Ben Affleck and Matt Damon in period drama they co-wrote, Benedict Cumberbatch in Jane Campion’s sibling feud story – 10 awards season candidates to catch at Toronto, Venice and Telluride festivals

Autumn is when awards season front runners emerge, and period drama The Last Duel, co-scripted by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, opens the Toronto film festival

Benedict Cumberbatch stars in Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, premiering in Venice and Toronto; Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast is his ‘most personal film’ yet

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Benedict Cumberbatch in a still from Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, which premieres at the Venice and Toronto film festivals and could be contender for best picture honours in the 2022 awards season.

Published: 2:30am, 25 Aug 2021Updated: 8:15am, 25 Aug 2021

The autumn film festival season is upon us, with Telluride, Toronto, and Venice all about to get under way. That means a glut of new films is about to be unleashed – many of which are likely to feature in the awards race in the coming six months.

Last year, Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland launched at all three festivals and left the competitors in the dust all the way to the Academy Awards, where it won three Oscars, including for best picture.

So which films premiering in this festival season are likely to last the distance?

We take an early look at 10 potential candidates for the upcoming awards season.

1. Dear Evan Hansen

From Jon Chu’s In The Heights to the forthcoming reboot of West Side Story by Steven Spielberg, 2021 is the year of the musical. Opening this year’s Toronto International Film Festival is the movie adaptation of the Olivier- and Tony Award-winning hit set in a high school, Dear Evan Hansen.