It opened with the world premiere of Jeremy Podeswa's Fugitive Pieces, a film based on the international bestselling novel by Anne Michaels,[4] and closed with Paolo Barzman's Emotional Arithmetic.

[5] Critical favourites included No Country for Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days which were equally well received at the Cannes Film Festival, plus the Joy Division biopic Control which, along with the eponymously titled documentary on the band, Joy Division, was picked up by The Weinstein Company.

Peter Howell of the Toronto Star named Sidney Lumet's Before the Devil Knows You're Dead a major Oscar contender.

[7] Highly discussed but divisive films among the public and critics include comedies Juno and Margot at the Wedding, the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There and Brian De Palma's Iraq War documentary Redacted.

Films expected to stir controversy for their transgressive sexual content, such as Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, Alan Ball's Nothing Is Private and Martin Gero's Young People Fucking, did divide audiences but without fanfare.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Across the Universe both won their share of supporters despite previous reports of shooting delays and director-studio clashes.

The award was presented at a screening of Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937) which Bogdanovich selected to illustrate the importance of film restoration.

[22] Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán's feature debut Cochochi won the DIESEL Discovery Award and a CDN$10 000 bursary.

The International Federation of Film Critics returned to the festival for the 16th year and awarded Rodrigo Plá's La Zona the FIPRESCI Prize.

[10] The Doc Talk series features discussions with various documentary filmmakers on topics such as the future of the medium and their work and its subject matter.

Finally, the conflict in Sudan was discussed by the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, and a panel of filmmakers.