Good morning. The Globe’s critics combed through a chaotic year in the arts to pick their standout favourites — more on that below, along with the Bank of Canada’s interest rate hold and our North Pole bureau’s request for letters to Santa. But first:
Today’s headlines
- Zelensky is “ready” to hold a wartime election if the U.S. provides security guarantees
- Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is facing a petition to lose her seat
- Advocates laud Ottawa’s push on violence against women after years of calls for action
Adrienna Matzeg/The Globe and Mail
Culture
That’s entertainment
This hasn’t been the easiest year for the arts. After more than a century, Warner Bros. is done as a Hollywood studio and will either sell off its entire catalogue to Netflix or succumb to Paramount’s hostile bid. (The tug-of-war continues.) Theatre companies played musical chairs with their artistic directors, while a weak loonie plus a vast country forced bands to cancel their Canadian tours. Also, however much Morgan Wallen may disagree, there was definitely no song of the summer.
Despite these challenges, 2025 served up a ton of A+ culture, and The Globe’s critics dutifully went off to comb through the films, TV shows, music, plays and art exhibitions that consumed them over the year. Their top 10 lists – all of which you can find right here – run the gamut from a twisty father-daughter action movie (One Battle After Another) to a charming Nunavut comedy (North of North) to an absolute banger from KPop Demon Hunters to an indelible image of Quebec nuns having fun.
There are so many amazing picks, in fact, that it might feel daunting to start plotting your cultural catch-up. And so! Allow me to suggest these three double bills, which should see you comfortably through to 2026.
AP/The Phoebus Foundation, Antwerp
Double bill #1: Sad men in hats
Film critic Barry Hertz praises The Mastermind as “an anti-heist movie that skips over the adrenaline rush of a high-stakes score to deal with the more complicated comedown.” (Director Kelly Reichardt does love to subvert a genre.) Josh O’Connor – my personal leading man of 2025, and also of 2024 – plays JB, a snail-paced thief with precious little clue about how to rob a museum or just exist in the world.
Pair The Mastermind with the best portrait that Kate Taylor, our visual art critic, saw all year: Jan van Scorel’s Portrait of a Gentleman Wearing a Fur-Lined Cloak and Hat, part of a Flemish art exhibition running now at the Royal Ontario Museum. “You feel like you know this sad-sack guy – wasn’t he trying to sell you new winter tires last week?” she writes. “And then you pinch yourself to remember that this is oil painted on canvas almost 500 years ago.”
AP/Stratford Festival
Double bill #2: Spirited girls in hats
On her album Lux, Rosalía pretty much does it all. She sings about historical holy women in 13 different languages. She weaves pop with classical music, flamenco, fado, hip-hop and opera for something divine. She even brings Björk and the whole London Symphony Orchestra along with her. In the end, music critic Brad Wheeler enthuses, “the Spanish avant-pop goddess has produced an arresting soundtrack to a film that does not exist (and does not need to).”
It’s a level of ambition that might resonate with Anne Shirley. And while you can no longer catch Anne of Green Gables at Stratford – theatre critic Aisling Murphy called that “heartwarming, gut-wrenching, life-affirming production” her favourite of 2025 – winter is a perfect time to revisit the classic Megan Follows miniseries, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Find it on Prime Video or among the VHS tapes stashed in some parent’s basement.
FX/Disney+/CP
Double bill #3: Waaaaaaaaah
Consider this a two-box-of-Kleenex match, at minimum. In Dying for Sex, the phenomenal Michelle Williams stars as Molly, a 40-year-old woman with a terminal cancer diagnosis who embarks on a quest for erotic fulfillment. (It really is all there in the name.) But the series deepens into an exploration of the love between Molly and her true soulmate/caregiver, Nikki, played by Jenny Slate. As television critic J. Kelly Nestruck explains, “The skin-to-skin closeness of the deepest female friendship is, ultimately, the show’s core subject.”
Then cue up Saya Gray’s Puddle (Of Me), which cycles through insecurity, heartbreak and surrender to land in arts reporter Josh O’Kane’s list of top songs. “The Torontonian’s crisp study of delusion in relationships is conveyed through sharp, light guitar pop with one of the most unforgettable hooks of the year,” he writes. There’s bound to be some sobbing over the holiday season, so it’s nice when you can still hum along.
The Shot
‘I love the cha-cha, the boogie-woogie and line dancing.’
77-year-old Lornita Ricketts is a fixture on the dance floor.Gabriel Hutchinson/The Globe and Mail
When the sun goes down, the Filipino grocery store Seafood City turns into a rollicking dance party with extremely good food. And if you live in Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Mississauga or Scarborough, you can swing by on Friday or Saturday night.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
At home: The Bank of Canada held its benchmark rate steady at 2.25 per cent, as financial markets anticipate an extended pause.
Abroad: The U.S. seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in a major escalation of its pressure campaign against dictator Nicolas Maduro.
At court: Facing extradition to the U.S. for conspiracy to commit murder, Ryan Wedding’s lawyer, Deepak Paradkar, offered $5-million for his release on bail.
In memoriam: Sophie Kinsella, author of the blockbuster Confessions of a Shopaholic, died of brain cancer at the age of 55.
Naughty: It’s easy to lose your cool on a plane right now, so here are some tips for squashing air rage.
Nice: Are your kids writing letters to Santa? Share a photo with our North Pole bureau and they could wind up in a holiday story.