'La Bola Negra' wins TIFF's People Choice Award, putting it on Oscar path

“La Bola Negra,” the Spanish queer epic about the intertwined lives of three gay men, won the People's Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, confirming its status as a major Oscar contender.

TIFF's top award is voted on by festivalgoers, and it's become known as one of the most iron-clad Academy Awards predictors. Since 2012, all but one winner of the People's Choice Award has gone on to score a best-picture nomination at the Oscars. The lone exception was in 2024, when Mike Flanagan's Stephen King adaptation “The Life of Chuck” won the award. Last year, “Hamnet” won it and later landed eight Oscar nominations.

“La Bola Negra” is directed by the duo known as Los Javis — Javier Ambrossi and Javier Calvo. It was already a hit at the Cannes Film Festival, where “La Bola Negra” split the best director award with Paweł Pawlikowski for “Fatherland.”

Netflix acquired “La Bola Negra” out of Cannes and has launched a full awards campaign for the film. Netflix is also giving the film its longest theatrical release yet for the streamer. “La Bola Negra” opens in theaters Oct. 16 and begins streaming Dec. 2.

“This is a deeply personal film but it also carries a message of the importance and necessity of expressing who you are,” the Javis said in a statement Sunday. “Knowing that audiences connected with it and made it their own is the greatest gift we could receive.”

The first runner-up for the TIFF award was “I Play Rocky,” Peter Farrelly's comedy about the making of “Rocky.” Second runner-up was “Being Heumann,” Siân Heder's drama about disability rights pioneer Judy Heumann.

The festival also awards a People's Choice Award for international films. That went to “Elsinore,” starring Andrew Scott as Ian Charleson, the Scottish actor who performed “Hamlet” in London while suffering from AIDS. The first runner-up was “Possible Love,” Lee Chang-dong’s Korean drama about the trauma of mass layoffs. Second runner-up was “The Assassin(s),” a Korean procedural by Hur Jin-ho.