In recent months, a deranged killer, a 90-year-old avenger and a talk show host with a deadly interest in the occult have breathed new life into an indie film industry that has been in the doldrums. The success of films like “Longlegs,” “Thelma” and “Late Night With the Devil” has helped a sector of the entertainment industry — crushed by COVID, labor strikes and streaming — stage a comeback. And while it’s a far cry from the arthouse heyday of the ‘90s and early 2000s, the turnaround has been impressive.

“We’ve had some of our biggest hits to date,” said Elissa Federoff, distribution chief at Neon, the studio behind the horror thriller “Long-legs.” “And that’s because we’ve made bigger bets on bigger-budget movies that have the potential to reach a much larger audience.”

Glen Basner, CEO of FilmNation, agrees that the picture has brightened, particularly when it comes to new filmmaking. "It feels like we've reached a tipping point," he says. "Filming is picking up again. There's not the same backlog of projects that were supposed to be shooting all at once when the strike ended."

With the Toronto International Film Festival kicking off this month, executives like Federoff and Basner will be landing in Canada with renewed optimism. They’re heading north to build buzz for the films they hope will be Oscar contenders, while also looking for the kind of movies that can draw audiences. After all, TIFF isn’t just a showcase for finished films with distribution, it’s also a place for studios to shop for films and packages looking for a home. Sales reps are also hoping that the good vibes permeating the business will make studios more willing to write big checks and spark some of the late-night bidding wars that have been absent for some time.