La Bola Negra wins top People's Choice prize at 51st Toronto Film Festival

Top audience honour for Spanish drama

La Bola Negra, directed by the Spanish filmmaking duo Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, won the People's Choice Award on Sunday at the close of the 51st Toronto International Film Festival. The Spanish-language period drama spans three timelines set in 1932, 1937, and 2017, focusing on the lives of interconnected gay men and drawing inspiration from an unfinished story by Federico García Lorca. The film features singer-songwriter Guitarricadelafuente in the lead role, with supporting appearances from Penélope Cruz and Glenn Close. Produced on a budget of under $15 million, the film was acquired by Netflix following its debut in May at the Cannes Film Festival, where Calvo and Ambrossi shared the Best Director prize with Paweł Pawlikowski. On Wednesday, Spain officially selected the film as its submission for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards.

Trajectory and release plans

The victory is the first time a foreign-language film has won Toronto's primary audience prize since the Lebanese production Where Do We Go Now? in 2011. It is also the first People's Choice Award win for a film distributed by Netflix. The film screened on Tuesday for its Canadian premiere following its May debut in Cannes, where it received a 16-minute standing ovation. The theatrical release is scheduled for 16 October 2026, followed by a global streaming release on Netflix in December. The audience award in Toronto has frequently preceded Academy Award nominations, with past winners including Nomadland, Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, and The King's Speech.

Additional People's Choice winners

In the main audience category, Peter Farrelly's I Play Rocky finished as first runner-up. The Amazon MGM production chronicles the behind-the-scenes creation of Sylvester Stallone's 1976 boxing classic. Second runner-up honours went to Apple's Being Heumann, directed by Sian Heder, which portrays the disability rights protests led by activist Judy Heumann. Both runner-up features are scheduled for theatrical release in November.

International and genre awards

The International People's Choice Award was presented to Elsinore, directed by Simon Stone. The film is a co-production across the United Kingdom, the United States, and Italy, with Lucky Red producers Andrea Occhipinti and Stefano Massenzi involved alongside editor Valerio Bonelli. Andrew Scott portrays Scottish actor Ian Charleson during his 1989 run as Hamlet at London's National Theatre while ill with AIDS, prior to his death in January 1990 at age 40. Possible Love and The Assassins placed as first and second runners-up in the international category.

Documentary honours and festival scale

In the documentary category, Barry Avrich's Darlene Love: I Know Where I've Been secured the People's Choice Award. The film explores Love's uncredited session work for producer Phil Spector during the 1960s and includes interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Dionne Warwick, and David Letterman. Black Sunflowers and The Ultra Runner finished as documentary runners-up. The Midnight Madness prize went to Matthew Rankin's Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney, followed by The Spiral and Arrested Memory. In total, the festival screened 294 feature films from 70 countries across 11 days, verifying attendee votes against ticket records and IP addresses.