The 18th Genie Awards were held on 14 December 1997 to honour Canadian films released that year.^[1] to honour the best Canadian films of 1997.^[1][2] The ceremony's hosts were film critics Geoff Pevere and Cameron Bailey.

For this year, CBC Television declined to broadcast the ceremony; in recent years, the academy's experimentation with formats had not been successful. The CBC did, however, commit to the popular one-hour Preview show. Bravo! immediately agreed to air the entire ceremony, but not live--the show was aired the following day. In support, CTV, Global, The Movie Network and Super Écran also provided awards-related programming.^[3]

This year's awards were dominated by Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter, Thom Fitzgerald's The Hanging Garden, Gabriel Pelletier's Karmina, André Forcier's The Countess of Baton Rouge (La Comtesse de Bâton Rouge) and, from Lynne Stopkewich, Kissed. Two Special Awards were given: one for Outstanding Achivement in Make-up, to Pierre Saindon for his work on Karmina; the other to Telefilm Canada for its development and support of the Canadian film industry.^[3]