Ten Culture Predictions for 2025

1. Canada Will Provide Apocalyptic Scenery for The Last of Us

Prior to the 2023 premiere of The Last of Us, no one was sure whether a video game could translate into prestige TV. Twenty-four Emmy nominations, several smashed ratings records and one very thirsty internet obsession with Pedro Pascal later, the only remaining question is: what can viewers expect next? Plot specifics for season two—shot largely in and around Vancouver and due out in 2025—have been guarded like the most potent fungi-killing antidote. Two scoops, however, are already out there: Kaitlyn Dever and Catherine O’Hara have been cast, the latter (possibly) as Joel’s therapist. 

2. Miriam Toews Will Return to Canadian Bookshelves

Toews, the Winnipeg-based author of beloved bestsellers like A Complicated Kindness, has achieved CanLit-icon status for both her fiction and, more recently, the film adaptation of Women Talking, which earned Sarah Polley a 2023 Oscar for screenwriting. For her ninth book, A Truce That Is Not Peace (due out in August), Toews turns her sharp eye on herself in a genre-blurring excavation of her guilt and grief over her sister’s 2010 death by suicide.

3. Oasis Will Bring Their Brotherly Love (or Truce) to Toronto

Britrock’s most notorious brothers are getting the band back together. Riding a seemingly endless wave of ’90s nostalgia, Oasis Live ’25 is set to touch down in Toronto in late August. Demand for the tour’s only Canadian stop was so massive that organizers swiftly added a second date. Live Nation and Rogers also capitalized on the frenzy with the announcement of Rogers Stadium, a brand-new 50,000-seat outdoor concert venue in Toronto’s north end, construction on which is scheduled to wrap by the time Liam and Noel rock into town. (Provided they keep the peace.) 

4. Ally Pankiw Will Have a Breakout Year

Pankiw may not be a household name just yet, but consider this a ubiquity teaser. After working as a story editor on Schitt’s Creek and producing music videos for pop megastars like Ariana Grande, the Toronto-slash-L.A.-based writer-director pulled focus last summer with I Used to Be Funny, a gallows comedy about domestic violence starring deadpan ingenue Rachel Sennott. Pankiw’s 2025 slate includes Lilith Fair, a documentary with sign-off from the festival’s creator, Sarah McLachlan, and Standing By, a comedy series about a group of disgruntled guardian angels co-starring Glenn Close and Pankiw’s old Schitt’s buddy Dan Levy. 

5. Canada’s Wonderland Will Unveil the Summer’s Wildest Ride

This summer, AlpenFury, a new, record-setting adrenaline ride, will arrive at Wonderland. With a height of 50 metres, a run time of one minute and 20 seconds and a top speed of 115 kilometres per hour, it’ll soon become the tallest, longest and fastest coaster in the country. (It also has nine inversions, or barfy bits—more than any other ride in North America.) If that weren’t enough, AlpenFury will be the only Wonderland attraction to feature a pyrotechnic explosion.

6. David Cronenberg’s Latest Flick Will Spook Theatre- Goers (in a Good Way)

The Baron of Blood’s 2025 cinematic offering is The Shrouds, a meditation on love, death and (of course) the bodily horror of it all. Shrouds is Cronenberg’s most personal effort to date: it was inspired by the loss of his own wife, Carolyn, who died of cancer in 2017. Vincent Cassel stars as the recently widowed Karsh, a thinly veiled Cronenberg proxy—complete with silver coif and vaguely vampiric wardrobe—whose invention allows the living to monitor the corpses of their loved ones. Frequent Cronenberg collaborator Diane Kruger does triple duty as the late wife, her twin sister and the voice of an AI assistant. 

7. The CBC Will Welcome Its New CEO

The path forward won’t be an easy one for Marie-Philippe Bouchard, the national broadcaster’s newly appointed president and CEO. (For one thing, Pierre Poilievre has pledged to defund the CBC; for another, there’s a national furor over the megabucks bonuses for the network’s execs.) Bouchard’s impressive CV foretells at least a stay of execution. During her eight-year tenure heading up TV5 Quebec, she oversaw a lineup of buzzy, smart and infinitely watchable French-language content. Here’s hoping Bouchard can bring le pixie dust to her new gig. 

8. Arctic Life Will Become Sitcom Fodder in North of North 

When Netflix opened its Canadian HQ in 2023, it pledged to work with local creators to tell Canadian stories. First out of the gate is North of North, the CBC and APTN co-pro from Stacey Aglok MacDonald and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, two Nunavut filmmakers whose previous work has focused on darker aspects of the Indigenous experience. Their new series, shot in Iqaluit and set to debut in winter of 2025, is conversely chock-full of joy and hilarity. At the centre of it all is Siaja, played by True Detective’s Anna Lambe, a single Inuk mom trying to rebuild her life in a small Arctic town where everybody knows your business (and nobody stays out of it). 

9. Mae Martin Will Achieve Showrunner Status

A seemingly idyllic small town, sinister secrets, the troubled teen industry as a backdrop—Wayward has all the makings of a hit British crime thriller, only this one is set and filmed in Canadians’ own backyard. The eight-part series, which hits streaming later in 2025, is yet another big swing for Netflix Canada. Its showrunner and star is Toronto’s Mae Martin, who, in the role of detective Alex Dempsey, steps outside of their comedy wheelhouse—although not entirely. (Martin recently joked that their character’s darker hair shade signals their newfound “serious actor” status.) Wayward also co-stars a couple of dramatic icons: fellow Canadian Sarah Gadon and Toni Collette. 

10. Domee Shi Will Strike Pixar Gold (Again)

Toronto’s Domee Shi won an Oscar for her first directorial short, Bao; made history as Pixar’s first solo female director with 2022’s Turning Red; andearned a shiny new VP gig that same year. This June, she returns with Elio, a sci-fi space adventure about a young boy forced to explain Planet Earth to a group of aliens, only to learn a thing or two about unconventional family structures along the way. Inside Out 2 set records for Pixar last summer, and the studio is hoping Elio prolongs its winning streak. The casting of Zoë Saldaña as Elio’s aunt is a good omen: her films have grossed $2 billion at the box office on four separate occasions.