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

The Story

A new 180-minute documentary, “Run Terry Run,” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and spotlights Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope ahead of the Sept. 20 Terry Fox Run.

The documentary is directed by Sean Menard and follows Fox as a 21-year-old with an amputated right leg after osteosarcoma. It tracks Fox’s effort to traverse Canada to raise funds for cancer research.

The premiere included family and athletes arriving at TIFF. Terry Fox’s brother, Darrell Fox, attended the screening on Saturday as Canadian athletes gathered for the festival.

Darrell Fox, who is also an executive producer on the film, said he cherishes the memories tied to his brother’s Marathon of Hope, which began in St. John’s, Nfld., in April 1980.

The film’s details frame the run through the campaign’s scale and endurance. According to information released with the premiere, Fox ran a marathon every day for 140 days, covering more than 5,000 kilometres as he moved through multiple communities.

The documentary also covers a turning point near the end of the campaign. It says 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 he stopped. The documentary places the end of the journey within the wider legacy it left behind.

In addition to 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 alongside more than a dozen other Olympians.

Bridges said that 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 said Fox planted a seed he would not live to see grow, linking that legacy to current support for Canadians and cancer research.

The Terry Fox Run is scheduled for Sept. 20 across Canada. With the documentary arriving at TIFF ahead of the annual fundraiser, the premiere adds context for participants about the April 1980 start of the Marathon of Hope and the pause in Thunder Bay after Fox’s illness was revealed.