Genre: Thriller
Pouvoir intime (Intimate Power)
A security guard at a government ministry tries to plan a heist with the help of some ex-cons, but it may all be blown apart by another security guard who takes his job very seriously.
Director
Yves Simoneau
Writers
Yves Simoneau, Pierre Curzi
Cast
Marie Tifo, Pierre Curzi, Jacques Godin
Producer
Claude Bonin
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Original Language
French
ARQ
Director
Tony Elliott
Writer
Tony Elliott
Cast
Rachael Taylor, Robbie Amell, Shaun Benson
Producers
Mason Novick, John Finemore, Kyle Franke
Genres
Action/Adventure, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Thriller
Original Language
English
Happy Birthday to Me
Director
J. Lee Thompson
Writers
John C.W. Saxton, Peter Jobin, Timothy Bond
Cast
Melissa Sue Anderson, Glenn Ford, Lawrence Dane
Genres
Horror, Thriller
Interest
Strong Female Leads
Original Language
English
Enemy
A mild-mannered history professor seeks out his exact lookalike after spotting him in a movie. A tense, adventurous thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal in a dual performance.
Director
Denis Villeneuve
Writers
José Saramago, Javier Gullón
Cast
Jake Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent
Producers
Miguel A. Faura, Niv Fichman
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Interests
Arts and Culture, Literary Adaptation
Original Language
English
Un zoo la nuit (Night Zoo)
Director
Jean-Claude Lauzon
Cast
Corrado Mastropasqua, Lorne Brass, Gilles Maheu, Roger Lebel
Producers
Roger Frappier, Pierre Gendron
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Interests
Cult & Offbeat Cinema, Family Relationships, Social Justice & Politics
Original Language
French
Through Black Spruce
Director
Don McKellar
McKellar is a prolific filmmaker and actor whose work has garnered numerous awards. He wrote Highway 61, The Red Violin and Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, and wrote, directed and starred in Last Night (which won the Prix de la jeunesse at the Cannes film festival), and Childstar, and has directed several other films. He recently starred in Meditation Park, Crimes of the Future, and directed Sensitive Skin. Currently, he is writing episodes for Park Chan-wook’s The Sympathizer, which he is also executive producing.
Writer
Barbara Samuels
Cast
Tanaya Beatty (Kwakwakaʼwakw)
Producers
Tina Keeper (Cree), Phyllis Laing, Robert Lantos, Barbara Samuels
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Interests
BIPOC Stories, Family Relationships, Indigenous Filmmaker, Strong Female Leads
Original Language
English
Tom at the Farm
Director
Xavier Dolan
Writer
Xavier Dolan
Cast
Xavier Dolan
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Interest
LGBTQ2S+
Original Languages
English, French
Chasse-galerie: la légende (Wild Run: The Legend)
Jos Farrel and Liza Gilbert are a late-19th century farmer and hat maker who love each other in secret. Or so they think. Their bond comes to the attention of Romain, a notary whose marriage proposal was refused by Liza three years earlier. When Jos’ crops mysteriously burn, he’s forced to accept a job as foreman for the winter at a remote logging camp. The lovers promise to write, but Romain cuts off their letters, while steadily but discreetly courting Liza.
Director
Jean-Philippe Duval
Writer
Guillaume Vigneault
Cast
Francis Ducharme, Caroline Dhavernas, François Papineau
Producers
Christian Larouche, Real Chabot
Genre
Thriller
Original Language
French
Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster
Eddie gets his start by recruiting a gang of small-time crooks and slowly turns them into a crack team of professional thieves. He launches a series of spectacular bank robberies, gaining notoriety and quickly becoming both a beloved national celebrity and public enemy number one. Part action-packed crime caper, part romance, this vibrant film brings an incredible true story to life.
Director
Nathan Morlando
Morlando’s first film, Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster, won Best Canadian First Feature at TIFF. He also directed Mean Dreams, which debuted in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival. He recently produced Giant Little Ones and directed episodes of the show Cardinal.
Writer
Nathan Morlando
Cast
Scott Speedman, Kelly Reilly, Kevin Durand, Brian Cox, Charlotte Sullivan
Producer
Allison Black
Genres
Action/Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Interests
Biography, History
Original Language
English
Language Versions
EN CC, FR Subtitles
Polytechnique
There are some tragedies so devastating they defy rational understanding. Villeneuve films in black and white, shifting back and forth in time, attempting to maintain a sane and calm point of view in the face of just such a senseless act of violence. The result is a sensitive yet stark account of one of the more profoundly disturbing crimes in recent Canadian history.
The film won nine Genie Awards, including Best Motion Picture, and five Jutra Awards. The Toronto Film Critics Association awarded it the Best Canadian Film Prize, with critic Brian D. Johnson referring to it as “a film of astonishing courage.”
Director
Denis Villeneuve
Writer
Jacques Davidts
Cast
Maxim Gaudette, Sébastien Huberdeau, Karine Vanasse, Evelyne Brochu
Producers
Julien Rémillard, Maxime Rémillard, André Rouleau, Don Carmody
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Interests
History, Social Justice & Politics
Original Language
French
Language Version
EN Subtitles
Exotica
Dark, engaging and with a brilliant ensemble performance from its many players, Exotica is one of Egoyan’s most engaging and alluring films. A hypnotic thriller about desire, obsession and loneliness, it won eight Genie Awards.
Director
Atom Egoyan
Egoyan received the Governor General’s award in 2015 for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. He was the first-ever Canadian director to earn two Oscar nominations (for The Sweet Hereafter). His award-winning films include Exotica, Ararat and The Captive. His most recent film, Guest of Honour, premiered at TIFF 2019.
Writer
Atom Egoyan
Cast
Bruce Greenwood, Elias Koteas, Don McKellar, Arsinée Kahnian, Mia Kirshner
Producers
Atom Egoyan, Camelia Frieberg
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Original Language
English
Language Versions
EN CC, FR Subtitles
The Silent Partner
Director
Daryl Duke
Writer
Curtis Hanson
Cast
Elliott Gould, Christopher Plummer, Susannah York
Producers
Garth H. Drabinsky, Stephen Young, Joel B. Michaels
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Interests
Classics, Literary Adaptation
Original Language
English
Curling
In a remote part of the Quebec countryside, Jean-François (Bilodeau) brings up his daughter Julyvonne (Bilodeau) alone, home-schooling her in between shifts doing maintenance at an isolated motel. However, vague and mysterious occurrences — a blood stain at the motel, frozen bodies in the snow — soon threaten their peaceful solitude.
Atmospheric and suspenseful, Curling is a beautiful blend of realism with a dash of Hitchcock, set in the icy stillness of rural Quebec.
Winner of the Best Director and Best Actor awards at the Locarno Film Festival.
Director
Denis Côté
Writer
Denis Côté
Cast
Emmanuel Bilodeau, Philomène Bilodeau, Roc LaFortune, Sophie Desmarais
Producers
Denis Côté, Stéphanie Morissette
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Original Language
French
Language Version
EN Subtitles
Cube
Fear, paranoia, suspicion, desperation: In Vincenzo Natali’s cult classic, seven complete strangers find themselves trapped together in a booby-trapped puzzle of interconnected boxes.
Imprisoned in a seemingly endless maze of rooms, each with its own set of deadly traps and hidden dangers to overcome, the seven reluctant collaborators must try to work together to find a way out, without succumbing to the terrors of the cube. Will they crack the code and find an exit, or are they just burrowing deeper into a sinister game that they don’t understand and can never escape?
An absolute classic of Canadian sci-fi horror, Cube is a cool, complex film with a major cult following and a slew of sequels. The conceptually brilliant thriller marked Natali as a visionary new talent and has inspired a whole genre of “trapped in a puzzle” horror films including the wildly popular Saw franchise.
Director
Vincenzo Natali
Writers
André Bijelic, Vincenzo Natali, Graeme Manson
Cast
Nicole de Boer, Maurice Dean Wint, David Hewlett, Julian Richings
Producers
Mehra Meh, Betty Orr
Genres
Horror, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Thriller
Interest
Cult & Offbeat Cinema
Original Language
English
Language Version
FR Subtitles
Black Christmas
If Black Christmas doesn’t make your skin crawl, it’s on too tight!
At the start of winter break, a group of sorority sisters begin to receive threatening anonymous phone calls. The calls are initially creepy, but soon turn murderous as girls start disappearing from the sorority house and the sisters begin to suspect a killer is in their midst. But no one realizes just how close the mad murderer may be!
Inspired by the terrible true crimes of the Westmount murders in Montreal, Black Christmas is surely not your traditional holiday fare, but when the film is this historically significant — Bob Clark’s film is often cited as one of the first slasher films in horror — naughty or nice, it’s time to check it off your list!
Director
Bob Clark
Writer
Roy Moore
Cast
Olivia Hussey, Keir Dullea, Margot Kidder, John Saxon
Producer
Bob Clark
Genres
Horror, Thriller
Interest
Cult & Offbeat Cinema
Original Language
English
Incendies
Incendies is the kind of film you’ll want to watch more than once. With intricate timelines and a family drama spanning two very different continents, the twists and turns of Denis Villeneuve’s celebrated adaptation of Wajdi Mouawad’s award-winning play are explosive, frightening and emotionally intense.
Winner of eight Genie Awards and nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Director
Denis Villeneuve
Writer
Denis Villeneuve
Cast
Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette, Rémy Girard
Producers
Luc Déry, Kim McCraw
Genre
Thriller
Interests
BIPOC Stories, Global Experiences
Original Language
French
Language Version
EN Subtitles
- Own Voice
Akilla’s Escape
Akilla’s Escape premiered at TIFF in 2020 and went on to win 5 Canadian Screen Awards.
“Akilla’s Escape is a profound, tender reworking of the crime thriller” – Melissa Vincent, The Globe and Mail
Director
Charles Officer
Actor, writer and filmmaker Officer’s first feature, Nurse.Fighter.Boy, was nominated for 10 Genies, winning one. Officer also directed the docs Mighty Jerome, The Skin We’re In, Unarmed Verses, and Invisible Essence: The Little Prince, as well as the feature Akilla’s Escape, which won five CSAs. He has recently directed episodes of Coroner, and executive produced and co-directed The Porter. He’s also the executive producer of the upcoming docs The Art of Dance and Emmanuel.
Writers
Charles Officer, Wendy Motion Braithwaite
Cast
Saul Williams, Thamela Mpumlwana, Donisha Rita Claire Prendergast, Colm Feore
Producer
Jake Yanowski
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Interests
BIPOC Stories, Family Relationships, Newcomer Stories, Social Justice & Politics
Original Language
English
Hyena Road
Under the command of Captain Pete Mitchell (Gross), ace sniper Ryan Sanders (Sutherland) has caught wind of a dangerous insurgency. Stopping it will take the cooperation of Afghan locals and the dogged efforts of Canadian troops. Showing how forces on either side can work together to prevent senseless tragedy, Hyena Road goes down a dusty, dirty, thunderous path.
Hyena Road won three Canadian Screen Awards.
“The goal of the movie is truth-telling rather than flag-waving, but it also succeeds as impactful storytelling.”
— Peter Howell, Toronto Star
Director
Paul Gross
Gross starred in the hit TV series Due South and Slings & Arrows. He directed, wrote and starred in Men With Brooms, which won a Canadian Comedy Award, as well as Hyena Road and Passchendaele, which won a Genie for best film. Gross also starred in the mini-series Alias Grace and Caught, the series Tales of the City and Y: The Last Man, and the films Falling and The Middle Man.
Writer
Paul Gross
Cast
Allan Hawco, Rossif Sutherland, Paul Gross, Christine Horne
Producers
Paul Gross, Niv Fichman
Genres
Action/Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Interests
Global Experiences, Social Justice & Politics
Original Language
English
Language Versions
EN CC, FR Dub
Elevated
Director
Vincenzo Natali
Writers
Vincenzo Natali, Karen Walton
Cast
David Hewlett, Vicki Papavs, Bruce McFee
Producers
Steven Hoban, Vanessa C. Laufer
Genres
Drama, Thriller
Original Language
English
- Own Voice
Indigenous-made Short Films
Director
Various
Genres
Action/Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Documentary, Drama, Experimental, Family, Horror, Romance, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Thriller
Interests
Arts and Culture, BIPOC Stories, Female Filmmaker, Indigenous Filmmaker
Original Languages
English, French, Other Language