Cinema can be a great bridge between both different cultures as well as past and present generations, generating empathy and serving as a conduit for expanded human feeling by simply transporting viewers to different places and times. To live a life with a sustained, open embrace of movies is to commit to never stop musing, learning, and growing.

At its core, however, cinema is meant to be a communal experience, whether it’s glossy, escapist entertainment or the most esoteric arthouse nonfiction offering. That’s why pandemic-era versions of film festivals have been so frustrating, even when well-produced. It’s one thing to see a fascinating new movie from fresh new talent, and perhaps exchange messages on social media with other virtual attendees. But it’s another to feel the palpable buzz from an audience at the crowded world premiere of a heartrending drama, or even the cresting excitement spread over several days, as word spreads of some new curiosity that one simply must make time for in their already jam-packed schedule.

Thankfully, these feelings will all be returning to the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, whose 47th annual edition arrives September 8-18 — serving up 11 days of world cinema and special events featuring some of the biggest names in cinema. After very limited in-person screenings over the past two years and a trimmed-sails event last year which topped out with only around 130 feature films, this year TIFF will no doubt elicit a much more celebratory vibe with a doubled slate of 260 features.

That’s because, most notably, those movies will be screened in theaters, with the festival choosing to sunset hybridized (and sometimes geo-locked) virtual viewing options of the past two years in favor of an exclusive in-person audience experience.

On Thursday, July 28, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey, marking his first year as sole leader of the festival after more than a decade as its artistic director, announced 18 galas and nearly four dozen special presentations — movies for which the festival’s famously friendly, orange-shirted volunteers will provide directions to a couple hundred thousand visitors over the course of a week-plus.

While additional titles of course can and will be added as the festival approaches, the announcement of these line-ups brought some clarity to the fall film season.

In addition to TIFF’s previously announced opening night film, Sally El Hosaini’s The Swimmers, and Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Woman King, starring Viola Davis, the 16 other newly announced gala presentations were: Mary Nighy’s Alice, Darling, starring Anna KendrickBlack Ice, a documentary examination of racism’s history in hockey; Gabe Polsky’s Butcher’s Crossing, starring Nicolas CageGreen Book director Peter Farrelly’s The Greatest Beer Run Ever, starring Russell Crowe and Zac Efron; Francesca Archibugi’s The HummingbirdSquid Game Golden Globe nominee Lee Jung-jae’s directorial debut Hunt, a 1980s-set thriller; Tyler Perry’s A Jazzman’s BluesKacchey LimbuMoving On, starring Jane Fonda and Lily TomlinParis MemoriesPrisoner’s Daughter, starring Brian Cox and Kate Beckinsale; Rodrigo García’s Raymond & Ray, starring Ewan McGregor and Ethan HawkeRoost, starring Summer Phoenix; Reginald Hudlin’s documentary Sidney, about Sidney PoitierThe Father director Florian Zeller’s sophomore effort, The Son, starring Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern, and Anthony HopkinsWhat’s Love Got To Do With It?, with an ensemble that includes Lily James, Shazad Latif, and Emma Thompson.