George Clooney hoped to be at September's Toronto Film Fest for August: Osage County and Gravity premieres

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'August: Osage County,' 'Gravity,' 'Rush' Headed to Toronto Film Fest

Festival will open with Bill Condon's WikiLeaks movie "The Fifth Estate," and close with Daniel Schecter's "Life of Crime"

World premieres of John Wells’ “August: Osage County,” Jason Reitman’s “Labor Day,” Matthew Weiner’s “You Are Here” and Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave" will highlight the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF organizers announced on Tuesday morning.

The festival will kick off with Bill Condon's WikiLeaks movie "The Fifth Estate," starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Julian Assange, and close with Daniel Schecter's Elmore Leonard adaptation "Life of Crime."

Labor DayFor Reitman, the booking of “Labor Day” (left) means a return to the festival where he premiered all of his movies until 2011’s “Young Adult,” and to the city where a square outside festival headquarters is named after his family.

Also in the extensive lineup of galas and special presentations: Alfonso Cuaron’s ComicCon sensation “Gravity” (which is also opening the Venice Film Festival), Ron Howard’s auto-racing drama “Rush,” Stephen Frears’ “Philomena,” Kelly Reichardt’s “Night Moves,” Jean-Marc Vallee’s “The Dallas Buyers Club” and Abdelatif Kechiche’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner “Blue Is the Warmest Color.”

See photos: 15 of the Movies Set to Light Up Toronto - And Awards Season

If recent history is any indication, one of those films – or something else screening at Toronto this year – will win the Academy Award for Best Picture next March. Since “Slumdog Millionaire” took Toronto by storm in 2008, the festival has served as a key showcase for every single Best Picture winner: “Slumdog,” “The Hurt Locker,” “The King’s Speech,” “The Artist” and “Argo.”

At least for now, the lineup is missing a number of films thought to be key awards-season players, including Paul Greengrass’ “Captain Phillips,” the Coen brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis” and Bennett Miller’s “Foxcatcher.”

The 17 galas, 56 special presentations and one Midnight Madness selection revealed at a press conference on Tuesday are only a part of the TIFF lineup, to which hundreds more films, including extensive slates of documentaries and Canadian features, will be added over the next few weeks. Typically, a handful of high-profile titles are added as well.

Long Walk to FreedomOther films announced on Tuesday include “The Railway Man,” Jonathan Teplitzky’s drama starring Colin Firth as a real-life British officer who tracks down the Japanese officer who tortured him in a World War II prison camp; Peter Chadwick's "Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom" (right), with Idris Elba as the South African hero; Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin,” with Scarlett Johansson as an alien in human form; “Devil’s Knot,” Atom Egoyan’s fictionalized drama based on the West Memphis 3 case; "Can a Song Save Your Life?," with "Once" director John Carney and a cast that includes Kiera Knightley; Nicole Holofcener's "Enough Said," with Catherine Keener; and “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: His & Hers,” the feature debut of Ned Benson, with James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain in two different versions of the same story.

The announced films also included several directed by actors: Jason Bateman’s “Bad Words,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s “Don Jon,” Ralph Fiennes’ “The Invisible Woman” and Keanu Reeves’ “Man of Tai Chi.”

And only one day after the project was first announced by A&E IndieFilms, actor/comic Mike Myers’ documentary about a legendary rock ‘n’ roll talent manager, “Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon,” was announced as the sole doc among the festival’s galas.

In addition to “Blue Is the Warmest Color,” the Cannes entries going to Toronto include Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty,” Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s “Like Father, Like Son,” Jim Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive,” Asghar Farhadi’s “The Past” and Francois Ozon’s “Young and Beautiful.”

Gia Milani’s “All the Wrong Reasons,” a drama that features one of the last performances from Cory Monteith and was reported to be set for Toronto, was not on the list of galas and special performances, and a Toronto spokesperson declined to comment on whether it had been booked. Director Milani is Canadian and the film was shot in Nova Scotia, which means it could be held back for a subsequent announcement of Canadian programming.

The documentary website RealScreen has reported that docs at Toronto will include Errol Morris' "The Unknown Known: The Life and Times of Donald Rumsfield," Alex Gibney's "Lance Armstrong: The Road Back," Jennifer Baichwal's "Watermark" "and Claude Lanzmann's "Les Dernier des Injustes" ("The Last of the Unjust"), though those announcements will come at a later date.

This year’s TIFF opens on Sept. 5 and runs through Sept. 15.