The nominees for the 2025 Canadian Screen Awards were announced today, marking another year of incredible Canadian films, television, and digital media. Canadian comedian Lisa Gilroy is set to host the awards show on June 1, streaming live on CBC Gem.

Across 149 categories, Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent leads with 20 CSA nominations, followed by 13 for Universal Language, Canada’s official film selection for the 97th Acadamy Awards. Television favourites Bones of Crows, Children Ruin Everything, and Run the Burbs follow with 12 nominations each. 

A major player across the film categories is David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds, earning 9 nominations. Karen Chapman’s debut feature Village Keeper, starring Olunike Adeliyi as a grieving widow in Toronto’s Lawrence Heights, follows with 7 nominations. 

Now more than ever is the time to amplify the talent and creativity of Canadian artists. SheDoesTheCity is proud to celebrate Canadian content year-round, and we’re delighted to see so many of the titles we featured this past year among the list of nominees. 

Courtesy of Game Theory Films

Darkest Miriam, releasing in theatres this Friday, earned 6 CSA nominations, including Best Motion Picture. The Toronto-based film stars Severance’s Britt Lower as a librarian living in a fog of grief who, after beginning an affair with a taxi driver, starts to receive a series of threatening messages. Filmmaker Naomi Jaye, who picked up nominations for Achievement in Direction and Adapted Screenplay, told us how she was drawn to adapt Martha Baillie’s book The Incident Report. “After reading the first page, there was something about the voice of Miriam that really resonated with me,” Jaye said.

Courtesy of Blue Ant Media

The inventive comedic television series Davey & Jonesie’s Locker picked up 10 nominations. Leads Jaelynn Thora Brooks and Veronika Slowikowska each earned nods for Best Lead Performer, Children’s or Youth, for their portrayal of inseparable best friends thrown into a wacky multiverse adventure. “They’re gross and they’re silly and are wrong about things and they’re overconfident. They’re insecure, they’re fully dimensional characters,” Slowikowska told us.

Courtesy of Crave

With 8 nominations across the digital media categories, the Crave original series My Dead Mom also received plenty of recognition today. In this short-form series, screenwriter Wendy Litner created a complex, comedic exploration of grief and mother-daughter relationships. “It was so important to me to show how long grieving takes,” Litner told SheDoesTheCity. “There’s this understanding right after someone dies, but then how long does that last? You can grieve in your own way, even if it takes longer.”

We could go on and on about the Canadian Screen Awards nominees this year, but here are a few more titles that we were thrilled to see earn some recognition:

Films

Photo by Gayle Ye

Sook-Yin Lee’s Paying For It gathered 5 nominations. Set in 1990s Toronto, the film is an adaptation of Chester Brown’s best-selling graphic novel of the same name, centring on Lee and Brown’s relationship.

Courtesy of levelFilm

The Indigenous comedic thriller Seeds picked up 4 nominations, with writer, director and star Kaniehtiio Horn receiving nods for Best First Feature and Performance in a Leading Role, Comedy.

Courtesy of D.W. Waterson

The queer cheer drama Backspot and the portrait of a young indie rock band We Forgot to Break Up earned 2 nominations apiece, with the latter receiving recognition for Torquil Campbell’s original song “Revolutionary Heart”. 

Documentaries 

Courtesy of Visitor Media & CBC

Swan Song, the moving docu-series about Karen Kain’s production of Swan Lake for the National Ballet of Canada, earned 5 nominations, as did Tanya Talaga’s The Knowing, an exploration of how Talaga’s family history is intertwined with the dark history of Canada’s residential school system.

Courtesy of CBC. Photo by Brianna Roye.

For The Culture With Amanda Parris received 4 nominations for its deep dives into topics impacting Black communities across the globe, from diaspora wars to the business of Black hair.

Courtesy of Game Theory Films

Documentaries An Unfinished Journey, following four Afghan women who flee to Canada to escape the Taliban, and Fluid: Life Beyond the Binary, a look into the fluidity of gender and sexuality in nature, earned 1 nomination each.

See the full list of nominations on the Canadian Screen Awards website, and don’t miss the CSAs streaming live on CBC Gem on June 1.