The Toronto International Film Festival is about a lot of things. It’s about building buzz, and finding the next big things. It’s about celebrities walking the red carpet, and fans begging for autographs. It’s about kicking off “serious” movie season, where potential Oscar contenders get their start.

But what happens after the 11 days of movie mayhem is over? Where do the hundreds of movies that screened here go — to box office glory, Oscar stardom, the festival circuit, VOD or, well, nowhere? Is there some kind of measurable “TIFF Effect?” We decided to find out.

Cameron Bailey, TIFF’s artistic director and co-head, says the festival tracks a lot of this data, but they put a premium on another kind.

“The most important data to us is about our audience. We always do surveys after our festival, so we know the rough demographics every year, so we’re curious to see if that’s changing at all,” he says. “Many other people are looking at box-office numbers, but that’s not our primary concern, in terms of how the films do after the festival in the marketplace.”

Well, that’s we’re we come in. Starting with a list of 235 films that played at the festival in 2017 — excluding shorts, experimental cinema, TV series and a few special event-based films — we compiled a database (with the help of Amazon-owned IMDB Pro and Box Office Mojo) of box-office earnings, awards, release dates, festival premieres and other data points, to try to see the bigger picture.

How many titles had a theatrical run?

Of the 235 movies we analyzed, 189 went on to a commercial run somewhere in the world. Another 46 only screened at festivals, and those don’t seem to have had any other type of distribution deals. Bailey says that number sounds about typical from previous years, and it could raise some red flags.

“We show about 250 films every year, and if roughly 50 aren’t getting distribution at all, even via online,” he says, with a pause. “These are what we think are the very best films of the year, and if even very high quality films don’t have the opportunity to reach audiences after a film festival, then that’s a concern.”

At least 60 had very limited runs, screening at TIFF and other festivals followed by a commercial run in their home country. Some homegrown festival titles, like Porcupine Lake and The Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches, opened commercially in Canadian theatres only.

How much money did they make?

Altogether they earned more than $3 billion (all figures U.S.).

That includes $1.081 billion in North America, plus more than $2 billion combined from the rest of the world. That worldwide number is likely considerably higher, because there were plenty of international films had commercial runs somewhere in the world, but the data wasn’t available from our sources.

And then there are also late-blooming films just arriving in theatres such as the remake of Papillon starring Charlie Hunnam, and The Wife starring Glenn Close.

The biggest commercial successes from TIFF 2017 peaked at around $200 million — not a bad take, considering the much smaller budgets they were working with. Critical acclaim certainly helped the best known titles — The Shape of Water, Darkest Hour and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri reached that, with Lady Bird not too far behind. What’s interesting is that the biggest box office winner was Youth, a world premiere last year, which made more than $224 million in China, but only $2 million in North America.

“That’s actually a great untold story, and we’re doing more of that. This year, we have two galas from China — Zhang Yimou’s Shadow and Jiang Wen’s Hidden Man,” says Bailey. “These have both have done well at the Chinese box office and are just beginning their runs in Asia. It’s a different part of the global film picture, but it’s an important one to pay attention to.”

How many awards did they earn?

Alongside Venice and Telluride, TIFF has long been considered the beginning of the award season runway. From the data, it’s easy to see this is true.

Strictly from a numbers point of view, films that appeared at TIFF 2017 won 1,373 awards and had 2,695 nominations from around the world. That may make you think that there are too many film awards, but it makes some sense when you realize that some of the most critically praised films won more than 100 awards apiece. For example, Lady Bird won 107 awards out of 195 nominations.

Of course, not all awards show are the same, so we took a closer look at how TIFF films fared at the Academy Awards, the BAFTAs and, since the fest has an emphasis on homegrown titles, the Canadian Screen Awards.

The numbers speak for themselves. At the Oscars, every single feature category, except for Best Documentary and Best Visual Effects, had at least one TIFF film nominated. All of the nominees for Best Foreign Language Film screened in Toronto, as did five of the eight nominees for Best Picture.

Same goes for the BAFTAs: apart from the Animated Film category, TIFF titles were nominated for every prize, including four of five best picture nominees. The two biggest winners — The Shape of Water and Three Billboards — which dominated the Oscars and BAFTAs, respectively, were also the movies that made the most money, so it’s clear the awards-season attention, and eventual wins, they received very much helped boost their box office.

The Canadian Screen Awards also had a big presence, with TIFF films again present in every feature category except Best Documentary and Best Cinematography — although the big winner at last year’s CSAs was Maudie, which was actually at TIFF 2016. But 2017 films like Hochelaga Land of Souls, The Breadwinner and Ava all earned nominations.

One weak spot in the big awards show we analyzed? Last year’s TIFF documentaries didn’t fare so well, as they were shut out of the nominations.

Which movies can TIFF take credit for?

Every year, Toronto audiences get to see some of the buzziest films from Cannes and Sundance — including, for example, last year’s Palme d’Or winner The Square. In 2017, three films that appeared at Sundance, and 21 that were at Cannes, made it to Toronto.

But every festival loves to boast about their world premieres, so they can claim the big award winners as their own. In recent years, the competition for premieres between Venice, Telluride and Toronto has grown fierce. All sandwiched within weeks of each other in late August and early September, there is overlap between the three, and there is much jostling for world premieres of the most highly sought after films.

Despite the competition, there are still many films that TIFF can claim as its own. In 2017 it had 142 world premieres, 59 North American premieres, 19 international premieres, 16 Canadian premieres and one Toronto premiere.

The small, exclusive Telluride festival screened 16 films that then appeared at TIFF, while Venice had 30 appear there first.

“Well, if it’s a competition on the number of world premieres, we know who’s winning,” Bailey jokes. “But I really don’t look at it that way. What we try to do is think as carefully as we can about each film that comes to us.”

He says Toronto offers a public audience — and filmmakers are eager to see their reactions to gauge interest — access to the North America media, and buyers from all over the world.

“There really are few other festivals, if any, that have that combination,” Bailey says. “So when a film wants all three of those things, in roughly equal measure, then Toronto is the place to premiere.”

TIFF’s list of world premieres included commercial successes such as The Disaster Artist, I, Tonya, Molly’s Game and The Mountain Between Us.

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But some of the year’s biggest films were shown first at Venice or Telluride — or both. Even The Shape of Water, which was proudly filmed in Toronto, bowed at all three festivals. Director Guillermo del Toro might have shown the world a new model for a film to generate buzz, win hearts and awards, making the rounds at Venice, then Telluride, before screening to an adoring crowd at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre, where parts of the movie were filmed.

How many go on to other festivals?

So while some Toronto folks lament that the fest is losing its lustre as the place for the biggest titles to premiere, the films that play TIFF go on to have a long life on the festival circuit. The 235 films we looked at went on to screen at more than 500 film festivals around the world.

What happened to the People’s Choice Awards?

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri won last year’s People’s Choice Award, voted on by visitors to the festival, and went on to great commercial and awards success. It dominated the BAFTAs and earned Frances McDormand an Oscar for Best Actress and Sam Rockwell another for Best Supporting Actor.

The People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award went to Bodied, Joseph Kahn’s frenetic film about battle rap, which was written by Canadian Alex Larsen. It was picked by YouTube Red (now YouTube Premium) in January.

Faces Places by Agnes Varda and JR won the documentary award at TIFF, went on to play many other festivals, and earned almost $4 million at the box office worldwide.

I just want to watch these films at home, can I?

We ran our list of films through the database at JustWatch.com, a site that lists where you can rent or stream films for various online services, including iTunes and Netflix. As of Aug. 20, 126 films from last year’s TIFF are available, if you are willing to rent or buy at one of the online stores in Canada.

If you already subscribe to a service and wish to stream, a much smaller number are available on streaming sites in Canada:

Some films went to television broadcast right after TIFF, including Long Time Running, the doc about the Tragically Hip. And note that YouTube is not covered by Justwatch, which is where Bodied ended up.

How many films vanish without a trace?

We were curious to look at titles that only appeared at TIFF and seemed to fall off the film world’s map. We found about a dozen, including some surprises.

While one of last year’s biggest hits was Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut Lady Bird, another famous young actress did not fare so well. Brie Larson will be everywhere once she dons the mantle of Captain Marvel, but her directorial debut, Unicorn Store, only played at TIFF last year and the Edinburgh Film Festival, and did not receive good reviews.

Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage and Richard Gere headlined a strong cast in Three Christs, which, as Deadline reported last year, had hoped strong word of mouth would get it a distribution deal, but it hasn’t gone anywhere.

Bryan Cranston and Nicole Kidman starred in comedy The Upside, but the troubled Weinstein Company shelved it earlier this year and it hasn’t been released.

Last year, #metoo allegations eventually took out two high-profile films that played at the festival. Louis C.K. debuted I Love You, Daddy at TIFF to some fanfare. It was bought for distribution and set to be released in November, before the comedian was accused of sexual misconduct (which he then admitted to), indefinitely sidelining its release.

Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!, Morgan Spurlock’s exposé of the poultry industry, screened in 2017. It was picked up by YouTube Red (now YouTube Premium) in a $3.5-million deal.

In December, Spurlock tweeted out a statement, saying “I am part of the problem,” and detailed his own history of misconduct towards women. As a result, YouTube pulled the film, leaving it in limbo, where it remains.

So what is the TIFF Effect?

Toronto’s festival definitely helps a film build its buzz and get a boost toward awards season. But each film is on its own journey, the TIFF Effect differs from title to title.

So let’s zero in on a single film that got a massive publicity push last year, thanks to some NBA stars and one rather well-known local rapper.

The Carter Effect, which was produced by Drake and LeBron James’ production company, focused on Vince Carter’s years as a Toronto Raptor. After its TIFF debut, The Carter Effect was acquired by Netflix. Director Sean Menard describes the festival as a surreal experience, one that absolutely changed his life and career.

“Oh man, I’ll say it legitimized me across the board now, and definitely south of the border,” says Menard on the line from Beijing last week, where he was in talks for another project.

“It definitely validated me as a quote-unquote filmmaker. I noticed a huge difference, and so has my manager, in where you send out emails and people just don’t even get back to you. Now, we get responses. People pick up the phone and return emails. I would say that TIFF effect is one of those things that has opened the door to a huge number of opportunities.”

Correction — Sep. 5, 2018: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said films Cocaine Prison, Good Favour, Luk'Luk'I, and Black Kite played in no other festivals after TIFF. In fact, they did. This article also mistakenly said that 10 films that appeared at Sundance 2017 continued on to TIFF. In fact, only three films made it to Toronto from Sundance. This article also misspelled the last name of Brie Larson.