Steven Spielberg’s ‘The Fabelmans’ Wins Toronto Film Festival People’s Choice Award

UPDATED, 9:45 AM with Steven Spielberg statement:

Here is Steven Spielberg’s full statement upon winning the Toronto Film Festival’s People’s Choice award for The Fabelmans.

PREVIOUSLY: The People’s Choice Award from the just-wrapped 2022 Toronto Film Festival has gone to Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans. First Runner Up is Canada’s own Sarah Polley’s Women Talking. Second Runner Up was Rian Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. The Documentary Award went to Black Ice, and the Midnight Madness winner was Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.

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Voted online by audience members since 1978 and often considered a harbinger for the Best Picture Oscar, the TIFF People’s Choice Award has been won by such eventual Best Picture Academy Award winners as Nomadland, Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, The King’s Speech, Slumdog Millinaire, American Beauty and Chariots of Fire. Among those that went on to Best Picture nominations include last year’s winner Belfast, as well as JoJo Rabbit, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Room, La La Land, The Imitation Game, Silver Linings Playbook, Precious, Life Is Beautiful, Places in the Heart and The Big Chill.

With the closing of the first fully live Toronto fest in three years, impacted as everything else was by Covid in the recent past, this also represents the end of the fall festival trifecta of Venice, Telluride and Toronto that traditionally open the official six-month awards season. With Venice awarding its Golden Lion unusually to a documentary, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed from director Laura Poitras (but did not place in the top 3 at TIFF), and now the People’s Choice Award from TIFF going to The Fabelmans, the race is on and at this point appears wide open and perhaps heading into unpredictable territory.

However, with this award, and the general feeling that Fabelmans emerged coming off its wildly enthusiastic TIFF premiere a week ago as the Oscar front-runner at least for now, it means the film is in a good early position for Universal and Spielberg’s most personal film yet. Time will tell.

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Festival director Cameron Bailey notified Spielberg very early this morning and he said was very grateful and again, as he said after the huge standing ovation at its premiere, that he was very glad they brought it to Toronto (which he noted last week was his first festival ever for one of his directed films, but it should also be mentioned that 2018’s Green Book another People’s Choice winner was produced by Spielberg’s company). On to the New York Film Festival later this month, and then London.

Here is the official winners list from TIFF with all their 2022 honorees:

IMDbPro Short Cuts Award for Best Film

Snow in September, dir. Lkhagvadulam (Dulmaa) Purev-Ochir.

NETPAC Award

Sweet As, dir. Jub Clerc

FIPRESCI Prize

Basil Khalil’s A Gaza Weekend

Amplify Voices Award for Best Canadian Feature Film

To Kill A Tiger, dir. Nisha Pahuja

Special Mention for Best Canadian Feature Film

Viking, dir. Stéphane Lafleur

Amplify Voices Award

Leonor Will Never Die, dir. Martika Ramirez Escobar

Special Mention for Best Feature from an Emerging BIPOC Filmmaker

Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On, dir. Madison Thomas.

Shawn Mendes Foundation Changemaker Award

Luis De Filippis’ Something You Said Last Night.

Platform Prize

Riceboy Sleeps, written and directed by Anthony Shim

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD
For the 45th year, the People’s Choice Awards distinguish the audience’s top title at the festival as voted by the viewing public. All films in TIFF’s Official Selection were eligible.

TIFF People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story dir. Eric Appel

First runner-up:  Pearl dir. Ti West.
Second runner-up: The Blackening dir. Tim Story

TIFF People’s Choice Documentary Award

Black Ice dir. Hubert Davis

First runner-up: Maya and the Wave dir. Stephanie Johnes
Second runner-up: 752 Is Not a Number dir. Babak Payami

TIFF People’s Choice Award

The Fabelmans dir. Steven Spielberg

First runner-up: Women Talking dir. Sarah Polley
Second runner-up: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery dir. Rian Johnson