Spider

Director David Cronenberg
Year 2002
Run Time 98min
Genre Drama, Thriller
A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.

Director

David Cronenberg

Writer

Patrick McGrath

Cast

Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Gabriel Byrne

Producers

Catherine Bailey, David Cronenberg, Samuel Hadida

Genres

Drama, Thriller

Original Language

English

Canadian Distributor

eOne

Black Christmas

Director Bob Clark
Year 1974
Run Time 98min
Genre Horror, Thriller

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

Canadian Distributor

Warner Bros

A Dangerous Method

Director David Cronenberg
Year 2011
Run Time 99min
Genre Drama, Romance, Thriller
A fictionalized account of the early days of psychoanalysis and the turbulent relationship between Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender), his mentor Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), and the patient (Kiera Knightley) who tore them apart. 

Director

David Cronenberg

Cast

Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen

Producer

Jeremy Thomas

Genres

Drama, Romance, Thriller

Interests

Biography, Literary Adaptation

Original Language

English

Canadian Distributor

eOne

Bon Cop Bad Cop

Director Érik Canuel
Year 2006
Run Time 116min
Genre Action/Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Thriller
A box-office smash, Bon Cop, Bad Cop is an action-packed comedy about two policemen who are thrown together to solve a crime committed on the border between Quebec and Ontario.

Ward (Feore) and Boucher (Huard) couldn’t be more different: one is an English-speaker from Toronto, the other is a French-speaker from Montreal; one never deviates from established procedure, the other is a rebel who refuses to play by the rules. The detectives soon learn that if they are to solve this lurid crime, which is linked to the world of hockey, they need to stop bickering and work together.

With uproarious performances from both leads, Bon Cop, Bad Cop is a genuinely clever take on the buddy-cop genre that will keep you captivated throughout.

Director

Érik Canuel

Canuel made music videos and TV commercials before turning to film. His features include Nez rouge and Le dernier tunnel, Barrymore, starring Christopher Plummer, and the recent Undercover Grandpa. Bon Cop Bad Cop won a Genie for Best Motion Picture and the Golden Reel Award. Next, Canuel will direct the feature film The Burning Man.

Writers

Leila Basen, Alex Epstein, Patrick Huard, Kevin Tierney

Cast

Colm Feore, Patrick Huard

Producer

Kevin Tierney

Genres

Action/Adventure, Comedy, Drama, Thriller

Interest

Family Relationships

Original Languages

English, French

Language Versions

EN CC, EN Subtitles, FR CC, FR Subtitles

Canadian Distributor

eOne

Le confessionnal (The Confessional)

Director Robert Lepage
Year 1995
Run Time 100min
Genre Drama, Thriller
This award-winning feature-film debut by Robert Lepage is a Hitchcockian mystery set in Quebec City, both in the present (circa 1989) and in 1952, when Alfred Hitcock’s I Confess was filming on location.

Unfolding in flashbacks between the past and the present, the film follows the story of an adopted man on a search for his true identity, as recounted by his mother to a priest in a private confessional. Family secrets are on the line, blurred by the filming of I Confess. Further, lies and intrigue are clouding the air with mystery — and the foreshadowed sparks of the Quiet Revolution are growing louder.

Winner of the Genie for Best Film, Best Director and several others.

Director

Robert Lepage

Writer

Robert Lepage

Cast

Lothaire Bluteau, Anne-Marie Cadieux, Kristin Scott Thomas, Patrick Goyette

Producers

Philippe Carcassonne, David Puttnam, Denise Robert

Genres

Drama, Thriller

Interests

Arts and Culture, Family Relationships

Original Language

French

Language Version

EN Subtitles

Canadian Distributor

eOne

  • Own Voice

L’Inhumain (The Inhuman)

Director Jason Brennan (Anishinaabe)
Year 2022
Run Time 85min
Genre Horror, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Thriller

Mathieu (Samian) may be a brilliant and successful neurosurgeon, but his life is far from perfect. When his long-term prescription drug habit is exposed, and his wife discovers he’s been having an affair, Mathieu faces professional and personal consequences. His father’s sudden death prompts Mathieu’s return to the northern Anishinaabe community of his youth and the remote forest cabin where he goes to scatter his father’s ashes. But what begins as a respite from his chaotic life to a place he thought he’d left far behind becomes a battle with something far darker. Haunted by painful memories and hunted by the legendary Wendigo, Mathieu faces demons both figurative and literal.       

A rare French-language Indigenous genre film, L’inhumain is the directorial debut of Anishinaabe producer and writer Jason Brennan. It’s a thrilling and evocative parable about the dangers of feeding the monster inside.   

Director

Jason Brennan (Anishinaabe)

Writer

Jason Brennan (Anishinaabe)

Cast

Samian (Algonquin), Véronique Beaudet, Jeanne Roux-Cote, Sonia Vigneault

Producer

Jason Brennan (Anishinaabe)

Genres

Horror, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Thriller

Interests

BIPOC Stories, Cult & Offbeat Cinema, Indigenous Filmmaker

Original Language

English

Canadian Distributor

7th Screen

Crash

Director David Cronenberg
Year 1996
Run Time 100min
Genre Drama, Horror, Romance, Thriller
Written and directed by David Cronenberg and based on J. G. Ballard’s 1973 novel of the same name, Crash tells the uncomfortable (and controversial) story of a group of people who are turned on by car crashes, a unique form of paraphilia.

After hitting Dr. Helen Remington (Hunter)’s vehicle in a critical car accident, film producer James Ballard (Spader), a man in an open marriage, and Remington, whose husband died in the crash, begin an unlikely affair that seems to take place exclusively in and around automobiles. While he is recovering, Ballard meets Vaughan (Koteas), a man who leads a bizarre subculture of people who fetishize car crashes, car safety tests and traffic accidents in general. As Vaughan’s unusual cult meetings intersect with their lives, Ballard finds deeper meaning not just in his marriage, but in mankind’s increasingly intertwined and disturbing relationship to technology.

Director

David Cronenberg

Writer

David Cronenberg

Cast

James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Deborah Unger

Producers

David Cronenberg, Robert Lantos, Jeremy Thomas

Genres

Drama, Horror, Romance, Thriller

Interest

Cult & Offbeat Cinema

Original Language

English

Language Version

FR Subtitles

Canadian Distributor

eOne

Cube

Director Vincenzo Natali
Year 1997
Run Time 90min
Genre Horror, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Thriller

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

Canadian Distributor

eOne

Curling

Director Denis Côté
Year 2010
Run Time 96min
Genre Drama, Thriller

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

Canadian Distributor

Mongrel Media

Dead Ringers

Director David Cronenberg
Year 1988
Run Time 116min
Genre Drama, Horror, Thriller

Two bodies. Two minds. One soul. In one of David Cronenberg’s best and most disturbing films, the lives of identical twin gynecologists (each played by Jeremy Irons) are disrupted when a beautiful woman (Bujold) enters their lives, throwing their relationship out of balance.

 

Kinky, bloody, and allaround gruesome, Dead Ringers is a complex relationship story, an intense psychological drama and a masterpiece of body-horror that puts a deadly spin on hopeless love and loss.

 

“A stylistic tour de force.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Director

David Cronenberg

Writers

David Cronenberg, Norman Snider, Bari Wood, Jack Geasland

Cast

Jeremy Irons, Geneviève Bujold, Heidi von Palleske

Producer

Marc Boyman

Genres

Drama, Horror, Thriller

Interests

Cult & Offbeat Cinema, Literary Adaptation

Original Language

English

Language Versions

EN CC, FR Subtitles

Canadian Distributor

TVA Films

Edwin Boyd: Citizen Gangster

Director Nathan Morlando
Year 2011
Run Time 105min
Genre Action/Adventure, Drama, Thriller
This real-life adventure story is based on an actual Canadian WWII veteran and family man turned bank robber. Disillusioned by his post-war life, Eddie Boyd (Speedman) is torn between his desire to provide for his wife (Reilly) and his dream to go to Hollywood and become a star. Eddie is charming, ambitious and hungry for success, and ultimately turns to crime in order to attain it.

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

Canadian Distributor

eOne

Exotica

Director Atom Egoyan
Year 1994
Run Time 103min
Genre Drama, Thriller
At the Exotica strip club in downtown Toronto, a grieving father (Greenwood) becomes obsessed with a young stripper (Kirshner). As the intertwined stories of the dancers and patrons unfold, it becomes clear that they share many mysterious and unspoken connections.

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

Interests

Classics, Cult & Offbeat Cinema

Original Language

English

Language Versions

EN CC, FR Subtitles

Canadian Distributor

eOne

Hyena Road

Director Paul Gross
Year 2015
Run Time 120min
Genre Action/Adventure, Drama, Thriller
Barren landscapes. Unseen enemies. Hyena Road depicts the recent war in Afghanistan, where peaceful peoples trying to live their lives find themselves caught in cross-fire.

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

Canadian Distributor

Elevation Pictures

Incendies

Director Denis Villeneuve
Year 2010
Run Time 130min
Genre Drama, Thriller
A life in Canada, a secret past in Jordan. A dying mother (Azabal) in Montreal leaves separate letters to her twin children to be read once she passes away. Jeanne (Désormeaux-Poulin) is to deliver hers to the father the twins never knew, and Simon (Gaudette) is to give his to the brother they didn’t know they had. The siblings travel to the Middle East separately, where they uncover a startling and painful family history.

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

Genres

Drama, Thriller

Interests

BIPOC Stories, Family Relationships, Global Experiences, Strong Female Leads

Original Language

French

Language Version

EN Subtitles

Canadian Distributor

eOne

Polytechnique

Director Denis Villeneuve
Year 2009
Run Time 77min
Genre Drama, Thriller
Based on the tragic school shooting that took place at Montreal’s École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989 (known as the “Montreal Massacre”), director Denis Villeneuve’s melancholy docudrama portrays the events as seen from the perspective of two students.

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

Canadian Distributor

eOne

Remember

Director Atom Egoyan
Year 2015
Run Time 94min
Genre Drama, Thriller
Thrilling yet emotionally powerful, Remember follows retired veteran Zev Guttman (Plummer), who is asked to fulfill his friend’s dying wish: to hunt down a Nazi that has escaped capture for decades following World War II, and thus close their painful, personal chapter of the Holocaust. But as Guttman suffers from memory loss, shining light on this history reveals secrets even darker than he could have expected.

A riveting journey that will keep you guessing until the very end, Remember’s engrossing twists and incredible performances are simply unforgettable.

“This is one of those rare mainstream releases that gets everything right, right down to its knockout ending.”
— Scott Marks, San Diego Reader

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

Benjamin August

Cast

Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, Henry Czerny, Bruno Ganz

Producers

Ari Lantos, Robert Lantos

Genres

Drama, Thriller

Interests

Discrimination, ESL, Family Relationships, History

Original Language

English

Language Version

EN CC

Canadian Distributor

eOne

Skip Tracer

Director Zale Dalen
Year 1977
Run Time 95min
Genre Drama, Thriller
Zale Dalen’s legendary low-budget Vancouver film, a gritty, energetic urban drama from 1977, has lately been reclaimed as a classic of Canuxploitation cinema. David Petersen is impressive as a zealous debt collector/repo man out to retain his company’s “Man of the Year” award. To accomplish the feat, he mercilessly harasses an indebted car salesman, meanwhile teaching the ruthless ropes of his trade to a new hire. 

Director

Zale Dalen

Writer

Zale Dalen

Cast

David Petersen, John Lazarus, Rudy Szabo

Producer

Laara Dalen

Genres

Drama, Thriller

Interest

Classics

Original Language

English

Canadian Distributor

International Film Distributors

La turbulence des fluides (Chaos and Desire)

Director Manon Briand
Year 2002
Run Time 115min
Genre Comedy, Drama, Thriller

A Quebecois seismologist living in Tokyo returns to her hometown to investigate the strange disruption of the tides along the St Lawrence, in Manon Briand’s atmospheric and deftly humorous drama.

Suspecting that the cessation of the tides might indicate an impending earthquake, Alice (Pascale Bussieres) arrives in Baie-Comeau, Quebec to solve the mystery.

Confronted by numerous people from her past, unusual weather and the inexplicable behaviour of the locals (including Genevieve Bujold as the owner of a local diner who is convinced of a supernatural explanation), Alice’s scientific certainty begins to waver Though many of the locals’ stories don’t stand up to scrutiny, she starts to suspect that something beyond her comprehension may be happening.

 "So visually energetic and smartly written that one never stops enjoying the sheer pleasure of looking at it." – Liz Braun, Jam! Movies
 

Director

Manon Briand

Writer/director Briand’s other features include 2 secondes and the TV movie Heart: The Marilyn Bell Story. For her feature La turbulence des fluides, Briand earned a Jutra Award and many other nominations. Her first short film, Les sauf-conduits, won Best Canadian Short Film at TIFF.

Writer

Manon Briand

Cast

Julie Gayet, Jean-Nicolas Verreault, Geneviève Bujold, Pascale Bussieres

Producers

Roger Frappier, Luc Vandal, Pierre-Ange Le Pogam

Genres

Comedy, Drama, Thriller

Interests

Environment, Female Filmmaker

Original Languages

English, French

Language Versions

EN CC, EN Subtitles, FR CC, FR Subtitles

Canadian Distributor

eOne