Four New Lists: Red & White Outside the Can(nes)on

Hello again everyone,

After a longer interval than intended, and a somewhat painful punny title, we're back with 4 official lists being adopted for the New Year:

Canadian Screen Award - Best Film
SonntagsZeitung's The 100 Best Swiss Films
Cannes Film Festival - Jury Prize
366 Weird Movies - Apocryphally Weird

These four adoptions were the culmination of almost 18 months discussion and hiatus, and we hope that they will provide you with new avenues of cinema to explore.

The Canadian Screen Awards were created in 2013 by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television, merging the two previous awards for film (Genies) and television (Geminis). The film awards had a history going back to 1949, when the Canadian Film Awards were first handed out. Over the years, the Best Film award has had a number of names, including Film of the Year, Best Feature Film, and Best Motion Picture. Canadian cinema has become known worldwide for documentaries, animated shorts, genre films, and talent exported to Hollywood over the years. This list highlights the films that were acclaimed in their home country as the Canadian equivalent of the Oscars. As such, we present to you the combined Canadian Screen Award - Best Film official list.

List adopted from Panunzio, while mlamarre79 has separate lists for each individual award.

Swiss Newspaper SonntagsZeitung (literally "Sunday Newspaper") has been publishing polls on Swiss cinema every five years since 2001. Their 2016 list is their most recent, however - perhaps the pandemic interrupted their planned 2021 version. Regardless, Swiss cinema is often overlooked and one we wish to highlight. With the expectation that this list will continue to be updated periodically, we felt this was the best representation of the best films of the country. Höhenfeuer (Alpine Fire) has topped the list in all four editions of the poll - will it come out on top again next time in 2026? Check out SonntagsZeitung's The 100 Best Swiss Films to start making your predictions today.

List adopted from Jonas Van Dutch.

Once again the people have spoken! The most highly voted list on our last user survey, the Cannes Film Festival - Jury Prize, is becoming official. Awarded by the Cannes jury and generally considered the third most prestigious award at the festival after the Palme d’Or and the Grand Prix, the Cannes Jury Prize is said to be awarded to “an original work that embodies the spirit of inquiry.”

List adopted from Timec.

While lovers of off-trail cinema have embraced the already official 366 Weird Movies list, the project has been finished for several years now with no plans for updates. To satiate the hunger of the denizens of the bizarre, we are delighted to adopted the companion 366 Weird Movies - Apocryphally Weird list for users to continue their journey on the twisted, strange pathways of the weirdest that cinema has to offer. This list now has 50 titles in it, and will continue to grow as new films are certified weird.

List adopted from russa03.

Thanks to Tim2460 for designing this batch of list icons.

Aside from these new lists, some of our other lists have had some major updates as well.

• Time Out's 1000 Films to Change Your Life - We've decided to include every film mentioned in the book, so the list now has over 1200 films, as it became to difficult to determine which films were supposed to be part of the 1000 and which were not. Thank to user Apu for spearheading the revision of the list.
• TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films: 1001-2500 - In their update this year, TSPDT expanded their Top 2000 to a Top 2500, so we've reflected that expansion in our iCM list as well.
• KOFA's 100 Korean Films - The Korean Film Archive updated their list again this year, resulting in a 35 new films joining the list, including some of Korea's most-acclaimed films released since their last update in 2013.
• The Criterion Collection - The list continues to grow, with 1542 titles currently included, thus allowing it to regain top spot as our longest official list, surpassing the newly expanded TSPDT 1001-2500.
• And award season has kicked off, with the National Board of Review selecting Wicked as their top film of the year.

As we reach halfway through the decade, we're grateful to still be part of your internet and film experience. May your 2025 be as rewarding as your new favourite films that you'll hopefully see. :)

Many thanks,
The iCheckMovies Team