Fifteen films in the Toronto International Film Festival's 2026 lineup started out on the page. The festival ran September 10 to 20 with 293 titles in total, and among them sat Stephen King, Virginia Woolf, Colm Tóibín, a Tatsuki Fujimoto manga and a picture book about a boy who wants to be a mermaid. Here's the whole literary shortlist, and the ones worth clearing your reading schedule for.
Every book-to-screen adaptation in the TIFF 2026 lineup
What's the biggest name on the TIFF 2026 adaptation list?
Stephen King's Carrie is back, this time as a Mike Flanagan series for Prime, with Summer H. Howell as the telekinetic teenager. King's 1974 debut novel has been through three feature films and a TV film written by Bryan Fuller already; this version reframes Carrie White's story for a Gen Z audience.
Mike Flanagan has worked from Stephen King before, with Gerald's Game, Doctor Sleep and The Life of Chuck, and from shelves full of gothic fiction besides — The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor and The Fall of the House of Usher are all his. Born in Salem, Massachusetts, which is either coincidence or casting.
Which Canadian books are being adapted?
Four of the fifteen come from Canadian writers. Toronto playwright and showrunner Kat Sandler makes her directorial debut with YAGA, a Crave Original series adapted from her own 2018 play, which turns the Slavic folklore witch into a modern whodunnit set in a remote coastal town. The cast includes Hudson Williams of Heated Rivalry and Carrie-Anne Moss, and the first episode had its world premiere at the festival.
Tangles, the animated adaptation of Vancouver cartoonist Sarah Leavitt's 2010 graphic memoir about her mother's Alzheimer's diagnosis, had its North American premiere at TIFF 2026. Leah Nelson directs the hand-drawn film, and Abbi Jacobson, Bryan Cranston, Seth Rogen and Wanda Sykes voice characters in it.
How We Stand comes from Métis writer Marie Clements's 2012 play Tombs of the Vanishing Indian, about three sisters separated after their family moved from Oklahoma under the Native American Relocation Program. And Ba's Book is Ashley Duong's documentary built around her father Anh Duong's 2024 memoir Dear Da-Lê, written as letters to her about the Vietnam War, the Iranian Revolution and the family's eventual migration to Calgary.
How are the classics being reimagined?
Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway has been moved to Lagos. Clarissa, from Nigerian filmmakers Arie Esiri and Chuko Esiri, stars Sophie Okonedo as a woman preparing her home for a party while the past surfaces around her — the single-day structure of Woolf's 1925 novel, a century and a continent away.
The Idiot(s) approaches Dostoyevsky sideways. Polish directors Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert adapted Andrew D. Kaufman's literary biography The Gambler Wife, which puts Anna Dostoyevskaya at the centre: Aimee Lou Wood plays her opposite Johnny Flynn's Fyodor, as she watches his epilepsy and his gambling close in on the novel he has yet to write.
And Colm Tóibín's novella A Long Winter has been relocated to the Colorado mountains by Andrew Haigh, who made All of Us Strangers from Taichi Yamada's novel. Fred Hechinger plays Mike, a young man living alongside a distant father after his mother disappears into a blizzard, with Toronto-born D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai of Reservation Dogs also in the cast. Three very different books, and a good argument for reading the source first — something we're always happy to help with at The Bookclub Boutique.
Which memoirs and nonfiction made the cut?
Being Heumann, the memoir Judith Heumann wrote with Kristen Joiner, has been adapted by Siân Heder, who won an Academy Award for CODA. Ruth Madeley plays Heumann, known as the mother of the disability rights movement, who was paralyzed by polio as a baby, organized the 1977 occupation of a federal building in San Francisco and helped push the United States toward the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
Phoolan draws on I, Phoolan Devi: The Autobiography of India's Bandit Queen, published in 1996. Mississauga-born filmmaker Richie Mehta centres the biopic on a 48-hour siege, with Sneha Kumari as the woman who was a child bride, then a bandit, then a prisoner for 11 years, then a Member of Parliament.
Edward Said: Between Worlds is a documentary assembled from archival footage of the Palestinian American scholar who wrote Orientalism and The Question of Palestine. Director Maiken Baird worked with producers Sarah Mowaswes and Razan Ghalayini and with Said's daughter Najla Said, drawing on hundreds of hours of interviews and talks recorded before his death in 2003.
What about the comics, manga and picture books?
Hirokazu Kore-eda directed the live-action Look Back, from Tatsuki Fujimoto's 2021 one-shot manga about two girls who grow up dreaming of becoming manga artists, bound together by Fujino's tangle of envy and admiration for Kyomoto's drawing. The film was shot on 35mm and follows the pair across four seasons.
The Unknown comes from The Case of David Zimmerman, a graphic novel by Lucas Harari and Arthur Harari translated by David Homel. Arthur Harari, who won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Anatomy of a Fall, directs; Léa Seydoux plays a photographer who wakes after a party in someone else's body, with a third soul loose in the mix.
The smallest book on the list makes the sweetest film. Julián, directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Louise Bagnall, is animated from Jessica Love's picture book Julián Is a Mermaid, about a boy staying with his abuela in Brooklyn who sees women dressed in bright fabric and fish tails and decides that is exactly who he is.
Frequently asked questions
How many times has Carrie been adapted?
Mike Flanagan's version is the fifth adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie. The 1974 novel has already been made into three feature films and a television film written by Bryan Fuller, and Flanagan's new take is a series for Prime starring Summer H. Howell as Carrie White.
Has Look Back been filmed before?
Yes. Tatsuki Fujimoto's 2021 manga Look Back was adapted into an animated film by Kiyotaka Oshiyama in 2024. Hirokazu Kore-eda's 2026 version is the live-action one, shot on 35mm and following its two aspiring manga artists across four seasons.
What is The Smell of Apples about?
The Smell of Apples is set in apartheid South Africa in 1974 and follows Marnus, a young white boy who realises his privileged life rests on the oppression of Black South Africans. South African filmmaker John Trengrove, whose previous films include the Academy Award-nominated The Wound and Manodrome, adapted Mark Behr's 1993 debut novel.
Source
Based on material from CBC Books, received October 20, 2026. Written up for The Bookclub Boutique.
