The Rogers Best Canadian Film Award is presented annually by the Toronto Film Critics Association to the film judged by the organization's members as the year's best Canadian film. [1] In 2012, the cash prize accompanying the award was increased to $100,000, making it the largest arts award in Canada. Each year, two runners-up also receive $5,000. The award is funded and presented by Rogers Communications, which is a founding sponsor of the association's awards gala. [2] [3]
In 2023, the TFCA announced changes to the award. Instead of a single $100,000 prize presented to a mixed shortlist of narrative and documentary films, the organization will now present two $50,000 prizes, one for narrative features and one for documentaries. [4]
Unlike the other Toronto Film Critics Association awards, whose winners are announced in mid-December or early January each year, the Best Canadian Film award only has its finalists announced at that time, and the winner of the award is then announced at the organization's gala in March.
Prior to the official launch of the Toronto Film Critics Association in 1997, film critic Wyndham Wise coordinated two polls of Torontonian film critics in 1995 and 1996 through his magazine Take One to select the year's best Canadian films; upon the launch of the TFCA, this poll was discontinued and superseded by the TFCA's annual awards.
| Category | Winners and nominees | Ref |
|---|---|---|
| Best Film | Rude — Damon D'Oliveira, Karen King | [5] |
| Double Happiness — Steve Hegyes, Rose Lam Waddell | [6] | |
| When Night Is Falling — Barbara Tranter | ||
| Louis 19, King of the Airwaves (Louis 19, le roi des ondes) — Richard Sadler, Jacques Dorfmann | ||
| Best Director | Clement Virgo, Rude | [5] |
| Mina Shum, Double Happiness | [6] | |
| Charles Binamé, Eldorado | ||
| Patricia Rozema, When Night Is Falling | ||
| Best Actor | Maury Chaykin, Whale Music | [5] |
| Clark Johnson, Rude | [6] | |
| Maurice Dean Wint, Rude | ||
| Peter Williams, Soul Survivor | ||
| Best Actress | Sandra Oh, Double Happiness | [5] |
| Pascale Montpetit, Eldorado | [6] | |
| Pascale Bussières, Eldorado | ||
| Tracy Wright, Wasaga | ||
| Best Screenplay | Mina Shum, Double Happiness | [5] |
| Clement Virgo, Rude | [6] | |
| Émile Gaudreault, Sylvie Bouchard and Michel Michaud, Louis 19, King of the Airwaves (Louis 19, le roi des ondes) | ||
| Bruce McDonald, Don McKellar and John Frizzell, Dance Me Outside |