Innehållsförteckning för September 2025 från Toronto Life

Here’s a question more and more people are asking in 2025: What is the point of going to university? What we offer at the University of Toronto is an academically rigorous degree. If you want to work in advanced technologies or write about the future of democracy, for example, then U of T is where you should be. University is where you learn how to think critically, to consider ethics, to get disciplinary knowledge. It’s where young people figure out who they are. But what about their careers? Thanks to the AI revolution, it’s not clear what jobs will even exist in 10 years. In many ways, U of T is considered the birthplace of AI, so we’re constantly talking about its implications. When you’ve been in education for a…

RYAN Reynolds makes even the multi-est of hyphenates look lazy. The actor, writer, producer, advertising CEO, football club owner, booze baron, telecom tycoon and philanthropist has spent the past decade with his finger in every conceivable pie—and that’s not including his role as Hollywood husband to Blake Lively and father of four (we won’t even get into his extrafamilial legal headaches). Yes, he is aware that he probably needs to get better at saying no, but just look at where saying yes has gotten him. Decades ago, the tension between taking on more and letting things go is what drove another comedy great: John Candy, the subject of Reynolds’s latest project. The idea to make a documentary about Candy—who stayed true to his Canadian roots even as he became one…

BORN AND RAISED in the Annex, Nobu Adilman is the creative tornado behind the beloved singalong phenomenon Choir! Choir! Choir! He’s currently gearing up for a North American tour—the group’s most expansive yet. Running through the fall, it includes shows all over the States. “Many folks are avoiding America right now, but I prefer to face it my way,” he says. “In peace.” Adilman’s childhood memories of the Annex still charge him up. “As a kid, I could feel the warmth from the lights at Honest Ed’s,” he says. “My mom still lives there too, and my house is just a few blocks away from her.” Here, he takes us on a tour of the neighbourhood that shaped him. For the ultimate hang ANNEX BILLIARDS CLUB “This was a seminal…

Other than watching the screener for his film, Good Neighbours, a serviceable noir mystery starring Emily Hampshire and Jay Baruchel, I’d skipped any real prep work. I was under the impression that the best interviews were candid and free-flowing, an alchemical reaction between two people trading spur-of-the-moment ideas and searching for common ground. So I shook his hand, sat down and lobbed a breezy opener, something like: “What was it like making this film?” He answered pleasantly, professionally, succinctly, and nodded as if to cue the next question. The problem: I didn’t have one. Chemistry, by this point, was supposed to have taken hold and thrust us into a conversational flow state. Desperate for help, I glanced at my notepad, which was blank. I blinked rapidly at Speedman. Then I…

The Buyer: Emily Hart, 37, a content creator. The Story: In 2018, Emily was living with her two kids, ages eight and 10, and her dog, Teddy, in a two-bedroom condo near Yonge and Eglinton for $2,800 a month, but noise from neighbourhood construction soon became a nuisance. She started thinking about moving downtown to be closer to her friends, and she was willing to downsize to a one-bedroom with a bed in the living room to make it work. In the spring of 2024, she set a budget of $3,000 a month and started searching. 1 Wellington Street West near Spadina and Front Listed at $2,482 Rented for $2,482 EMILY WAS INTRIGUED by the Well, the massive new housing and retail complex in the Entertainment District, so she attended a…

Every September, Toronto turns into an orgy of air kisses and after-parties, VIPs and paparazzi, celebrities and superfans, lineups and meltdowns-and we love it all TIFF IS THE CITY’S annual golden hour. In the luminous final days of summer, Toronto undergoes a complete metamorphosis: A-listers touch down in private jets, movie fanatics roam the streets and Hollywood insiders brace themselves for 11 days of frantic deal-making. The city feels like one big red carpet. Over the past 50 years, the once-scrappy passion project has become one of the world’s most influential film events: maker of careers, predictor of Oscars. It’s imbued Toronto with cultural capital the city could never have dreamed of back in 1976. Here, an inside look at the wild parties, epic sales and memorable mishaps that have defined…

“We’re recruiting in fields that will translate to Nobel Prizes.”—MELANIE WOODIN, P. 24 BEAVERS ARE WADDLING ACROSS QUEENS QUAY, raccoons are riding the subway and bald eagles are nesting here for the first time in recorded history. Animal-related incidents rose by 13 per cent last year, prompting city staff to push for a new $1.4-million wildlife response team. Its year-round job would be to handle potentially dangerous encounters (we’re looking at you, coyotes). But the spike is also encouraging. Animals are staking a claim to Toronto because of decades-long environmental reclamation initiatives, including fortified shorelines, restored meadows and wetlands for indigenous species, and one of the most robust urban forests in the world. It’s a jungle out there, in a good way.…

The First Velvet Rope → In 1984, Warren Beatty, the subject of a special tribute, showed up at the Copa Nightclub with his then-girlfriend Diane Keaton. Until this point, TIFF parties had been ragtag affairs, but the fête at the legendary Yorkville spot drew 1,500 people, including Jack Nicholson and film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Mr. and Mrs. Smith → In 2007, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie held an impromptu bash on the rooftop of the Park Hyatt. It was a master class in celebrity physics: the it couple exerted a magnetic pull on other A-listers. Jolie gesticulated at Sean Penn, Penn talked to Javier Bardem, Bardem hung out with Gael García Bernal. But, mostly, all eyes remained on the illustrious twosome. The Unofficial Clubhouse → In the…

“How many pizza places in your neighbourhood have been featured on SNL”—NOBU ADILMAN, P. 75 The Itinerary Flying is bad for the planet, the US is cringey until further notice and popular European destinations have had it with overwhelming hordes of tourists. In other words, there’s never been a better time to explore Canada. Our seven-day, elbows-up, cross-country road trip covers everything from butter tarts to bao, hoodoos to hot springs. (And, yes, we promise to venture east next time!) DAY 1 Toronto to Sault Ste. Marie Distance: ~700 km/7.5 hours PIT STOP Big Nickel Greater Sudbury, ON The Big Nickel, Sudbury’s oversized claim to fame, is 61 years old and still standing strong. At nine metres tall, it’s the world’s largest coin and a snap-worthy stop. Eat Here Deluxe…

A darkly funny novel about a cult of Ivy League witches We Love You, Bunny Out September 23 BOOKS Toronto-raised writer Mona Awad has a taste for the occult. Her 2019 novel, Bunny, follows Samantha, a writer in a prestigious MFA program. There, she meets a clique of rich classmates who engage in all manner of witchery and call one another “Bunny.” Samantha spends much of the book castigating them, and in the sequel, We Love You, Bunny, the women take their revenge. Sam finds herself tied up and tormented by the Bunnies, who are furious about their depictions in the first book. It’s a dizzying perspective shift that gets stranger as each Bunny shares her story. Here, Awad talks about the upside of being an outsider, the high cost…