Where has Tobey Maguire been? AWOL from films mostly, playing in high stakes Hollywood poker games and getting into a bit of trouble. He hasn’t starred in a hit movie since 2007’s “Spider Man 3.” All that is about to change.

Maguire, now 40, plays profoundly troubled, perpetually paranoid and sadly mentally troubled chess iconoclast Bobby Fischer in Ed Zwick’s sensational “Pawn Sacrifice” opening  tomorrow. The Blecker Street release, shown at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival, has a strong 86% among critics and bloggers.  It may be Maguire’s best acting since “The Cider House Rules.”

Written by Steven Knight and directed by Edward Zwick, “Pawn Sacrifice” co-stars the talented Lily Rabe, who plays Bobby’s sister Joan, a looming Liev Schreiber as Soviet chess whiz Boris Spassky, lauded theater actor Michael Stuhlbarg, who plays his long suffering lawyer/confidante Paul Marshall, and the always terrific Peter Sarsgaard who plays Father Bill Lombardy, a childhood fellow chess friend who becomes his adviser.

Zwick assembled an impressive cast. He told me at last week’s premiere: “I made sure to put together some of the best actors out there.”

Zwick more than adeptly pulls it off, with the story of Brooklyn born Fischer, his rise to world rock star status and his impending, tragic fall.

Tobey is married to the lovely Jennifer Meyer, daughter of Universal Pictures chief Ron Meyer. Meyer made an appearance at the screening, as did Tobey’s BFF’s Leo DiCaprio (hanging in the back row with a baseball cap on) and “Entourage” star Kevin Connolly, who told me he’s excited to direct the long awaited John Gotti flick with John Travolta.  “It will be a wild ride,” Kevin told me. That’s an understatement considering the movie’s background.

Sarsgaard told me: “I’ve always been a chess geek. I was playing it on my phone in the car here. Bobby Fischer’s  story is really sad. He became homeless, with his already existing paranoia worsening. He still thought everything was a conspiracy. When 9/11 happened, he called into a radio station and blamed the US. He became a huge embarrassment, and kept breaking the law. He finally landed in Iceland where they gave him asylum and he died there, broke, in 2008.”

Maguire did his homework as well saying, “I’ve been wanting to do this for about ten years. I watched everything I could get my hands on and talked to so many people who knew him. I wanted to get it right.”

A couple of years ago he news was all about trans-fats.

Thanks to Caitlyn Jenner and Chelsea Manning, this year it’s all trans-gender.

At the Toronto Film Festival we had two features back to back on the subject on Saturday. First, “About Ray,” starring Elle Fanning as a teen girl who wants her mom (Naomi Watts) to sign the papers allowing gender reassignment. Her lesbian grandma (Susan Sarandon) is on the fence. Her deadbeat dad (Tate Donovan) is against it.

Then there’s “The Danish Girl,” with Eddie Redmayne as a Danish painter married to Alicia Vikander for six years before he decides that he’s a woman named Lily and must have sex change surgery.

No one remembers “Transamerica,” the excellent 2006 film starring Oscar nominee Felicity Huffman. It was ahead of its time.

At the “About Ray” screening in Toronto, there was less talk about the transgender teen– Elle Fanning in a super performance– and more about the affordable apartment she and her family live in on New York’s Lower East Side. Also, none of the characters seemed to have jobs. Tate Donovan’s character lived in an Architectural Digest house in leafy Westchester County.

“The Danish Girl” is the better made of the two films. Eddie Redmayne’s transformation into Lily makes for a psycho sexual thriller and tragedy that people will be talking about for a long time. It’s beautiful to look at, too, as the main characters live very very well. No mention is ever made of how these folks pay the bills either.

Funniest line backstage after “The Danish Girl” premiere. Redmayne’s wife of just a few months, Hannah, said: “We ran into Jessica Chastain. She’d seen the poster for The Danish Girl and worried people would think it was about her!” No worries- despite the passing resemblance between fictional Lily and real life Jessica, Chastain is far and away the greater beauty!