The Toronto International Film Festival begins its 10-day run tonight with a slate of prestige pictures designed to wipe out the memory of the summer's critical duds and start the Oscar debate.

Among the prospects are new movies from directors David Mamet, Mike Figgis, Richard Linklater, Michael Apted, the brothers Albert and Allen Hughes, Fred Schepisi and Mira Nair. Celebrities will also be in abundance because studios piggyback their junkets alongside artier festival offerings.

Here is the advance scoop:

"Brotherhood of the Wolf." Christophe Gans' lupine thriller sports an unexpected touch of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" along with a little "Last of the Mohicans." The movie is a satisfying blend of martial-arts action and heavy-lidded French sexuality as two men, who could be figures out of a romance novel, hunt down a seemingly supernatural wolf. Mark Dacascos plays an Iroquois kung-fu master with the best fetishistic hair since Daniel Day-Lewis' in "Mohicans," and Samuel Le Bihan is his libertine pal with the insolent sneer who juggles both Emilie Dequenne and Monica Belluci.

"Novocaine." Writer-director David Atkins twists "Double Indemnity" into an uneven black comedy with Steve Martin as an upstanding dentist drooling over vixen-patient Helena Bonham Carter. The crime thriller also stars Laura Dern as the dentist's perky fiancee. With different casting, this could have worked as a serious film noir.

"Kissing Jessica Stein." This is one of those indie comedies that promises to be a breakthrough discovery. It's certainly a sparkling showcase for actresses Heather Juergensen and Jennifer Westfeldt, reprising the roles from the stage play they wrote ("Lipschtick"). Consider it the first mainstream lesbian comedy.

"Waking Life." Richard Linklater has two films in the festival. This one taps directly into the subconscious of the 30 artists who worked on it, painting over a live-action movie with computer graphics to distort the images into a surreal fantasy that reveals funny, poignant depths to the material.

"Tape." Linklater's other film pits Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Robert Sean Leonard in a motor lodge where a truth is revealed.

"Enigma." This unusual, cerebral thriller about breaking the Nazi code makes math and nerds look sexy, especially when the mathematician is Dougray Scott and the nerd is Kate Winslet. Saffron Burrows also stars as a breaker of codes and hearts.