The superstar team of Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner, and Janusz Kaminski ripping another one out of the park is the least surprising development at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. The entirety of Spielberg’s being splashed upon the big screen, The Fabelmans sidesteps the treacly sentimentality of your typical autobiography to deliver a moving form of self-therapy: the legendary director’s heart and soul, delivered through his masterful craft. The Fabelmans is Spielberg’s most personal film, and one of the year’s best. Minor spoilers ahead…

Detonating its staid biopic formula with supernova movie star Austin Butler and lunatic, maximalist filmmaking, Baz Luhrmann — with maniacal glee — paints an irresistible portrait of a tortured artist. You won’t learn anything from Elvis you can’t glean from the skim of a Wikipedia page, but its boilerplate, breakneck procession is upended by hair-raising voltage and an astonishing capture of The King’s mythic charisma. Minor spoilers ahead…

Kristen Stewart - in a wrenching, career-best performance - disappears into the role of Diana, Princess of Wales in Pablo Larraín’s Spencer, a haunting gauntlet of psychological horror in the guise of a biopic. Forgoing historical specificity in favor of evocation and the hazy purgatory between dream and nightmare, Spencer rebukes the royal mythos with a portrait of an unraveling spirit. Minor spoilers ahead…

Heavy on gall and style, light on substance, Josh Trank’s Al Capone biopic attempts to shake free from genre convention, but comes up short. Focused on the last days of a fading gangster, Capone acts as a bizarre fever dream bolstered by a particularly unhinged performance from Tom Hardy, but it never quite rises above its tonal inconsistencies nor its veneer of theatricality. Minor spoilers below…