Prime’s Tragically Hip docuseries leads unscripted winners at Canadian Screen Awards
By Andrew Tracy, Realscreen
Prime Video Canada’s The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal led the pack of non-fiction winners at the 2025 Canadian Screen Awards, roping in seven trophies at the unscripted component of the multi-night event on Friday (May 30).
The four-part docuseries on the beloved Canadian roots-rock band triumphed in every category in which it was nominated, taking the award for best biography or arts documentary as well as the factual/doc craft prizes for direction, editorial and visual research, photography, editing and sound.
Other notable factual winners from this year’s CSAs included the CBC docuseries Paid in Full: The Battle for Black Music, which won for best history documentary; the Crave-Bloomberg coproduction An Optimist’s Guide to the Planet with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, which took the best science or nature doc prize; and CBC Documentary Channel’s It’s Not Funny Anymore: Vice to Proud Boys, on the Vice Media co-founder and latter-day alt-right figurehead Gavin McInnes, which was named best documentary program.
On the unscripted side of the awards, Canada’s Drag Race, airing on Bell Media’s Crave platform, won for best reality/competition program, and also took the directing and writing awards in the category. The best lifestyle program award went to CTV Life Channel’s Mary Makes It Easy, starring former MasterChef Canada winner Mary Berg, while another Berg-fronted series, CTV’s The Good Stuff with Mary Berg, won the prize for best talk or entertainment news series.
Selected non-scripted winners of the 2025 Canadian Screen Awards, with credits supplied by CSA parent organization the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, are listed below. The full list of winners can be found on the website of the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television.
Best News or Information Series
The Fifth Estate (CBC)
CBC
Best Reality/Competition Program or Series
Canada’s Drag Race (Crave)
Blue Ant Studios, DR Canada Four Productions
Best Lifestyle Program or Series
Mary Makes It Easy (CTV Life Channel)
Proper Television
Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/Political Documentary Program
The Fifth Estate – “Contract to Kill” (CBC)
CBC
Best History Documentary Program or Series
Paid in Full: The Battle for Black Music (CBC Gem)
Pink Towel Canada, Zinc Media
Best Talk or Entertainment News Series
The Good Stuff with Mary Berg (CTV)
Bell Media
Rob Stewart Award for Best Science or Nature Documentary Program or Series
An Optimist’s Guide to the Planet with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Crave)
Cream Productions
Best Biography or Arts Documentary Program or Series
The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal (Prime Video)
Fully and Complete Productions
Best Documentary Program
It’s Not Funny Anymore: Vice to Proud Boys (CBC Documentary Channel)
C3 Media, Urbania
Best Factual Series
Who Owns the World (TVO)
Who Owns It Productions, Hawkeye Pictures