Every festival has awards, but when the fall season comes around few are more sought-after than TIFF’s People’s Choice Award. And the reason for that is simple. Its winners tend to go on to become Best Picture nominees, as has been the case for 10 of the last 11 winners. So knowing that, the Oscar prospects for Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit just skyrocketed.
Jojo Rabbit won the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival’s coveted Grolsch People’s Choice Award, and this has to make it one of the top contenders to be the Oscars Best Picture winner. The dark satire finds Waititi both behind the camera and in front of it, playing an imaginary Adolf Hitler who befriends a Hitler Youth. That critics were pretty split on the movie overall hasn’t dimmed its prospects…yet, anyway. We’ll see how that goes upon national rollout in a few weeks. Waititi is joined in the film by Scarlett Johansson, Sam Rockwell, Roman Griffin Davis, Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, Rebel Wilson, Stephen Merchant, and Alfie Allen.
First runner-up for the prize was Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, making this a good festival for Scarlett Johansson who stars alongside Adam Driver. Second runner-up with South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s black comedy Parasite.
Jojo Rabbit opens October 18th.
