The top ten films of the new millennium

In 2002, Playback polled the industry in order to find out what you thought were the greatest Canadian films of all time. With the first decade of the new millennium done and dusted, we thought it was time to check in for an update of sorts, and name the top films of the last 10 years.

We opened the Playback site for suggestions and received hundreds of film submissions – truly a testament to the strength and variety of Canadian film in the past decade.

In the end, two films tied for top spot – Jean-Marc Vallée’s quirky C.R.A.Z.Y. and Sarah Polley’s heart-wrenching Away From Her. Interestingly, Polley, who wrote and directed Away From Her, also starred in our previous top film, Atom Egoyan’s classic The Sweet Hereafter (1997).

Also, as your top 10 selection included two feature documentaries, we included an extra two films in the list so that the fiction folk would have a complete top-10 list as well.

Click on the image to enlarge, or check out the updated credit list below.

1.
Away From Her (2006)
Sarah Polley (writer/director), Daniel Iron, Simone Urdl and Jennifer Weiss (producers)

C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005)
Jean-Marc Vallée (writer/director), François Boulay (writer), Pierre Even (producer)

3.
Water (2005)
Deepa Mehta (writer/director), David Hamilton (producer)

4.
Les Invasions Barbares/The Barbarian Invasions (2003)
Denys Arcand (writer/director), Daniel Louis and Denise Robert (producers)

5.
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001)
Zacharias Kunuk (director/producer), Paul Apak Angilirq (writer/producer), Norman Cohn, Zacharias Kunuk and Germaine Wong (producers)

6.
Eastern Promises (2007)
David Cronenberg (director), Steve Knight (writer), Robert Lantos, Tracy Seaward, Paul Webster (producers)

7.
The Corporation (2003)
Jennifer Abbott (director), Mark Achbar (writer/director/producer), Bart Simpson (producer), Joel Bakan, Harold Crooks (writers)

8.
It’s All Gone Pete Tong (2004)
Michael Dowse (writer/director), Allan Niblo, James Richardson and Elizabeth Yake (producers)

9.
Amal (2007)
Richie Mehta (writer/director), Shaun Mehta (writer), David Miller and Steven Bray (producers)

10.
J’ai tué ma mère/I Killed My Mother (2009)
Xavier Dolan (writer/director/producer)

11.
Manufactured Landscapes (2006)
Jennifer Baichwal (director/producer), Daniel Iron, Gerry Flahive, Peter Starr and Nick de Pencier (producers)

12.
Polytechnique (2009)
Denis Villeneuve (writer/director), Jacques Davidts (writer), Don Carmody and Maxime Rémillard (producers)