‘KPop Demon Hunters’ strikes gold at Critics Choice Awards, as ‘Heated Rivalry’ gets a shout-out

“KPop Demon Hunters” is off to a golden start this awards season.

The hit Netflix fantasy film created by Korean-Canadian Maggie Kang earned several wins at Sunday night’s Critics Choice Awards, including best animated feature and best original song for “Golden.”

Other Canadian winners included Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, who took home the award for best comedy series for their Apple TV Plus cringe comedy “The Studio.” Rogen also picked up an acting award for the series.

Meanwhile, Canadians Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau won best production design for their work on Guillermo del Toro's horror-fantasy “Frankenstein,” while Toronto’s Jordan Samuel and Cliona Furey were among the team that took home best hair and makeup for the film.

‘We’re anything but risky’: Simu Liu laments decline of Asian roles in Hollywood

Even after achieving Marvel-level stardom, Simu Liu says he's grown frustrated with Hollywood and his career.

The Canadian actor argues the industry is once again treating Asian-led projects as a gamble, despite years of box-office success proving otherwise.

"I feel like because of who I am and because of the faces that we have, we're inherently seen as more risky, even though that's not the case," Liu says while promoting his new show "The Copenhagen Test."

He rattles off a list of recent Asian-centred projects: "Crazy Rich Asians," "Minari," "The Farewell," "Past Lives," "Everything Everywhere All at Once" — all critical or commercial successes, many wildly profitable.

Laughing — and screening — all the way to 2026

There is abundant comedy available to ease into the formal new year and abundant new and returning television in the month to follow to keep your various screens crackling. Press Play now.

From blockbusters to intimate dramas, cinematic gems lit up the screen in 2025

With the movie business facing so-so box office, corporate consolidation, shifting viewing habits and the encroachment of AI, 2025 often felt odd, exhausting and polarizing.

In an uneven year of big disappointments and unexpected pleasures, here are some of the films that snuck up on me.

MUSIC MOVIES (BUT NOT MUSICALS):

Sorry, Wicked: For Good. The movie music that really grabbed me this year was from Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, a Depression-era vampire movie propelled by blistering blues, haunting gospel numbers and some undead Irish step-dancing.

‘Naughty list’: Alberta government looks to protect bridges from big trucks

EDMONTON - Alberta's transportation minister could hear the horns blaring from inside his office.

It wasn't from a rally or protest on the Edmonton legislature grounds but, as Devin Dreeshen went outside to discover, the sound of confused and angry drivers.

"It was a truck that had hit (the bridge) and was stopped and backing up traffic all the way up 109 Street," he recalled of the summer gridlock.

Five times this year, large trucks heading onto the double-decker High Level Bridge, a stone's throw west of the legislature, have hit the structure. Ten other times, trucks stopped before it was too late.

Table tennis dramedy Marty Supreme serves gold

Kinetic, frenetic, incredibly anxiety-provoking, this cynical sideways take on the underdog sports story delivers the kind of out-and-out chaos that actually requires a lot of cinematic precision.

Filmmaker Josh Safdie’s sardonic comic-drama, Marty Supreme, is both completely assured and slightly insane, and it’s held together by a tricky, nervy, live-wire performance by Timothée Chalamet.

Safdie has previously partnered with brother Benny on such films as Good Time and Uncut Gems, with the pair specializing in everyone-shouting-at-once havoc. Here Josh is solo director, while sharing a screenwriting credit with frequent collaborator Ronald Bronstein.

Marty Supreme takes us back to the 1950s and New York’s Lower East Side, where Marty Mauser (Chalamet) is working at his uncle’s shoe store just long enough to make the fare to England for an international table tennis tournament.

No distributor? No problem. Canadian filmmakers are reaching audiences on their own terms

When Sasha Leigh Henry’s acclaimed TV show was canceled and development pipelines slowed to a crawl, she decided not to wait years for permission to reach audiences again.

Instead, she made her feature debut “Dinner With Friends” on a $100,000 micro-budget, and is now releasing it herself.

The Toronto filmmaker decided to act last year when Bell Media canceled her Crave series "Bria Mack Gets a Life" after one season, citing low audience numbers despite winning the Canadian Screen Award for best TV comedy, and after being denied Telefilm Talent to Watch funding.

"Nothing makes you say ‘eff it’ like your award-winning show not getting renewed," says Henry. She shot the film — an intimate look at the bonds and fractures within a Black friend group — in just nine days.

Alberta chocolatier brings Canadian magic to Harry Potter baking show

An Alberta chocolatier brought a distinctly Canadian flavour to the baking show "Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking," a magical experience she says taught her to think bigger.

Priya Winsor of St. Albert, Alta., a finalist on the show and the owner of Compass Chocolates, said the show pushed her well beyond her comfort zone, particularly when it came to constructing large-scale edible showpieces.

"It really gave me an opportunity to stretch my muscles and try something different—something bigger than what I thought I could do," Winsor said.

The Newfoundland-born chocolate maker grew up reading the Harry Potter books and watching the movies, so filming the Food Network show on the original movie sets in the U.K. felt surreal.

Chilling thriller fuel for nightmares

David Gregory’s fascinating documentary Theatre of Horrors is not to be confused with the grand old 1973 genre chestnut Theatre of Blood, which saw Vincent Price as a deranged Shakespearean actor out to avenge himself on a London critics’ circle, employing gruesome acts of murder inspired by the Bard himself.

But then again, the two films have a common thread, suggesting that contemporary horror cinema owes a debt to live theatre.

This is specifically true of the Grand Guignol, a hideaway little playhouse in the sketchy Pigalle neighbourhood of Paris that operated for about 65 years, commencing in 1897, treating theatregoers to sex- and violence-filled spectacles that literally employed buckets of blood. The activities on its narrow little stage would fuel screen nightmares for generations to come.

Considering very little footage exists of the theatre and its productions, director Gregory makes the most out of a barrage of animators who manage to reinvent the grotesquerie that was on display.

In the news: Canada-U.S. trade talks, High-speed rail, Processing unwanted gifts

Here is a roundup of stories from The Canadian Press designed to bring you up to speed …

Canada to begin formal talks with U.S. in January on review of free trade deal

Prime Minister Mark Carney said late Thursday that Canada will enter into formal discussions with the United States in January to review their free trade agreement.

A statement from the Prime Minister's Office says Internal Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc will meet with his American counterparts to discuss the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade deal.

James Cameron rejects ’51st state’ talk as he brings ‘Avatar’ home to Canada

TORONTO - James Cameron doesn’t mince words when it comes to Canada’s sovereignty.

“The Trump administration doesn't understand that we will not ever be the 51st state,” the filmmaker said while in Toronto.

“We'll fight to the last man up here — and the last six-pack.”

After circling the globe on a press tour, Cameron says it feels fitting to bring “Avatar: Fire and Ash” back to his home country. The third instalment in his blockbuster sci-fi franchise had its Canadian première in Toronto on Wednesday, ahead of its worldwide release Friday.

New SpongeBob movie sends adorable porous character on a quest that’s more epic than zany

Just in time for the holidays, the little yellow fellow is back for a fourth big-screen outing.

The new family-friendly SpongeBob comedy-adventure never matches the surreal genius of the television series’ early seasons, but it’s still a showcase for the sweet, sublime silliness of its underwater protagonists, SpongeBob SquarePants (voiced by the unsinkable Tom Kenny) and his best pal, Patrick Star (Bill Fagerbakke).

We open with SpongeBob realizing he is now 36 clams high, which officially makes him “a big guy.”

He relates the good news to his boss, Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown), who tells him he’ll have to stop being a “bubble-blowing baby boy” and start being a “rough and tumble” man. By way of example, Mr. Krabs recalls his own swashbuckling youth when he tangled with the fierce Flying Dutchman (Star Wars’ Mark Hamill, who’s gone on to do a lot of voice work).

The prisoner’s dilemma: Familiar formula makes thrilling cinema

People talk about prison films, but they don’t talk about prisoner’s dilemma movies. Yet hundreds, probably thousands, of films are structured around a prisoner’s dilemma.

Canadian shorts and ‘Frankenstein’ creatives make the 2026 Oscars short lists

A short film about a young Toronto jazz musician grappling with anxiety is among the Canadian projects one step closer to an Oscar nomination.

"Butterfly on a Wheel," directed by London, Ont.'s Trevor Morris, has been shortlisted for best live-action short film, officials announced Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the stop-motion animated fable “The Girl Who Cried Pearls,” by Montreal’s Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, made the cut for best animated short film.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released short lists for 12 categories for the 2026 Oscars, including movies in consideration for best documentary, international feature and the new category of best casting.