TIFF is ground zero for a lot of films. It determines what will be sent to Vimeo hell or put in contention for end of the year awards.

The festival breeds hyperbole through critics and audiences that consistently claim to have found the next best thing. I thought I’d play along and look at a few of the superlatives of TIFF 2016, hopefully filling in some of the gaps of my previous coverage.

At the awards ceremony on Sunday, Damien Chazelle’s endearing homage to Technicolor musicals, La La Land, won the People’s Choice award and is set to win a whole slew of bougie trophies. Meanwhile the “it” movie from Sundance, Birth of a Nation—which sucked back then and still sucks now—was received by most critics, in my echo chamber at least, with unambiguous vitriol.

But appearing to takes its place—and it’s totally unfair burden for the film—is Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight, a sprawling account of an African American boy’s transformation from sensitive to macho cliché. The awards narratives are already forming around the film, and it’s clearly the festival’s most popular movie critically, spreading its appeal from the popular sphere to the “coolster” alt-critics that tend to go against the grain.

Split into three chapters that chronicle Chiron’s life as a boy, teenager, and young adult, the film focuses on the formation of this man’s eventual identity. Moonlight ambitiously shows Chiron trapped within himself, as hetero-normative society squeezes all life from the once sensitive boy. Chiron is different from the others boys, even from a young age, as he’s bullied, not overly athletic, and attracted to his best friend, Kevin.

Although the film is undeniably lyrical and well-acted—each of the three actors that play Chiron do exceptional work—there’s something overly-directed about the film; it’s so tightly orchestrated in meaning that it can be clunky and didactic.

Walter Hill’s ludicrous yet surprisingly thoughtful (Re)Assignment ended up on the polar opposite end of the critical spectrum, pissing just about everyone off. Hill, the director of genre films like The Warriors and most recently Bullet in the Head, has made some hard-nosed pulp mindful of gender identity.

About a serial killer forced into sexual reassignment surgery by a vengeful doctor, the story may be too slight for the film’s grander ambitions, but there’s something ingenious about (Re)Assignment, almost poignant even. That being said, Bertrand Bonello’s mesmerizing Nocturama was the strongest genre film at the festival.

Following a diverse group of young French people brought together in the staging of a terrorist attack in Paris, Nocturama is infused with the hysteria of the Panopticon. Labyrinthine and multi-faceted, the film puts us in the middle of a world where everyone is being watched or controlled by consumerism or government surveillance. The film is chilling and invigorating in equal measure.

Despite my best efforts to see as many Canadian films as possible, I still missed the two big winners. Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves, which traces the massive student demonstrations against a tuition hike in Quebec circa 2012, took home the Best Canadian Feature, and Old Stone edged out Hello Destroyer and Werewolf for Best Canadian Debut Feature.

As is the case for these films and the typically unbalanced reception that comes with them, time will be the real judge.