The 21st Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) took place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between September 5 and September 14, 1996. The festival opened with the film Fly Away Home, and closed with That Thing You Do!.
This year's festival marked significant changes in the programming streams, including The Edge, Asian Horizons and Latin American Panorama being merged into Contemporary World Cinema, and First Cinema being discontinued with first films instead appearing under Contemporary World Cinema, Real to Reel and Discovery. The Dialogues series, which had been introduced the previous year as a special event, was turned into a permanent program.
A special program highlighting films from Vietnam.