Discover Movies

A man, a dog, and two boys travel together by bus, including a tour through a safari park.

Michèle is accused of the murder of the child she had with her brother, with whom she lives. The few years she spends in a psychiatric clinic do not cure her.

Female composers' names are mentioned throughout history.

In the early 1970s, a group of young volunteers, the Free Youth Clinic of Winnipeg, operated a "crisis bus" to rescue young people experiencing bad drug trips, usually from LSD.

Two twenty-something women dream of the ideal man and slowly realize that reality is very different from their fantasies.

The automatic gestures of life in a strangely empty industrial suburb.Machina is a 16 mm experimental film.

A look at the ways fashion has been used to socially control women in Canada, both historically and in the 20th century.

A writer and her girlfriend engaging with women while touring Toronto.

The appearance is a satirical comedy that mocks the small Quebec people and its excessive religiosity.

An amusing view of the machine that has taken the country by winter storm: the snowmobile, revving, raring, ready to go. What the motorboat was to the summer lake, this motorized sled now is to the snow-covered fields. This film shows it all--the pull of this sit-down sport, the eagerness of the trade to keep it booming, the daring rivalry of the racing crowd, and the bemused pleasure of the family outing.

Mosha Michael made an assured directorial debut with this seven-minute short, a relaxed, narration-free depiction of an Inuk seal hunt. Having participated in a 1974 Super 8 workshop in Frobisher Bay, Michael shot and edited the film himself. His voice can be heard on the appealing guitar-based soundtrack…. Natsik Hunting is believed to be Canada’s first Inuk-directed film. – NFB

A lecherous thief posing as a preacher is wandering in northern coastal Mexico. After stealing a car and evading police, he stumbles on a small coven of mysterious witches living in a seaside mansion. The preacher attempts to extort money from the witches, not knowing how dangerous they really are.

This short documentary examines the changing relations between labour and management in the long-established company town of Trail, BC, in which 90% of the workforce is employed by Cominco, the world’s largest lead-zinc smelter. The metal workers in the town are outspoken about the health risks associated with their line of work, and a debate about unionization ensues. The days of paternalistic management are gone, and the emphasis is now on participation and involvement. An eventual strike over dissatisfaction with labour relations turns violent when management, union executives, and workers clash over competing interests.

This documentary records the extraordinary determination of Jungle Jim Hunter to be the best ski racer in the world. We witness his grueling exercise routines, pre-race tensions, trials and deep religious faith of this dedicated athlete.

In this animated short from the Canada Vignette series, the camera explores, in exquisite detail, the daily hunt, fishing scenes and children at play as etched in black on an ivory Inuit pipe.

Equal parts dramatic film, investigative report, and sociological experiment, this feature-length picture is above all a community undertaking. Made in collaboration with a group of residents of Gloucester County, New Brunswick, Canada, the film speaks not just to the community it concerns, but equally to those people who wish to recognize the ever-increasing importance of their social reality.

An animated film showing a woolly mammoth and its offspring. These animals lived on the Canadian tundra over ten thousand years ago.

The Games included many sports seen in Olympic competition, plus others--for example, pirautaqturniq, the Inuit skill of hitting an object with a ten meter-long sled dog whip. This film captures the all-out participation in the week-long events hosted by Whitehorse, capital of the Yukon, with competitors from all over the Arctic including Alaska, and with observers from the Soviet Union.

This short film brings together animated interpretations of 4 poems by great Canadian wordsmiths: “From the Hazel Bough” by Earle Birney, “Travellers Palm” by P.K. Page, “Death by Streetcar” by Raymond Souster, and “A Said Poem” by John Robert Colombo.

This film focuses on the approaches that several cities have taken to one problem. Through various examples, it examines the implications and options for a pedestrian-oriented city core. Ninth in Régnier's ten-film Urba 2,000 series.

A plot to murder a rich woman results in her ending up in a catatonic state and buried alive.

A man makes a bet with himself to stop smoking, but he can't.

Have you ever had "one of those days" when nothing seems to go right? Well, imagine how Claude feels-his entire life has been one screwy day after another. Some people attract attention, others attract the opposite sex, all poor Claude can attract is chaos-and plenty of it! Discouraged by his ill luck, Claude is on his way to see his girlfriend when he suddenly finds himself in the middle of a bank robbery. In the wink of an eye Claude becomes public enemy number one with both cops AND robbers hot on his trail!

This short documentary offers a humorous look at horse-pulling contests in Ontario and the people who prepare for them. We travel from the farm to the contest, where excitement runs high and the quips do not lack in local colour. Which of these magnificent creatures will be able to pull the heaviest load and win the prize?

"Holding a rubber band between my thumbs and forefingers, I strum it as fast as I can close to the microphone. The camera is static and runs until the S8 cartridge runs out. The sound is recorded on tape separate from the film, so the audio which sounds like a drum, slowly moves out of synch with the image." - David Askevold

Bill Miner was a train robber in British Columbia at the turn of the century. This animated film depicts a disastrous episode in his career.

During Christmastime, a bum discovers a magical box.

The story of a teenage girl's attempts at independence.

This is the story of the first French settlers in North America, who spent their first winter on an island in the Bay of Fundy. Despite overwhelming hardships the survivors, joined by other new colonists, eventually established Port Royal, the foundation of Acadia and the Acadian people.

Wild rice is an important source of food and revenue for many Anishinaabe people, who sometimes travel hundreds of kilometres to harvest the grain in the region around Kenora, Ontario.

This movie tells the story of a father, a mother and their young boy who, to get out of misery, leave the village where they live to try their luck in Montreal.

An engaging illustration, by animation artist Rhoda Leyer, of the fable in which the warm sun proves to the cold wind that persuasion is better than force when it comes to making a man take off his coat.

A ghost is discovered in a deserted hotel.

"My Mother, who had immigrated from Australia, always wanted to see the North. Mom suggested we go on a trip to Moosonee and Moose Factory. Jim and David Anderson came along too. One roll of film was loaded into the camera twice, creating superimposed images... a happy accident."

In 1942 even after a formal promise from the Liberal Party of Canada in the last election: "Never the Conscription", the Canadian Government vote a Conscription Law. In Quebec where the French population was mostly unanimous against the obligation to go to war, seen as a Great-Britain Government request, many young men fled to the woods or in clandestineness.

This feature documentary is a fascinating and spirited portrait of the life and times of the legendary Quebec politician and four-time mayor of Montreal Camillien Houde. Using rare archival footage and interviews with ex-colleagues, aides and friends, the film presents a comprehensive profile of this incredible, and, to some, infamous, man.

The television footage of a wrestling match is employed here as a metaphor for Quebec society. Using voice-over narration, Falardeau presents a compelling analysis of the structure of wrestling and its rituals. The good guy against the evil antagonist, the forces of order and the desires of the crowd. The audience becomes part of the spectacle in this powerful show where wrestlers confront one another under the watchful eye of the referee. It is a ritual of catharsis. The documentary begins with the words, images and sounds of Quebec's political struggle, "SOS F.L.Q. Continuons le combat". Produced right after the October Crisis in 1970, a crucial moment in Quebec's struggle to become a sovereign state, independent of Canada, the tape is charged with the bitter experience and political aspirations of the period. We recognize in this tape, the "Falardeau style" evident through a very strong narration that supports the images till the end, when the video abruptly closes.

This film, shot in 1969, deals with a certain rebellious vision of Quebec at the time. It is a radical questioning of the ways of being of an entire community, which the filmmaker expresses in a most direct style. (This film was released in theaters in 1975.)

Tenants of public housing in Ottawa challenge the process of managing public housing projects in meetings with federal, provincial and municipal officials.

An animated film about the Hudson's Bay trading post, and the relationship between fur traders and Indians.

Kathleen Shannon describes the look and feel of her childhood to an artist friend, and uses his paintings and her visit to the ruins of the mining site where she grew up to reflect on her early life and how it influenced the adult she became.

A short history of one of the traditional dances of Acadia--the quadrille.

A made for the camera video collaboration with Steve Paxton, a unique pas de deux between videographer and dancer.

The film draws an analogy between the cutting and suturing of the human body and the reconstruction of the world through film. Using optical printing techniques, it connects diverse elements in a dream-like flow: a vision of mind at play amid the anxieties of our society. It's also an operation on our image systems, including cinema.

“Early in the morning on Thursday Feb 26, 1976, a young First Nations man named Eugene Lloyd Pelly was fatally stabbed in an apartment at 4272 Watson Street, east of Main near 28th. After escaping out a window Pelly collapsed in the middle of the road and, as snow fell, succumbed to his injuries. That same morning Jeanette Reinhardt noticed Pelly’s bloody body from her window. Paul Wong, whom she was living with at the time, shot a roll of 35mm film documenting the scene – first from their window, and later at roadside. The quiet violence of the scene captivated Wong, and together with collaborator Kenneth Fletcher, the two embarked on a project to research the crime in full detail." – Allison Collins & Michael Turner, Mainstreeters: Taking Advantage 1972-1982

An unemployed man desperate for work wanders around St John's, Newfoundland searching for a job.

A short documentary about urban planning and the harmonisation of old and new building elements in Jerusalem of the 1970's, led by the architect Moshe Safdie.

Watch slides of Michael Snow's paintings from the worst seat in the house.

Festive experimental animation

This three-channel installation, from the Modern Television Loop Series, utilizes the qualities of real and edited time. “Three views of Toronto’s underground action; trains pull in, pause, doors open, crowds exchange places, whirl off into oblivion. It is mesmerizing, this subsurface world. You could sit and watch for hours as the hypnotic qualities of TV sets and passing trains act together”. - Peggy Gale, 1977, Only Paper Today.

This is a film made without a camera. The images are painted directly onto 16mm clear leader. Patton was particularly interested in the organic shapes that resulted from mixing chemically dissimilar spray paints.

A retrospective look at Fogo Island, Newfoundland, four years after the original Newfoundland Project series was made. This is an assessment of the value of the programs initiated, and an illustration of what film can do to help spark new life in a fading community.

Jean. François. Xavier. Three names, three figures that personify the triple image of a being who lives before our eyes the stages of his evolution and his liberation from sex, woman and death. Freed from his constraints, he becomes himself and, in his eyes, the woman is no longer the provocative element of a certain guilt of which he carried the weight.

This collection assembles the first animated films to be made by Inuit artists at the NFB. Featured is work by Solomonie Pootoogook, Timmun Alariaq, Mathew Joanasie, and Itee Pootoogook Pilaloosie—all participants in the Cape Dorset (Baffin Island) Film Animation Workshop, established to teach animation skills to local artists. The soundtrack features performances by Aggeok and Peter Pitseolok. Commentary is provided in a blend of Inuktitut and English.