The 42nd annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from September 7 to 17, 2017. There were fourteen programs, with the Vanguard and City to City programs both being retired from previous years, with the total number of films down by 20% from the 2016 edition. Borg/McEnroe directed by Janus Metz Pedersen opened the festival.

Brawl in Cell Block 99 is a 2017 American neo-noir prison action thriller film directed and written by S. Craig Zahler and starring Vince Vaughn with Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson, Udo Kier, Marc Blucas, and Tom Guiry. The story follows Bradley Thomas, a drug mule who must kill a man held in a maximum security prison to rescue his pregnant wife from a vengeful drug lord.