My favorite Toronto premiere memory was the one where eventual Best Picture winner Spotlight played to a raucous crowd reaction at the Princess of Wales Theatre, the emotion ratcheted up even further when the Boston Globe journalists who cracked the Catholic Church pedophile scandals took the stage and stood next to the actors who played them onscreen. It has been several years since TIFF has been able to show why this is such a special festival, because of the Covid epidemic and Canada’s protective lockdown of its borders. Last night marked a turning point for TIFF as a preeminent showcase for awards season movies, with the back to back Princess of Wales Theatre world premieres of Netflix’s Rian Johnson-directed Knives Out sequel Glass Onion, followed by the premiere of Amblin/Universal’s Steven Spielberg love letter to his family and a movie camera, The Fabelmans. Both of these films land squarely in the awards conversation.