Midnight Madness, presented by Intrepid Travel, returns to TIFF with its signature slate of wicked wonders that are sure to delight and disturb the Festival’s devoted and raucous late-night crowd. The section closes out each night of the Festival with 11:59pm screenings at the (possibly) haunted Royal Alexandra Theatre, where the nocturnal faithful gather to bear witness to the very best and most bizarre in contemporary genre and shock cinema. The 2025 edition features seven World Premieres, and is bookended by two of the year’s most acclaimed midnight comedies courtesy of some seriously funny Canadians.
Midnight Madness opens with the Canadian Premiere of Matt Johnson’s Toronto-set “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.” Based on Johnson’s cult Viceland series, this hysterical, death-defying time-travel caper earned a standing ovation and a coveted Midnighter Audience Award at this past spring’s SXSW. Deeply steeped in late-aughts Toronto lore, its hometown screening is anticipated to levitate audiences into high orbit from the infectious laughter alone.
The closing film is “Dead Lover,” a zany, macabre horror-comedy from Canadian director Grace Glowicki. This madcap phantasmagoria has been celebrated in festival midnight sections around the world, and fittingly concludes its tour in Toronto as a welcome addition to the Midnight Madness canon.
The Festival’s wild side also features World Premieres of “Normal,” the latest shoot-’em-up from 2016 Midnight Madness People’s Choice Award recipient Ben Wheatley; “Dust Bunny,” the darkly whimsical directorial debut of prolific television showrunner Bryan Fuller (“Hannibal” & “Pushing Daisies”); and Kenji Tanigaki’s “The Furious,” a frenetic martial arts thriller that assembles some of the genre’s fiercest fighters (whose combined credits include “The Raid,” “Chocolate,” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once“). Midnight Madness devotees can expect these star-studded genre thrills to complement the lineup’s bold independent visions, including Curry Barker’s terrifying “Obsession,” Aleksandar Radivojević’s profane thriller “Karmadonna,” Takahide Hori’s imaginative stop-motion fantasia “JUNK WORLD,” and perhaps the two most berserk alt-comedies to ever play the section: Nick Corirossi and Armen Weitzman’s “The Napa Boys” and Todd Rohal’s “Fuck My Son!”
Here’s programme hype man Peter Kuplowsky with a breakdown of the Midnight Madness experience:
2025 Midnight Madness (in alphabetical order):
Dead Lover | Grace Glowicki | Canada | Closing Film
Canadian Premiere
Dust Bunny | Bryan Fuller | USA
World Premiere
Fuck My Son! | Todd Rohal | USA
World Premiere
JUNK WORLD | Takahide Hori | Japan
International Premiere
Karmadonna | Aleksandar Radivojević | Serbia
World Premiere
Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie | Matt Johnson | Canada | Opening Film
Canadian Premiere
Normal | Ben Wheatley | USA/Canada
World Premiere
Obsession | Curry Barker | USA
World Premiere
The Furious | Kenji Tanigaki | Hong Kong/China
World Premiere
The Napa Boys | Nick Corirossi | USA
World Premiere
Tickets go on sale to TIFF Members by level beginning on Friday, August 15. For more details, visit tiff.net/join. The full Festival schedule will be released on Tuesday, August 12. The 50th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, presented by Rogers, runs September 4–14, 2025.
Previously announced:
Galas And Special Presentations Lineup
Platform Programming & Jury
Discovery
Upcoming announcements:
Takeover 2: August 5th–8th
- Tuesday, August 5th: Centrepiece
- Wednesday, August 6th: TIFF Docs
- Thursday, August 7th: Shortcuts & Primetime
- Friday, August 8th: Wavelengths & TIFF Classics
Key 2025 Festival Links:
- Programmers: https://tiff.net/programmers
- Ticketing Dates: https://tiff.net/about-the-festival
- Media Library: https://tiff.net/media/library/festival
- TIFF: The Market: https://tiff.net/themarket (coming in 2026)
What do you think of the films announced so far? What other titles do you think will screen at this year’s TIFF? Are you planning on attending in-person? Please let us know your thoughts in the comments section below or on our X account.
