TIFF's Top Canadian Films

Based on a local legend and set in an unknown era, it deals with universal themes of love, possessiveness, family, jealousy and power. Beautifully shot, and acted by Inuit people, it portrays a time when people fought duels by taking turns to punch each other until one was unconscious, made love on the way to the caribou hunt, ate walrus meat an...

Set in cold rural Quebec at Christmas time, we follow the coming of age of a young boy and the life of his family which owns the town's general store and undertaking business.

A bus crash in a small town brings a lawyer to defend the families, but he discovers everything isn't what it seems.

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.

Two friends travel from Nova Scotia to Toronto in hope of finding a better life. A classic, and over 50 years later, the film has been on every TIFF list of the top 10 Canadian films ever made.

The story of an imaginative boy who pretends he is the child of a sperm-laden Sicilian tomato upon which his mother accidentally fell.

A personal portrait of filmmaker Guy Maddin's hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Twin gynecologists take full advantage of the fact that nobody can tell them apart, until their relationship begins to deteriorate over a woman.

Zachary is confused about his sexuality and is in conflict with his Catholic upbringing which alienates his parents. Forcing himself to like girls, Zachary also has to cope with his older brothers, who don't make his life any easier.

A fact-based account of ordinary citizens who found themselves arrested and imprisoned without charge for weeks during the October Crisis in 1970 Quebec.

Filmmaker Sarah Polley interviews members of her family as they look back on decades-old events.

A mother's last wishes send twins Jeanne and Simon on a journey to Middle East in search of their tangled roots. Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's acclaimed play, Incendies tells the powerful and moving tale of two young adults' voyage to the core of deep-rooted hatred, never-ending wars and enduring love.

Four very different Montreal university teachers gather at a rambling country house to prepare a dinner. Remy (married), Claude (a homosexual), Pierre (involved with a girlfriend) and Alain (a bachelor) discuss sex, the female body and their affairs with them. Meanwhile, their four female guests, Louise (Remy's wife of 15 years), Dominique (a sp...

In a Lower Manhattan industrial loft, a camera very slowly zooms into a photograph on a wall while various people occasionally enter and exit.

During his final days, a dying man is reunited with old friends, former lovers, his ex-wife, and his estranged son.

Videodrome is a cult thriller from Canadian director David Cronenberg about a TV cable operator man who becomes brain washed by a new kind of TV station.

A man coping with the institutionalization of his wife because of Alzheimer's disease faces an epiphany when she transfers her affections to another man, Aubrey, a wheel chair-bound mute who also is a patient at the nursing home.

A collection of vignettes highlighting different aspects of the life, work, and character of the acclaimed Canadian classical pianist.

A widowed single mother, raising her violent son alone, finds new hope when a mysterious neighbor inserts herself into their household.

Old West highwayman Bill Miner, known to Pinkertons as "The Gentleman Bandit," is released in 1901 after 33 years in prison, a genial and charming old man. Entering a world unfamiliar to him, he returns to the only thing that gives him purpose — robbery.

Bruce Macdonald follows punk bank Hard Core Logo on a harrowing last-gasp reunion tour throughout Western Canada. As magnetic lead-singer Joe Dick holds the whole magilla together through sheer force of will, all the tensions and pitfalls of life on the road come bubbling to the surface.

Writer/director/actor Don McKellar's take on the always intriguing "end of the world" concept is a thoughtful, engaging effort that uses dialogue instead of action to discuss this premise intellectually. The inhabitants of a Canadian city quietly accept the news that the world is going to end at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day, 2000.

Scatterbrained Polly gets a job as a secretary in Gabrielle's art gallery. Polly aspires to be a professional photographer, and idolizes Gabrielle for her artistic ability. When Gabrielle rekindles an old romantic relationship with the younger painter Mary, Polly becomes jealous, and discovers Gabrielle isn’t exactly who she claims to be.

At the instigation of the filmmakers, the young men of the Ile-aux-Coudres in the middle of the St-Lawrence River try as a memorial to their ancestors to revive the fishing of the belugas interrupted in 1924.

The younger son of a working-class Jewish family in Montreal, Duddy Kravitz yearns to make a name for himself in society. This film chronicles his short and dubious rise to power, as well as his changing relationships with family and friends. Along the way the film explores the themes of anti-semitism and the responsibilities which come with adu...

During a harsh Montréal winter, an elementary-school class is left reeling after its teacher commits suicide. Bachir Lazhar, a charismatic Algerian immigrant, steps in as the substitute teacher for the classroom of traumatized children. All the while, he must keep his personal life tucked away: the fact that he is seeking political refuge in Qué...

Crash is the controversial thriller from David Cronenberg about the interwoven relationship of 12 very different Los Angeles residents after a deadly car accident. Writer James Ballard starts a journey into the abyss of human obsession, lust, and ruin.

A woman is overwhelmed with having to deal with her emotionally unstable daughter, mentally-challenged brother and two suitors while simultaneously trying to run her small firewood business.

A photographer and his wife travel across Armenia photographing churches for a calendar project. Travelling with them is a local man acting as their driver and guide. As the project nears completion, the distance between husband and wife grows.

A man plagued by neuroses frequents the club Exotica in an attempt to find solace, but even there his past is never far away.

In this classic exploration of marriage in conflict, Billy and Antoinette Edwards—as well as their son Bogart and dog Merton—live out their daily lives. Hoping to discover the heart of the trouble in their marriage, Billy and Antoinette offer up their day to day lives to documentary filmmaker Allan King, as laughter, tears, wit, tenderness, ange...

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris.

Pure fantasia, a race to save the world from a fatal heart attack, juxtaposed against a love rivalry between two brothers - a mortician and an actor playing Christ - for the heart of a scientist studying the earth's core.

The film examines the plight of a group of widows forced into poverty at a temple in the holy city of Varanasi. It focuses on a relationship between one of the widows, who wants to escape the social restrictions imposed on widows, and a man who is from the highest caste and a follower of Mahatma Gandhi.

A musical of sorts set in Winnipeg during the Great Depression, where a beer baroness organizes a contest to find the saddest music in the world. Musicians from around the world descend on the city to try and win the $25,000 prize.

A dramatization of the Montreal Massacre of 1989 where several female engineering students were murdered by an unstable misogynist.

"The Hart of London" is an endlessly layered tour de force. It explores life and death, the sense of place and personal displacement, and the intricate aesthetics of representation. It is a personal and spiritual film, marked inevitably by Chambers’s knowledge that he had leukemia. The late American avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage said of Ha...

Filmed over five weeks at the Warrendale residential treatment center near Toronto, "Warrendale" observes twelve emotionally disturbed children and the staff who care for them. Working without narration, interviews, or direction, Allan King records daily life as it unfolds, establishing what he later described as “actuality drama.”

A young director intent on making "the greatest color crime movie ever" can't seem to finish his script--he has a beginning and an end, but he can't quite figure out the middle. The daughter of his landlord, excited to have a real "movie person" living nearby, tries to help by putting him in touch with a man who wants to collaborate on a script-...

In this Oscar-winning short film, Norman McLaren employs the principles normally used to put drawings or puppets into motion to animate live actors. The story is a parable about two people who come to blows over the possession of a flower.

In July 1990, a dispute over a proposed golf course to be built on Kanien’kéhaka (Mohawk) lands in Oka, Quebec, sets the stage for a historic confrontation that would grab international headlines and sear itself into the Canadian consciousness.

In this extraordinary short animation, Evelyn Lambart and Norman McLaren painted colours, shapes, and transformations directly onto their filmstrip. The result is a vivid interpretation, in fluid lines and colour, of jazz music played by the Oscar Peterson Trio.

A girl walks in to a shop and asks for help. When the shopkeeper tells her to leave, she starts bleeding and faints. In the hospital she dies while giving birth to a girl. The nurse wants to find out who her family is and gets stuck in the world of Russian crime.

Terry and Dean are lifelong friends who have grown-up together: shotgunning their first beers, forming their first garage band, and growing the great Canadian mullet known as "hockey hair". Now the lives of these Alberta everymen are brought to the big screen by documentarian Ferral Mitchener in an exploration of the depths of friendship, the fr...

A 1971 experimental Canadian film directed by Michael Snow. Shot in the Canadian mountains over a period of 24 hours using a robotic arm.

The film consists primarily of degraded footage of landscapes shot from vehicles moving across the country; meanwhile, 537 computer-generated permutations of the film’s title appear like subtitles—the letters are scrambled over and over again, undermining the meaning of Pierre Trudeau's infamous motto.

A coming-of-age tale centered on Hannah, a young girl who is living a troubled family life. Set in 1963, Hannah develops a fascination with Jean-Luc Godard's then-recent film "Vivre sa vie". As she begins to model herself after the film's lead role, Hannah slowly begins to explore the confusing nature of her sexuality.

Its All Gone Pete Tong is a comedy following the tragic life of legendary Frankie Wilde. The story takes us through Frankie's life from one of the best DJ's alive, through subsequent battle with a hearing disorder, culminating in his mysterious disappearance from the scene.

Hubert, a brash 17-year-old, is confused and torn by a love-hate relationship with his mother that consumes him more and more each day. After distressing ordeals and tragic episodes, Hubert will find his mother on the banks of Saint Lawrence river, where he grew up, and where a murder will be committed: the murder of childhood.

Pierre Lamontagne has returned to Quebec to attend his father's funeral. He meets up with his adopted brother, Marc, who has begun questioning his identity and has embarked on a quest for his roots that would lead them to the Quebec of the 1950s. Past and present converge in a complex web of intrigue where the answer to the mystery lies.