TIFF 2014: Why weren't there any obvious Best Picture Oscar contenders at this year's festival?

As the Toronto International Film Festival comes to a close every year, it usually becomes pretty clear which fest films are bound for glory come awards season. In 2013, it was TIFF People’s Choice Award winner “12 Years a Slave” that went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and the year before that it was Toronto hits like “Argo” and “Silver Linings Playbook” that made the most noise come Oscar time, and so on, going back to 1997’s “American Beauty.”

TIFF 2014 is a little different, though. While there have been plenty of well-reviewed movies premiering at the festival, no clear Best Picture favourite has emerged out of Toronto. Films like Jean-Marc Vallee’s drama “Wild,” Bennett Miller’s sports thriller “Foxcatcher,” and Morten Tyldum’s Alan Turing biopic “The Imitation Game” might be candidates for the Best Picture nominations, but there’s been no one film at TIFF that has stood out as an Oscar slamdunk. Why is that?

It’s all about the acting
If TIFF 2014 has been one thing, it’s been a showcase for some incredible, award-worthy performances. There may still be question marks next to the Best Picture category, but there is no doubt that at least a few of the actors who took centre stage at TIFF will be going home with some gold hardware early next year.

Some of the most talked about performances at Toronto this year have been by women. Likely Best Actress nominees include Reese Witherspoon (for her brave performance as a troubled woman trekking across the US to find herself in “Wild”), Jennifer Aniston (for her decidedly unglamorous portrayal of a chronic pain sufferer in “Cake”), Jennifer Connelly (for her heartwrenching turn as a homeless widow in “Shelter”), Juliette Binoche (as an actress in crisis in “Clouds of Sils Maria"), and Julianne Moore (who has dual shots at Oscar thanks to her turn as an aging Hollywood B-lister in “Maps to the Stars” and as a woman diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in “Still Alice”).

Likely Best Actor nominees coming out of Toronto could include Bill Murray (for his turn as a cranky retiree in "St. Vincent"), Jake Gyllenhaal (for his disturbing portrayal of a depraved TV journalist in “Nightcrawler”), Eddie Redmayne (for his much talked about turn as disabled astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything”), Benedict Cumberbatch (for his performance as persecuted codebreaker Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game”), Steve Carell (for his transformative dramatic role as deranged philanthropist John du Pont in "Foxcatcher"), Tobey Maguire (for his turn as elusive American chess master Bobby Fischer in “Pawn Sacrifice”), and Timothy Spall (for his portrayal of cantankerous English painter JMW Turner in “Mr. Turner”).

But occasionally with films like these, the performances overshadow the production as a whole, meaning that all the attention goes toward the actors and not what else went into the movies - or maybe there isn't much else to the films other than the great performances. The movies may not be wowing overall, but there’s no question that TIFF is full of great performances this year.

Films MIA from Toronto

Another reason that Best Picture predictions coming out of TIFF are so murky is because many of the films already tipped to be key contenders on Oscar night aren't actually in Toronto. Many insiders believe TIFF's aggressive new policy regarding exclusive movie premieres may have cost it films like Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Birdman," David Fincher's "Gone Girl," and Paul Thomas Anderson's "Inherent Vice," which instead went to other fests like Venice, Telluride, and the upcoming New York Film Festival.

Was the future Best Picture winner at Toronto this year or did it/will it bow elsewhere? Only time will tell at this point. While TIFF 2014 certainly has its fair share of Oscar contenders, things aren't quite as clear cut - the fest certainly can't claim to be the Best Picture bellwether its been in previous years. We'll know more when the festival announces its People's Choice Award on Sept. 14, but a lot can happen between now and Oscar time.

The 2014 Toronto International Film Festival runs through to Sept. 14.