The Girl Who Cried Pearls won the 2026 Academy Award for best animated short marking the 12th Oscar overall for the National Film Board of Canada. The Montreal-based filmmakers Maciek Szczerbowski and Chris Lavis’ stop-motion animation weaves a remarkable fable about a girl overwhelmed by sorrow, the boy who loves her, and how greed leads good hearts to wicked deeds.
Watch the beautifully-haunting The Girl Who Cried Pearls in its entirety on NFB’s website.
Canada swept both animation categories with Korean-Canadian filmmaker Maggie Kang picking up an Oscar for best animated feature film for “KPop Demon Hunters,” which she wrote and co-directed with Chris Appelhans. The film’s hit single “Golden” became the first K-pop tune to win best original song.
Nova Scotia’s Tamara Deverell and set decorator Shane Vieau won the Best Production Design Oscar for Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” while Jordan Samuel and Cliona Furey were part of the “Frankenstein” team that won best makeup and hairstyling.
Read CTV News review: ‘We’re taking over’: A look at Canadians’ big wins at the Oscar.