Every year the People's Choice Award provides an opportunity for local audiences to help sway not only the conversation around the Toronto International Film Festival, but also through awards season through the rest of the year.

Past winners include many that went on to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar, including last year's The Fabelmans, while others have vied for best foreign pic in high numbers.

This year there doesn't seem to be a clear title that had everyone talking, and prediction is always a fool's errand when it comes to navigating what does or doesn't rise to the top of the opaque voting structure here.

Save for stupendous titles that saw great success at other festivals like The Zone of Interest, Anatomy of a Fall, Fallen Leaves, Green Border and so on, those are likely too sombre to take on the other contenders.

So, if you want to place your bets ahead of the announcement this weekend, here are my picks for what's likely to take the 2023 TIFF People's Choice Award.

The Boy and the Heron

Ever since TIFF announced it was getting the international premiere of Hayao Miyazaki’s latest (but apparently not his last) animated film there's been a big buzz around this title.

The film played to swarms of eager fans as the opening film of the fest, and given the legions of Ghibli obsessives, along with those who swooned for this surreal, visually sumptuous story with classic fairy tale elements, there’s plenty working for this film about a boy and a bird to fly above the rest.

The Holdovers

It's not a true TIFF premiere, having already screened at Telluride, yet Alexander Payne's latest is so beautifully realized, so exquisitely filmed, and so powerfully performed by the ever excellent Paul Giamatti. 

Along with a breakthrough performance by Dominic Sessa and a warm yet rich take by Da'Vine Joy Randolph, it's hard not to completely fall for what's arguably this director's finest accomplishment.

His Three Daughters

If there's a true TIFF breakthrough this year it's found in this absolutely impeccable daddy/daughter drama.

From the opening monologue this assured, complex yet emotionally rich film is something to behold, and with powerhouse performances by Elizabeth Olsen, Natasha Lyonne and Carrie Coon all in mega form, Azazel Jacobs' magnificent film is worthy of any attention it's set to receive after being embraced by Toronto audiences.

Nyad

If feel good swimming tales of middle-aged women conquering seemingly impossible tasks are prime for audience appreciation, than this first fiction film from documentary icons Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, previous People's Choice winners for their climbing film masterpiece Free Solo, may well navigate itself to victory.

Memory

Jessica Chastain has long been a champion of this festival, and her arrival at the red carpet this year made for a welcome bit of star power. Yet it's her co-star Peter Sarsgaard who took home the acting prize for Michael Franco's powerful drama about the collision between past and present.

Sing Sing

Colman Domingo was already getting feted at this year's fest, and his powerful performance in this true-life tale of prisoners performing drama provides another showcase for his prodigious talent.

Joined by many veterans of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts, this film beautifully skates the divide between the heightened storytelling of fiction and the deeply moving, powerful non-fiction elements woven throughout. It's a brilliant little film deserving of plenty of praise.

Wicked Little Letters

This film flew under the radar for many, but TIFF audiences have long adored Olivia Colman, and pairing her with other fest fave Jessie Buckley (also here with Fingernails) in this tale of scandal and swearwords there just may be a big surprise for this uproarious World Premiere from director Thea Sharrock.

American Fiction

Jeffery Wright is a treasure, so what better way to celebrate one of the greatest performers of his or any generation than by presenting Cord Jefferson's film with the top TIFF award. This satirical yet precise film is destined to be one of the more memorable films to come out of this year's slate.

Hit Man

Richard Linklater's latest is a breezy, sometimes silly story of a philosophy prof-turned-undercover police performer, wooing unsuspecting fools into incriminating themselves in murder-for-hire schemes. Glenn Powell shines in this blackly comical tale.