Canada's Top Ten is an annual honour, compiled by the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...

and announced in December each year to identify and promote the year's best Canadian films."Canada's Top Ten awards will honour excellence in Canadian cinema". ''

Welland Tribune The ''Welland Tribune'' is a daily newspaper that services Welland, Ontario and surrounding area. The ''Tribune'' was one of several Postmedia Network newspapers purchased by Torstar in a transaction between the two companies which concluded on ...

'', November 23, 2001. The list was first introduced in 2001 as an initiative to help publicize Canadian films. The list is determined by tabulating votes from film festival programmers and film critics across Canada. Films must have premiered, either in general theatrical release or on the film festival circuit, within the calendar year; although TIFF organizes the vote, films do not have to have been screened specifically at TIFF to be eligible. Originally, only a single list of 10 films was released. Although both short and feature films were eligible, the list was dominated primarily by feature films. Accordingly, in 2007 TIFF expanded the program, instituting separate Top Ten lists for feature films and short films."Cronenberg, Arcand make Hogtown film festival's top Canadian movies list". '' Daily Gleaner'', December 12, 2007. However, both lists remain inclusive of both narrative fiction and documentary films. Each year's list was formerly screened as a Canada's Top Ten minifestival, held in January of the following year."TIFF announces lineup for Canada's Top 10 Film Festival"

CBC News CBC News is a division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the news gathering and production of news programs on the corporation's English-language operations, namely CBC Television, CBC Radio, CBC News Network, and CBC.ca ...

, December 7, 2016. Prior to 2010, the films were screened at the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Bev ...

's Jackman Theatre as part of TIFF's Cinematheque Ontario program;"TIFF's Top Ten". ''

Vancouver Sun The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. Published s ...

'', December 17, 2008. following the opening of the

TIFF Bell Lightbox TIFF Bell Lightbox is a cultural centre in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located in the first five floors of the Bell Lightbox and Festival Tower on the north west corner of King Street and John Street. TIFF Bell Lightbox features five cinemas, two ...

in 2010, the festival was staged at that venue thereafter. For the 2014 festival, TIFF introduced a People's Choice Award for the feature film program, modeled on the existing

Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award The Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award is an annual film award, presented by the Toronto International Film Festival to the film rated as the year's most popular film with festival audiences. Past sponsors of the award have ...

and conducted in the same manner. In 2018, TIFF discontinued the January festival, instead introducing a new model in which each film receives its own standalone theatrical run at the Lightbox in the following year. Once per decade, TIFF also polls Canadian film critics and festival programmers to determine a list of the

Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time The Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time is a list compiled by the Toronto International Film Festival ranking what are the considered the best Canadian films. The list has been compiled once roughly every 10 years starting in 1984, typically assembl ...

, separately from the annual Canada's Top Ten survey. In a 2022 article, Barry Hertz of ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'' praised the program as a diverse overview of the creative risk-taking in Canadian cinema, and a worthwhile contrast to the limited scope of conventional commercial film distribution.Barry Hertz
"Want a moviegoing future beyond Batman? TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten series is essential"
''

'', March 9, 2022.

2000s

2010s

Films which won the People's Choice Award are bolded and marked with a †.

2020s

References

{{TIFF , state=collapsed Toronto International Film Festival Lists of Canadian films