The first 13 films selected for the festival were announced in June 2021. The gala and special presentation programs were announced on July 20, while Contemporary World Cinema and Discovery titles were announced on July 28, TIFF Docs, Midnight Madness and Wavelengths were announced on August 4, Shortcuts and Platform were announced on August 11, and Primetime was announced on August 13.
Walt Becker's
Clifford the Big Red Dog was initially selected to be one of the Gala Presentations, but was withdrawn from the festival, after US distributor
Paramount Pictures pulled it from its release schedule due to the rise of the
Delta variant of COVID-19. The festival also announced a special event screening of an unspecified new film by
Steven Soderbergh. Details of the film were not announced in advance, except that it was not expected to be his known upcoming film
KIMI.
Gala presentations Special Presentations Special Events Contemporary World Cinema Celebrating Alanis TIFF Docs Discovery Midnight Madness Wavelengths Platform Primetime Short Cuts TIFF Rewind A new program which saw classic films that screened at TIFF in past years made available for streaming on
Crave, paired with talks by actors or filmmakers involved in the production.
TIFF Cinemathèque Coast-to-Coast Screenings Special screenings of selected Gala or Special Presentations films in other communities across Canada.
Industry Selects As in 2020 the Industry Selects program screened films for industry professionals, acting as a film market due to the continued COVID-19 pandemic having impacted the ability of filmmakers and critics to travel to international film festivals, but was not made available for the general public. ==Canada's Top Ten==