On Canada Day 2026 Barry Hertz, Deputy Arts Editor and Film Editor of the Globe and Mail, offered his highly subjective list of The 100 best Canadian films ever made. (Article is behind a paywall.)
It’s a fascinating, personal countdown of 100 films spanning the last 60 years. From the article:
“These are movies that inspire, transfix, beguile and enthrall – stories that build a culture, one which can never be broken, subsumed or offered up as a bargaining chip. And they only exist because we all put our money where our mouths are, investing in many of them through Canada’s publicly funded arts institutions.”
As proxies for the Canadian National Cinema, let’s analyze this admittedly small data set.
The 1990s and 2000s feature almost half of Barry’s top 25 picks. The 2010s have the dubious distinction of being the decade with the most films in the bottom 50.
We would hope that the rankings of our Canadian National Cinema would steadily improve each year, but unfortunately, the data shows a slight decline over time. This adds credence to the feeling that Canadian films used to be better.
Fascinatingly, 13 directors (out of 79) are responsible for more than one third of Barry’s 100 choices. Sadly, only two of these are women.
My take: we can do better. Cineplex agrees.
