Cast and crew from the show Heated Rivalry accept the award for best drama series at the Canadian Screen Awards in Toronto on Sunday.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
Kicking off with an energetic Andrew Phung’s very best Billy Crystal homage and ending with the two most viral sensations of Canadian culture – Heated Rivalry and Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie – taking home the evening’s top prizes, the 14th annual Canadian Screen Awards offered up enough talking points to keep Mark Carney busy for a full calendar year.
Before Drake tries to steal the CSA spotlight by skydiving off the CN Tower, The Globe and Mail presents the best, worst and weirdest moments from Canada’s equivalent of the Oscars, the Emmys and a couple other awards shows squeezed into a single two-hour evening.
Heated Rivalry trounces competition with 13 Canadian Screen Awards
Host with the Most
First-time host Phung opened the show with the kind of high-spirit, keep-’em-smiling vibe that recalled Crystal in his Oscars prime – not least because the Run the Burbs star sang an original ditty that sped through as many of the evening’s nominees as possible.
Andrew Phung hosted the awards for the first time.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
Most of Phung’s lines landed well (“When did Canadian films get so dark and sexy?”), though superstar Mike Myers, in the audience alongside his brothers, Paul and Peter, before being honoured onstage with the Academy Icon Award, looked slightly sheepish to be name-checked. It is unclear, though, how the star felt about Phung’s well-intentioned but not exactly super-sharp Wayne’s World-inspired sketch, which arrived later on in the show. Yeah, baby?
Writers’ room gets a (CB)C+
The production design of the CSAs remained woefully trapped in the chintzy environs of Toronto’s CBC Broadcast Centre. But the show’s scripted banter and interstitial sketches (the Wayne’s World hockey skit not withstanding) felt a step, maybe even a step and a half, above recent editions.
Of course, there were flubs. There was a meta gag about the importance of timing that Allan Hawco simply could not save. George Stroumboulopoulos slathered the elbows-up era sentiment on just a little too heavily. And we predictably got more Heated Rivalry jokes than utterances of the word “Canada.” But producers were a long way from the horror show that was the 2023 Samantha Bee edition, and that’s worthy of an award all its own.
Icy spicy
With hundreds of fans lined up outside of Toronto’s CBC HQ for a fleeting glimpse of Heated Rivalry star Hudson Williams – whose presence at the gala seemed to be responsible for the near doubling in size and attendance of the press room – it would have been a massive disappointment if Heated Rivalry was somehow snubbed Sunday night. But voters with the Academy of Canadian Film & Television knew the score, and awarded the sensation three CSAs at the gala – best drama series, best lead performer (drama) for Williams, and the Cogeco Fund Audience Choice Award – bringing the show’s total awards chest to a record-breaking 16 trophies (out of 18 nominations), most of which were handed out at ceremonies earlier in the week.
“I’m honoured to be Canadian and this is fantastic,” Williams told the audience, before praising Bell Media streamer Crave and then HBO, in what was possibly the U.S. network’s first ever CSA shout-out.
Heated Rivalry co-star Hudson Williams accepts his award for best lead performer, drama series.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
It was easy, though, to notice the one member of the Heated Rivalry team who wasn’t in Toronto: American co-star Connor Storrie, who wasn’t nominated due to a change in Canadian Academy eligibility rules this year (“All categories honouring certified Canadian productions will be restricted to Canadian citizens or permanent residents only”).
“If I could cut this award down the middle, I would,” Williams added in his acceptance speech, saying that he shares the award with “the honorary Canadian” Storrie.
Great Scott!
In something of a surprise – given that R.T. Thorne’s thriller 40 Acres was going into Sunday having swept the nine categories it was nominated for earlier in the week – Matt Johnson’s uproarious time-travel buddy comedy Nirvanna ended up winning best picture, bringing the film’s total CSA haul to six awards. Then again, the film has been Canada’s defining big-screen sensation of 2026 (possibly going back to 2025, if we’re counting its TIFF midnight premiere), breaking box-office records and inspiring an exceptionally vocal online army of supporters.
“This is the first time we’ve ever won for a movie we made that didn’t have any adults who normally come and do this,” Johnson said onstage before segueing into what was, let’s say, a colourful riff on Québécois films.
How the Canadian Screen Awards will quash any heated rivalry between the country’s media giants
“Thank you to the lawyers, we couldn’t have done it without you!” producer Matthew Miller quickly added, underlining the film’s singular approach to copyrighted material.
The big win further confirms the Nirvanna brain trust (including co-star and co-writer Jay McCarrol, who won the CSA for best lead performer in a comedy; producers Miller and Matt Greyson; and editors Curt Lobb and Robert Upchurch) as the reigning kings of Canadian cinema, after the BlackBerry sweep of 2024. Now, if we can only have the Canadian Academy do a postmortem as to why the film wasn’t nominated for best editing ... or maybe the fellas are already fixing that via Orbitz-powered flux capacitor, and we’re actually living in a messed-up alternate reality. Or something like that. Godspeed, Matt and Jay.
40 Acres, but not the whole nine yards
Although Thorne’s postapocalyptic 40 Acres – which earlier in the week won best director, first feature, cinematography, art direction, sound editing, score, casting, and stunts – lost the big prize to Nirvanna, there was an interesting full-circle moment to the evening. Thorne’s intense, eye-popping film was originally developed as a feature for the first cohort of Telefilm’s Talent to Watch program in 2018, the federal funding agency’s microbudget slate that was revamped by ... Nirvanna’s Johnson and Miller.
Northern exposure
The Iqaluit-set sitcom North of North, an unprecedented effort in collaboration between Netflix, CBC and APTN, scored two CSAs, best comedy series and best lead performer (comedy) for Anna Lambe, bringing its total CSA haul to nine. And Lambe was especially emotional over what the moment means for Indigenous culture: “We deserve to feel joy,” the actress told the crowd.
Anna Lambe accepts her award for best lead performer, comedy.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
Night of a baker’s dozen stars
Typically, the Canadian Screen Awards are an affair light on, well, marquee celebrities. This year, though, the evening boasted so many bold-faced names it wasn’t all that surprising to see trade publications like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter suddenly instructing their U.S.-based readerships to fire up the VPN in order to access the Canadian broadcast.
In addition to Williams and Myers, the latter of whom tried out a petite amount of French during his charming if slightly stretched-out Academy Icon Award acceptance speech, there were serious heavy-hitters in the audience.
Mike Myers accepts his Academy Icon Award.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
Netflix star Mae Martin presented the best drama award, noting that Canada has always been “the weird goth kid in the corner,” before taking a sharp dig at Corus Broadcasting. Eugene Levy was on stage to honour his late collaborator Catherine O’Hara (“the one person I’ve spent the most time working with”). And once and forever Kid in the Hall Dave Foley was there to introduce Myers. Compared with last year’s cardboard cut-out of CSA winner Cate Blanchett, there was a solid amount of Hollywood name recognition mixed into the north-of-the-border celebration. And lurking in the audience but sadly not highlighted onscreen: Myers’ Wayne’s World love Tia Carrere.
Empty-handed but not forgotten
As always happens with awards shows, especially one boasting the sheer size and breadth as the CSAs, there will always be a handful of acclaimed productions that walk into the show with a wealth of nominations but saunter away empty handed.
This year’s class includes Sophy Romvari’s excellent drama Blue Heron (which was nominated for seven awards, including best picture), Eric K. Boulianne’s sex comedy Follies (up for eight nods), Alireza Khatami’s thriller The Things You Kill (three), and Mathieu Denis’s The Cost of Heaven (which missed out on both best original screenplay and best picture).
And while Chandler Levack’s romcom Mile End Kicks won one of its eight categories (best editing, awarded earlier in the week) it would’ve been nice to see the movie either win best original song (for A/S/L, which aptly captured the film’s early-aughts-Montreal vibe) or at least tie with the hilarious-in-more-ways-than-one winner, Nirvanna’s The Alphabet Song.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Connor Storrie’s last name.