres, allowing audiences to see them first. In 1998, Variety magazine acknowledged that the TIFF was "second only to the Cannes Film Festival in terms of high-profile interviews, celebrities, and marketing events." In 2007, Time magazine noted that the TIFF had "evolved from an influential fall film festival to a major film festival," in part due to its People's Choice Award being considered a preview of the Academy Awards. The film festival emphasizes diversity, showcasing everything from Hollywood productions to independent productions and experimental works. It also recognizes Canadian productions and uses this opportunity to recognize Canada's contributions to the film industry.

This exhibition brings together two of the 20th century's greatest painters—Rita Letendre (1928–2021) and Norval Morrisseau (1932–2007). Demonstrating the expressive potential of bold colour and line, these two artists pushed the boundaries of painting. During a career that spanned over sixty-five years, Letendre used brush, airbrush, palette knife, and her hands to make her work. Vibrating with physical and emotional energy, her paintings, —five of which are on view here, —embody her ongoing quest for connection and understanding. Morrisseau's six-panel masterpiece, Man Changing into Thunderbird (1977), illustrates the theme of transformation, an idea central to Anishinaabe philosophy. This painting records the artist's personal evolution into Miskwaabik Animiiki, or “Copper Thunderbird”, a name he received in a healing ceremony. The name carries connotations of protection, healing, mystery, and power, and Morrisseau used it as his signature. Merging personal narrative with intense colour and elaborate design, Morrisseau called this work, “the ultimate picture for me,” - it is featured here alongside two other works by him from the 1970s.

Information Source: SONOVA | eventbrite

This exhibition, focusing on the sculptures of renowned Ontario modernist artist Elizabeth Wyn Wood, brings together five works from the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) collection, highlighting her focus on landscapes and figures. Wood is known for her simple designs, natural forms, and rich materials. This exhibition features three recently acquired works, including *Sending* and *Receiving* (both created in 1958). These works were created for the Maclean-Hunter Building in Toronto, near the AGO, at the intersection of Dundas St. West and University Avenue. In the works, nude sculptures float within a dreamlike landscape, adorned with shimmering gold leaf.

Step into the world of bees and embark on a breathtaking new immersive journey, experiencing the perfect fusion of art and science. This exhibition, a collaboration between the National Museum of Liverpool and award-winning artist and sculptor Wolfgang Barthes, highlights the 120-million-year history of bees' adaptation and survival, telling the epic story of these amazing creatures and their close connection to us and the natural world.

Diego Marcon's first Canadian exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) showcases his cinematic vision, drawing inspiration from Hollywood musicals, horror films, melodramas, and farces to create works that are both unsettling and tender. Marcon employs computer-generated effects, prosthetics, and robotics to create a strange texture in his films: the images appear artificial, yet possess a peculiar vitality. The centerpiece of the exhibition is Marcon's latest masterpiece, *Krapfen* (2025). Set in a bedroom, the film tells the story of a child tormented by four characters—a glove, a scarf, a pair of trousers, and a sweater—who insist the child eat a krapfen (a type of German donut). The film resembles both a musical and a neurotic carousel, with these objects spinning around the child to music composed by Federico Chiari, as if performing a meticulously choreographed dance, constantly entangled in his antics.

"Psychedelics" is an immersive, interdisciplinary exhibition exploring the cross-cultural and scientific significance of altered states of consciousness. Featuring artwork, objects, botanical specimens, and interactive installations, along with extensive consultation and nuanced narratives, the exhibition aims to illuminate a topic that has been taboo and inaccessible for the past half century.

This inaugural Canadian exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) is a comprehensive retrospective of Impressionism, showcasing the movement's origins and its profound influence on two generations of avant-garde painters. The exhibition features works from the Dallas Museum of Art's extensive collection, including representative pieces by numerous artists such as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, and Edvard Munch.