The 34th annual Toronto International Film Festival (Sept. 10-19) is shaping up to be a spectacularly star-studded affair. Check out some of the big names with movies in the fest: Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, Michael Douglas, Jennifer Garner, Susan Sarandon, Jude Law, Nicolas Cage, Megan Fox, Ethan Hawke, Ellen Page, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, Natalie Portman, Penelope Cruz, Charlize Theron, Ewan McGregor, George Clooney, Naomi Watts and Paul Bettany -- who's in both the opening and closing night films (Creation and The Young Victoria, respectively).

Even comedian Chris Rock, the Grammy-winning rock duo The White Stripes, and Playboy founder Hugh Hefner are in TIFF movies this year. Hefner, the subject of Brigitte Berman's documentary Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel, announced on his Twitter feed that he's bringing his new set of girlfriends with him to Toronto.

The list of directors with movies at TIFF is pretty impressive too: Terry Gilliam, Michael Moore, Todd Solondz, Steven Soderbergh, Jason Reitman, Pedro Almodóvar, the Coen brothers, and George Romero. Expect first-time helmers like ex-fashion designer Tom Ford with his Colin Firth-starrer A Single Man and actress Drew Barrymore with her roller-derby adventure Whip It (starring Ellen Page) to produce some serious buzz.

The Toronto International Film Festival is known as the unofficial launch pad for movies aiming for inclusion in the upcoming awards season. Last year Rachel Getting Married, The Wrestler, Waltz With Bashir and eight-time Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire all got their initial push at Toronto.

AMC News correspondent Jacob Soboroff and the AMC News team are all heading to Toronto to cover this year's TIFF. Keep your eye out for our in-depth interviews, red carpet reports, and behind-the-scenes commentary on-air, online and on our Twitter feed straight from the festival.

In the meantime check out some of the big films showing at TIFF this year, with descriptions courtesy of the festival:

A Serious Man
Directors: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
(World Premiere)
Imaginatively exploring questions of faith, familial responsibility, delinquent behaviour, dental phenomena, academia, mortality and Judaism -- and intersections thereof -- A Serious Man is the latest from Academy Award-winning writer-directors Joel and Ethan Coen.

Broken Embraces
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
(North American Premiere)
Harry Caine (Llius Homar of Bad Education), a blind writer, must heal his wounds from fourteen years ago, when he was still known by his real name, Mateo Blanco, and directing his last movie with his leading lady (Penelope Cruz). As the past is revisited, a story of amour fou unfolds, dominated by fatality, jealousy, the abuse of power, treachery and a guilt complex.

Capitalism: A Love Story
Director: Michael Moore
(North American Premiere)
On the 20-year anniversary of his groundbreaking masterpiece Roger & Me, Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story comes home to the issue he's been examining throughout his career: The disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world).

Chloe
Director: Atom Egoyan
(World Premiere)
Catherine (Julianne Moore), a successful doctor, suspects her husband David (Liam Neeson), a handsome music professor, is cheating on her. To lay her suspicions and fears to rest, she hires an irresistible young woman, Chloe (Amanda Seyfried), to test David's fidelity. Chloe's torrid tales of her encounters with David lead Catherine on a journey of sexual and sensual re-discovery. But by opening the door to temptation, she puts her family in great danger.

Daybreakers
Directors: Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig
(World Premiere)
Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill star in this scifi horror about a future populated by vampires where humans are the minority.

George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead
Director: George A. Romero
(World Premiere)
Master director George A. Romero returns to his world of the undead, this time pitting two feuding clans in the middle of the fallout of a zombie epidemic.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Director: Terry Gilliam
(North American Premiere)
Heath Ledger's final film. This fantastical morality tale tells the story of Dr. Parnassus and his travelling show, the extraordinary 'Imaginarium'. Blessed with the remarkable gift of guiding the imaginations of others, Dr. Parnassus is cursed with a dark secret. Colin Farrell, Jude Law and Johnny Depp also star.

The Informant!
Director: Steven Soderbergh
(North American Premiere)
Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon), a rising star at agri-industry giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), suddenly turns whistleblower. Exposing his company's multinational price-fixing conspiracy to the FBI, Whitacre imagines himself as a kind of de facto secret agent. Unfortunately for the FBI, their lead witness hasn't been quite forthcoming about helping himself to the corporate coffers. Based on the true story of the highest-ranking corporate whistleblower in U.S. history.

Jennifer's Body
Director: Karyn Kusama
(World Premiere)
Jennifer's Body tells the story of small-town high-school student Jennifer (Megan Fox) who is possessed by a hungry demon and transitions from being "high school evil" -- gorgeous (and doesn't she know it), stuck up and ultra-attitudinal -- to the real deal: evil/evil. Written and executive produced by Oscar-winner Diablo Cody (Juno).

The Joneses

Director: Derrick Borte
(World Premiere)
In the comedic drama The Joneses, Kate Jones (Demi Moore) and Steve Jones (David Duchovny) are a picture-perfect couple who, at first glance, are the embodiment of the American dream. When they move their family into suburbia, the Joneses immediately become the envy of the residents around them with their luxury cars and their gorgeous home. But little do their neighbours realize that this family isn't what it appears to be, and everyone is about to find out that keeping up with the Joneses isn't as easy as it seems.

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits

Director: Don Roos
(World Premiere)
Emilia Woolf (Natalie Portman) is a Harvard law school graduate and a newlywed, having just married Jack, her high-powered New York lawyer boss (Scott Cohen). Her life takes an unexpected turn when the couple loses their newborn daughter. An adaptation of an Ayelet Waldman novel, this tearful and terrific tale by writer-director Don Roos proves that even with a pursuit like love, nothing is impossible.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Director: Grant Heslov
(North American Premiere)
Reporter Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is in search of his next big story when he encounters Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a shadowy figure who claims to be part of an experimental U.S. military unit. According to Cassady, the New Earth Army is changing the way wars are fought. A legion of "Warrior Monks" with unparalleled psychic powers can read the enemy's thoughts, pass through solid walls and even kill a goat simply by staring at it. When the programme's founder, Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), goes missing, Cassady's mission is to find him in this quirky dark comedy, inspired by a real story.

Solitary Man
Directors: Brian Koppelman and David Levien
(World Premiere)
Ben Kalmen (Michael Douglas) is feeling his age, but you wouldn't know it from the company he keeps. A former mogul with a chain of car dealerships, until legal troubles knocked him out of business, Ben now keeps a grip on the world through his relationships with women - many women.

Triage
Director: Danis Tanovic
(World Premiere)
Mark (Colin Farrell), a war photographer, returns home from Kurdistan without his friend and colleague David (Jamie Sives). As time goes on, it becomes clear that Mark holds the key to the truth of David's disappearance.

Up in the Air
Director: Jason Reitman
(World Premiere)
From Jason Reitman, the Oscar-nominated director of Juno, comes a comedy starring George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizing expert whose cherished life on the road is threatened just as he is on the cusp of reaching ten million frequent flyer miles and just after he's met the frequent-traveler woman of his dreams.