My Winnipeg (2007), Léolo (1992), Jesus of Montreal (1989), Café de Flore (2011), Videodrome (1983), Exotica (1994), Where the Spirit Lives (1989), Cowards Bend the Knee (2003) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Canadian Cinema movies.
Storyline: Filmmaker Guy Maddin was born, raised and has always lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a town where he says everyone sleepwalks through life. He is trying to escape Winnipeg, but isn't sure how as he isn't sure what's kept him there in the first place. Perhaps his parent's month long 65th wedding anniversary celebration (despite his father being dead for some years) where he will reenact his childhood (with actors playing his family, except his mother who plays herself) in the old family home at 800 Ellis Avenue, which was above the family's hair salon business, will provide some answers. He recounts some civic events which have affected him and the life of Winnipegers: the 1919 general strike, the destruction of the Wolseley Elm in 1957, and the replacement of the iconic Eaton's building for the new hockey arena in favor of the old Winnipeg Arena. The latter has an especially close connection to him because of a family tie and the rich history of hockey in the city (discounting what he considers the failure of the NHL experiment). As he is on the train leaving the city, he hopes that the page 3 "Citizen Girl" will be the panacea for all Winnipeg's issues.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: experimental film, documentary, autobiographical, surrealism, memory, nostalgia, black comedy ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Young Leo Lauzon is torn between two worlds - the squalid Montreal tenement that he inhabits with his severely dysfunctional (and largely insane) family, and the imaginative world that he constructs for himself through his writings, where he's Leolo Lozone, son of a Sicilian peasant (conceived in a bizarre act involving a tomato). And his experiences of growing up (especially his sexual development) affect his response to both these worlds...—Michael Brooke <michael@everyman.demon.co.uk>
Plot Keywords: psychological drama, coming of age, surrealism, family, fantasy, childhood, mental illness ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A group of actors putting on an interpretive Passion Play in Montreal begin to experience a meshing of their characters and their private lives as the production takes form against the growing opposition of the Catholic church.—Keith Loh <loh@sfu.ca>
Plot Keywords: religion, faith, theater, performance, modern adaptation, moral dilemma, social critique ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A love story about people separated by time and place but connected in profound and mysterious ways. Atmospheric, fantastical, tragic and hopeful, the film chronicles the parallel fates of Jacqueline, a young mother with a disabled son in 1960s Paris, and Antoine, a recently divorced, successful DJ in present day Montreal. What binds the two stories together is love - euphoric, obsessive, tragic, youthful, timeless love. In 1960s Paris, a working class woman gives birth to her first child, Laurent - a Down Syndrome son. Undaunted she embraces the challenge of raising her beloved offspring as normally as one would any other child. Her husband abandons them both. She bravely brushes this additional hiccup aside as Laurent replaces her spouse as the perfect man of her dreams. As Laurent approaches school age Jacqueline's aplomb becomes obsessive and cloying. Her increasingly self-destructive attachment to her son is raised to a fever pitch when, at the age of seven, he meets a Down ...
Plot Keywords: love, fantasy, reincarnation, destiny, music, jazz, paris ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Max Renn is the President of Channel 83 Civic-TV, a small television station on the UHF dial. He defends his programming of largely X-rated shows - which depict graphic sex and extreme violence - as a pure matter of economic survival as a small station. Behind closed doors in specific company, he would admit that he enjoys such programming, but as President will stay away from associated activities that may be dangerous for him in its purchase. His current girlfriend, radio personality Nicki Brand, who he met on a television talk show, is sexually aroused by light mutilation on her person, that despite or because her radio show is like an open air crisis hotline. On that same talk show, the other guest via video feed was Professor Brian O'Blivion - solely his stage name - who believes that television and video broadcasts will one day overtake the world as reality, which may make Max's programming in combination more dangerous. In Max's search for the next big thing in like programming...
Plot Keywords: science fiction, horror, psychological thriller, surrealism, body horror, media critique, mind control ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: This psychological thriller is true to its subjects as well as being complex, dynamic, and overly dramatic. How something so long ago, seemingly trivial, years later with more significant trauma, turns repressed emotions into a dysfunctional life and distorted thinking. This is all merged into a psychological menagerie that unfolds piece by piece to perfection.
Plot Keywords: drama, mystery, psychological, erotic, crime, thriller, film noir ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In 1937, a young First Nations (Canadian native) girl named Ashtecome is kidnapped along with several other children from a village as part of a deliberate Canadian policy to force First Nations children to abandon their culture in order to be assimilated into white Canadian/British society. She is taken to a boarding school where she is forced to adopt Western Euro-centric ways and learn English, often under brutal treatment. Only one sympathetic white teacher who is more and more repelled by this bigotry offers her any help from among the staff. That, with her force of will, Ashtecome (forced to take the name Amelia) is determined to hold on to her identity and that of her siblings, who were also abducted.—Kenneth Chisholm <kchishol@execulink.com>
Plot Keywords: drama, historical, cultural conflict, colonialism, family separation, trauma, survival ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: It's time for hockey! There's no telling what will happen when the Winnipeg Maroons' own star player Guy becomes embroiled in the twisted lives of Meta, a vengeful Chinoise, and her hairdresser/abortionist mother Liliom. Innocent Veronica, caught in the middle, is treated to both services! Meanwhile poor, dithering, cowardly Guy can only stand by and watch.—Anony-Moose
Plot Keywords: experimental film, black-and-white, surrealism, psychological drama, violence, sexuality, memory ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A filmmaker's inquiry into transcendence becomes a three-hour trip across countries and cultures, interconnecting people, places and times. From Toronto, the scene of his childhood, Peter Mettler sets out on a journey that includes evangelism at the airport strip, demolition in Las Vegas, tracings in the Nevada desert, chemistry and street life in Switzerland, and the coexistence of technology and divinity in contemporary India. Everywhere along the way, the same themes are to be found: thrill-seeking, luck, destiny, belief, expanding perception, the craving for security in an uncertain world. Fact joins with fantasy; the search for meaning and the search for ecstasy begin to merge.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: gambling, religion, documentary, experimental film, faith, addiction, surreal ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Sometime in the 1970s, 15-year-old loner Agnes Marie "Mooney" Pottie dreams of escaping existence in New Waterford, a coastal Nova Scotia town on Cape Breton Island. She quietly scorns most of the people around her, including her large family, who don't share her sensibilities; her fiercely-Catholic family think she's weird. She thinks she's realized her dream when, with the help of her teacher Cecil Sweeney (who came to New Waterford to find himself and is still looking) she wins a scholarship to a New York art school. When her parents don't let her go, she devises a plan to escape New Waterford. Meanwhile, a bit of NYC comes to New Waterford when Lou Benzoa and her dance-instructor mother temporarily move in next door to the Potties to escape the Bronx until "the stink dies down." Lou becomes friends with Mooney and quickly gains a reputation as the female Equalizer, whose powers only work on the guilty.—Huggo
Plot Keywords: coming of age, small town life, female friendship, family dynamics, cultural clash, dark comedy, self-discovery ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Big city girl Caroline is new to a small town, she disregards her high school classmates, and then just for kicks starts a sexual relationship with her teacher, Mr. A. Meanwhile, there's a serial killer roaming the town, an industrial fire burning on the outskirts, and Thurston is mourning the loss of his best friend. As Thurston falls in love with Caroline, realities quickly catch up to all characters, and they are all going to have to mature or face the consequences.
Plot Keywords: coming of age, black comedy, small town life, teacher-student relationship, rebellion, sexual awakening, alienation ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Tracey Berkowitz, 15, a self-described normal girl, loses her 9-year old brother, Sonny. In flashbacks and fragments, we meet her overbearing parents and the sweet, clueless Sonny. We watch Tracey navigate high school, friendless, picked on and teased. She develops a thing for Billy Zero, a new student, imagining he's her boyfriend. We see the day she loses Sonny and we watch her try to find him. In bits and pieces, we see what leads up to her riding in the back of a city bus wrapped in a shower curtain. Coming of age, or just surviving?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: psychological thriller, independent film, nonlinear narrative, coming of age, mental breakdown, stream of consciousness, loneliness ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Two attractive young lesbians, Maggie and Kim, meet in Vancouver, develop a passionate romance, and move in together. Meanwhile, Maggie's well-meaning but naive mother Lila gets divorced and decides to move to Vancouver and join the household. Soon after, Lila is befriended by Judy, a transsexual about to undergo a sex-change operation. Complications ensue as the conservative Lila learns the truth about Maggie, Judy, and their diverse group of friends.—Eric Sorensen
Plot Keywords: lgbtq+, romantic comedy, coming of age, independent film, 1990s, family drama, self-discovery ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Young Tommy Tricker (Michael Stevens) knows that with the help of a magical postage stamp and a secret incantation, it's possible to mail yourself to any destination in the world. But what happens if the letter gets lost in the mail? When Tommy discovers a stamp collection that includes a 65-year-old undelivered magic stamp with a picture of a young boy named Charles Merriweather (Oliver Morgan Varlow), he and his friends endeavor to deliver the letter and free Charles from his imprisonment.
Plot Keywords: adventure, family, fantasy, children, comedy, music, sequel ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Set in the Great White North of Canada, YOGA HOSERS tells the story of Colleen Collette and Colleen McKenzie - two teenage besties from Winnipeg who spend their lives doing Yoga with their faces in their phones, 'Liking' or 'Not Liking' the real world around them. But when these Sophomore girls are invited to a Senior party by the school hottie, the Colleens accidentally uncover an ancient evil, long buried beneath the Manitoba earth.
Plot Keywords: comedy, horror, fantasy, indie film, kevin smith, teen, supernatural ...
Movie Details Click Here !