The 48th annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from September 7 to 17, 2023.^[1]

The most noted change from past years was that the Contemporary World Cinema stream was renamed Centrepiece.^[2] The festival also announced some changes to its programming team for the 2023 festival, following the retirement of Steve Gravestock at the end of 2022^[3] and the death of Ravi Srinivasan in early 2023.^[4] Noted changes included Norman Wilner taking over Gravestock's role as programmer of Canadian films, and June Kim succeeding Srinivasan as programmer for South Asian films.^[1]

The festival indicated that with the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival having returned to more normal attendance figures, the event would take place exclusively in-person, ending the online platform that had been offered since the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival.^[5] An additional change from past years was that the film market screenings for industry professionals began on September 6, one day earlier than the festival's official opening to the public.^[6]

Festival organizers acknowledged that the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike was likely to impact the festival if not resolved in time, in particular because the strike prevented actors from taking part in promotional appearances to support their films, but indicated that the festival would still proceed even if fewer celebrities than usual were in attendance.^[7] The rule did not necessarily bar all American actors from attending the event, however; for instance, as Atom Egoyan's Seven Veils was a Canadian production shot under ACTRA rather than SAG-AFTRA contracts, lead actress Amanda Seyfried remained able to attend the premiere,^[8] though she ultimately chose not to attend.^[9] As well, several films in the 2023 program were directed by notable movie stars, who were able to attend the premieres in their capacity as directors.^[10]

The festival indicated that overall, 70 per cent of its planned program for 2023 came from independent and/or international producers, and would not be affected by the strike.^[11]

The first film, Taika Waititi's Next Goal Wins, was announced on June 28.^[12] Ladj Ly's Les Indésirables^[13] and Atom Egoyan's Seven Veils^[14] were announced in July, prior to the announcement of the full Gala and Special Presentations programs on July 24.^[15] The TIFF Docs lineup followed on July 26.^[16]

The festival's opener was the Japanese animated film The Boy and the Heron by Hayao Miyazaki, which marked the first time in history that an animated film opened the festival.^[17][18] It concluded with Sly, Thom Zimny's documentary film about actor Sylvester Stallone;^[19] Stallone also participated in an In Conversation event in conjunction with the film.^[20]

In Conversation events were held with film director Pedro Almodóvar and actors Lee Byung-hun, Park Seo-jun and Andy Lau. Lee and Park costarred in the TIFF premiere Concrete Utopia, Lau starred in the TIFF premiere The Movie Emperor, and Almodóvar's talk was paired with the North American premiere of his short film Strange Way of Life (Extraña forma de vida).^[21]

Punjab '95, by Indian director Honey Trahan, was originally announced in the "Gala Presentations" section, but was pulled out from the festival.^[22] TIFF clarified that the film was pulled by its Indian distributor,^[23] with sources telling Variety that political pressure was being applied to the distributor due to the film's "potentially incendiary" content.^[24]

The festival also staged a special 40th anniversary screening of a new 4K restoration of the classic concert film Stop Making Sense.^[25]

The festival's annual "Rising Stars" program, a networking and development program for emerging actors in festival films, spotlighted Adwa Bader (NAGA), Almudena González (The Ravaging Wind), Amrit Kaur (The Queen of My Dreams), Aria Mia Loberti (All the Light We Cannot See), Cody Lightning (Hey, Viktor!), Kudakwashe Rutendo (Backspot), Léah Aubert (Sisterhood), Mark Clennon (I Don't Know Who You Are) and Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne (The Convert).^[26]

TIFF's annual Canada's Top Ten list of the ten best Canadian feature and short films of the year was released on December 6, 2023.^[34]