“The port”, director Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Connell’s best -selling novel about William Shakespeare and his wife, Agnes, has won the People’s Choice Award on 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF organizers announced at an outcome of Sunday.
Unlike most major film festivals, Toronto puts its best award in the public’s hands rather than a jury of film professionals. The viewers of the festival’s public views are encouraged to vote for their favorite films on the TIFF website, where the film receives the highest proportion of votes from its viewers winning.
Guillermo del Toros “Frankenstein” finished second in People’s Choice vote, while Rian Johnson’s “Wake up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” finished in third place.
The win makes Zhao the first director to win two films to win People’s Choice Award, which was first released in 1978. She also won 2020 for “Nomadland.”
While Zhao was not present to accept the award, she sent an acceptance number on video, which was shown up and down on the live stream from the ceremony. “Apologies for the error, but that’s what this movie does for your heart,” TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey said at the end of the video.
In recent years, TIFF People’s Choice Award has been a reliable indicator of Oscar success, with 15 of the last 17 winners to get a best image nomination and five of them won. (It was “Slumdog Millionaire”, “King’s speech”, “12 years a slave”, “Green Book” and “Nomadland.”) Last year’s winner, “The Life of Chuck,” did not receive a theater edition until 2025 and is a long picture to extend the dash to 13 years in a row.
If you include TIFF second place and third place winner, 25 of the last 39 films received People’s Choice recognition also received best image nominations. For the past 13 years, the Oscar winner had previously won, placed or shown in Toronto.
The first ever International People’s Choice Award went to Park Chan-Wook’s “No Other Choice”, with Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” which finished second and Neaj Ghaywan’s “Homebound” finished in third place.
People’s Choice Awards were also released in midnight Madness and Tiff Docs sections. “Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie” won the Midnight Madness Award, while “The Road between us” took the documentary award.
The latter movie, about an Israeli general who saved his family from Hamas during the October 7 attacks, was the festival’s most controversial film, with TIFF who booked it and then took it back from the lineup, then leased it back and acknowledged that the decision to withdraw it had been a mistake.
While the Marquee Awards were voted by the public, the festival put several other prices in the hands of jury. The platform jury, which gave its best award to “to the jury!”, Consisted of Carlos Marques-Marcet, Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Chloe Robichaud. The shortcut jury consisted of Ashley Iris Gill, Marcel Jean and Connor Jessup, who gave awards “the girl who cried pearls”, “to the forest” and “Talk me.”
Short Cuts Awards came with $ 10,000 CAD CONTACTIVIES, while the Vimeo Staff Award, a new supplement, went to “I Fear Blue Skies” and carried a $ 5,000 price.
The Canadian discovery and the best Canadian feature film awards were given and “Blue Heron” and “Wrong Make”, by filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal, Sophie Jarvis and RT Thorne.
The FPRIPSI Award for the best function of the festival, from the International Federation of Film Critics, was given to “Most” by the critics Katharina Dockhorn, Ferreira, Jean-Philippe Guerand, Andy Hazel and Justine Smith. The NetPac Award for Movies from the Asian and Pacific Centers went to ‘”in search of heaven” and was voted by filmmaker Helen Lee, journalist Keoprasith Souvannavong and author/professor Dina Iordanova.
Here is the complete list of awards that were announced at a brunch on Sunday morning. Many of the winners were also announced in a press release sent to TIFF members before the ceremony and transformed the comments in the live stream into a lot of spoilers.
People’s Choice Award: “The harbor,” Chloé Zhao
First runner: “Frankenstein,“ Guillermo del Toro
Second place: “Wake up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery,” Rian Johnson
International People’s Choice Award: “No other choice,“ Park Chan-Wook
First Runner-Up: “Sentimental Value”, Joachim Trier
Second place: “HomeBound”, Neeraj Ghaywan
People’s Choice Documentary Award: “The Way Between us: The Ultimate Rescue,“ Barry Avrich
First Runner-up: “Epic: Elvis Presley in Concert,“ Baz Luhrmann
Second place: “You had to be there: How Toronto Godspell ignited the Comedy Revolution, spread Love & Overalls and created a society that changed the world (in a Canadian way),” Nick Davis
People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award: “Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie,” Matt Johnson
First runner: “Obsession”, Curry Barker
Other runners: “The Furious,” Kenji Tanigami
Platform jury price: “To the victory!” Valentyn Vasanovych
Best Canadian feature film: “Uiksaritara (wrong spouse),“ Zacharias Kunuk
Honorable mention: “There are no words,“ My Sook Lee
Best Canadian Discovery Award: “Blue Heron,” Sophie Romvari
Honorable mention: “100 sunset”, kunsang kyirong
AMPLIFY VOICES AWARD FOR BEST BIPOC Canadian Feature Film:
AMPLIFY VOICE AWARD FOR BIPOC Canadian First Feature Film:
AMPLIFY VOICES PRODUCTS AWARD FOR Canadian Bipoc Trailblazer:
Short Cuts Award for Best International Film: “Talk me,” Joecar Hanna
Honorable mention: “Up Apito”, Arvin Belarmino and Cool Danelle Romero
Short Cuts Award for Best Canadian Film: “The girl who cried pearls,” Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski
Honorable mention: “A soft touch”, Heather Young
Short Cuts Award for best animated short film: “To the forest,” Agnes protector
Vimeo Staff Pick Award: “I fear blue sky,” Sslar pashoonyar
NetPac Award: “In search of heaven,“ Jitand Singh Gurjar
FPRIPERCI PRICE: “Forest”, Lucía Aleñar Iglesias
