By John Corrado In her debut feature Tangles, director Leah Nelson crafts an incredibly moving animated film that poignantly handles the devastating experience of Alzheimer’s and how it impacts a whole family. The film is an adaptation of author and illustrator Sarah Leavitt’s autobiographical graphic novel of the same name. At the start of the… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Tangles (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado Annie Murphy (Schitt’s Creek) gets a much deserved starring role in All That She Wants, a very enjoyable Canadian romantic-comedy from co-directors Scarlett Bermingham and Andrew Rhymer. It’s the sort of film that hits the rom-com beats and does them all very well, while adding some fresh twists to the genre. Murphy… Read More #TIFF26 Review: All That She Wants (Special Presentations)
By John Corrado Director, writer, and star Cody Lightning (Hey, Viktor!) draws from the well of the underdog sports movie for his second feature Smudge the Blades, an enjoyable homegrown hockey movie centred around the Treaty 6 Blades, an Indigenous U-18 hockey team in Northern Alberta. The film opens with a fight breaking out on… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Smudge the Blades (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado In her debut feature Still Night, Burning House, Vietnamese-Canadian filmmaker Carol Nguyen looks inward, focusing on her own family’s history with grief and mental health. The film seeks to tell the story of her Uncle Thach, who was schizophrenic and died from suicide a decade ago, after jumping out a second story… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Still Night, Burning House (TIFF Docs)
By John Corrado Fear of “the other” seems to be one of the prevailing themes throughout Quebec filmmaker Alexandre Franchi’s mix of dark comedy and psychological thriller L’Autre, a title that literally translates to “the other.” The film opens with our protagonist Stan (Pierre-Yves Cardinal) undergoing surgery to remove cancer from the bone in his… Read More #TIFF26 Review: L’Autre (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado Canadian author and filmmaker David Bezmozgis returns to the screen with The Betrayers, a well-acted and intriguing adaptation of his own award-winning 2014 novel of the same name. The film centres around Baruch (Michael Aronov), a Soviet dissident turned Israeli politician, who is being pushed to enter into a coalition agreement, while… Read More #TIFF26 Review: The Betrayers (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado Toy Gun Bandit, the new film from Quebec writer-director Rémi St-Michel, is a work that feels inspired by the scrappy, propulsive filmmaking of the Safdie brothers. That’s a lofty comparison, to be sure, but their influence is felt throughout this frenetic Québécois crime movie, which serves as both an entertaining and suspenseful… Read More #TIFF26 Review: Toy Gun Bandit (Centrepiece)
By John Corrado The film Tony, Canadian director Matt Johnson’s new biopic of Anthony Bourdain, opens with a quote from the celebrity chef’s bestselling 2000 memoir Kitchen Confidential. “I was – to be frank – a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking,” the screen reads. And… Read More Movie Review: Tony
By John Corrado Between the critical success of films like Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie and Blue Heron, and the streaming series Heated Rivalry becoming a legit global pop culture phenomenon, there’s little denying that Canadian content (or “CanCon” for the media literate) is having a big moment right now. So, in honour… Read More Ten Canadian Movies for Canada Day
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto Quebec filmmaker Jean-François Caissy’s Kindergarten unfolds almost like a nature documentary, only we are following human children instead of animals. Caissy’s film is set in a daycare centre in Quebec, and his approach involves just putting a… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: Kindergarten
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto The latest film from Canadian documentary filmmaker Barry Avrich (The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, Born Hungry), This Above All: The Theatrical Life of Antoni Cimolino serves as a polished biographical portrait of a man who… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: This Above All: The Theatrical Life of Antoni Cimolino
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto In their documentary Gimme Truth, co-directors Simon Ennis and Brad Abrahams explore modern conspiracy theories, by introducing us to a variety of subjects who believe in them. Their views range from vaccine skeptics to 9/11 truthers. These… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: Gimme Truth
By John Corrado The 2026 Hot Docs Film Festival runs from April 23rd to May 3rd in Toronto The documentary Nekai Walks opens with a beat-by-beat account of the night that Nekai Foster got shot in the head in Toronto’s Jane and Finch neighbourhood. It was summer, and he was walking home from playing basketball,… Read More #HotDocs26 Review: Nekai Walks
By John Corrado In Mile End Kicks, the very enjoyable sophomore feature from former Toronto film critic Chandler Levack following her excellent directorial debut I Like Movies, we follow a young music critic trying to figure things out in her early twenties. In many ways, Mike End Kicks plays like a companion piece to I… Read More Movie Review: Mile End Kicks
By John Corrado In his previous documentary, the Oscar-winning 2022 film Navalny, Toronto filmmaker Daniel Roher presented a thrilling portrait of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Now Roher turns his attention to the equally timely topic of artificial intelligence in The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist. Roher’s latest, which he… Read More Movie Review: The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist
By John Corrado The 20th anniversary edition of the Canadian Film Fest begins tonight and runs until March 29th at the Scotiabank Theatre in Toronto. I’ve had the privilege of covering this festival a number of times in the past, and I’m always impressed by the range of homegrown films on display. This year’s milestone… Read More The 2026 Canadian Film Fest runs from March 24th to 29th in Toronto
By John Corrado The bond between a girl and her robot is explored in Space Cadet, a wonderful little Canadian animated film that serves as the directorial debut of DJ and musician Kid Koala. The film charts the parental bond between young space enthusiast Celeste, and the robot – a first generation “Guardianbot” – who… Read More Movie Review: Space Cadet
By John Corrado Undertone, the creepy, slow-burn directorial debut of Toronto-based filmmaker Ian Tuason, is the latest horror movie being put out by indie powerhouse A24. And it’s the epitome of a Canadian success story, with the distributor picking up the rights for seven figures in a competitive bidding war after Tuason’s film premiered at… Read More Movie Review: Undertone
By John Corrado In Cold Light, the English-language debut of Quebec filmmaker Maxime Giroux, is a mix of crime drama and thriller that stars Maika Monroe as a young ex-convict in Alberta trying to get her life back on track, but being dragged right back into the criminal underworld. The film opens with Ava (Monroe)… Read More Movie Review: In Cold Light
By John Corrado The main appeal of Charlie the Wonderdog, the first animated feature from British Colombia’s ICON Creative Studio, is getting to hear Owen Wilson voice an aging dog who gets a new lease on life. Wilson brings his usual laid-back charm to his portrayal of the titular “wonderdog,” so it’s no wonder (pun… Read More Movie Review: Charlie the Wonderdog
The Joy of Movies 