Terry Fox documentary premieres at TIFF, offering unseen footage ahead of Sept. 20 Terry Fox Run

The Story

Canadians lacing up for the annual Terry Fox Run will soon have a fresh film to revisit the origin story of the Marathon of Hope. A new documentary titled Run Terry Run premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, presenting footage directed around Terry Fox’s journey and the reasons it continues to resonate across the country.

The documentary, directed by Sean Menard, follows Fox as a 21-year-old with an amputated right leg after osteosarcoma. The film tracks his effort to traverse Canada with the aim of raising funds for cancer research, connecting the physical undertaking to the broader purpose that defined his campaign.

Central to the release is the arrival of family and athletes at TIFF. Terry Fox’s brother, Darrell Fox, attended the screening on Saturday as Canadian athletes gathered for the premiere at the festival.

Darrell Fox is also an executive producer on the film, and his role underscores the documentary’s emphasis on personal memory. He described cherishing the recollections tied to his brother’s Marathon of Hope, which began in St. John’s, Nfld., in April 1980.

The account of Fox’s run is framed through the scale and endurance of the campaign. According to the details released alongside the premiere, Terry Fox ran a marathon every day for 140 days, covering more than 5,000 kilometres as his fundraising drive moved through multiple communities.

The documentary also incorporates a turning point that shaped the final phase of the mission. The report notes that Fox reached Thunder Bay, Ont., where he learned the cancer had spread to his lungs, a medical development that forced him to stop running.

Fox died ten months after that stop, and the documentary’s structure positions the end of the journey within the wider legacy it left behind. By linking key locations and dates, the film gives viewers a concrete timeline of the campaign—from its April 1980 start in Newfoundland through the moment it paused in Thunder Bay and the months that followed.

Beyond the film, the premiere was framed as a public reflection on Fox’s impact on Canadian identity, particularly among people living with disabilities. Canadian Paralympic ice hockey player Billy Bridges attended the red carpet, along with more than a dozen other Olympians, to discuss what Fox’s accomplishments mean today.

Bridges said growing up, heroes were “few and far between” for him as a disabled Canadian, and he described Terry Fox’s story as something “special” that sparked passion across the country. He also spoke about the idea that Fox planted a seed he would not live to see grow, linking that legacy to current support for Canadians and cancer research.

In the lead-up to the national fundraiser, the Terry Fox Run itself is set for Sept. 20 across Canada. With the documentary arriving at TIFF on the heels of the annual event, the premiere adds a new layer of context for participants who lace up to support cancer research, drawing attention to the journey that began in April 1980 and ended after Fox’s illness was revealed in Thunder Bay.