Cinema of Canada
No. of screens	3,114 (2015)[1]
• Per capita	9.6 per 100,000 (2015)[1]
Main distributors	Universal 20.9% Disney 18.7% Warner Bros. 13.3%[2]
Produced feature films (2015)[3]
Total	103
Fictional	77 (74.8%)
Documentary	26 (25.2%)
Number of admissions (2015)[4]
Total	118,000,000
Gross box office (2015)[4]
Total	C$986 million
National films	C$18.8 million (1.9%)

The cinema of Canada dates back to the early 20th century along with the rise of filmmaking itself.

The filmmaking industry in Canada is home to several studios, primarily located in four metropolitan centres: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and Halifax. Industries and communities tend to be regional and niche in nature. Approximately 1,000 Anglophone-Canadian and 600 Francophone-Canadian feature-length films have been produced, or partially produced, by the Canadian film industry since 1911.

The cinema of English-speaking Canada is heavily intertwined with that of the United States.^[5] As such, though there is a distinctly Canadian cinematic tradition, there are Canadian films that have no discernable Canadian identity (e.g., Porky's and Meatballs), there are Canadian-American co-productions filmed in Canada (e.g., My Big Fat Greek Wedding and the Saw series), American productions filmed in Canada (e.g., the Night at the Museum and Final Destination films), and American films with Canadian directors and/or actors. Canadian directors who are best known for their American-produced films include Norman Jewison, Jason Reitman, Paul Haggis, and James Cameron; Cameron, in particular, wrote and directed the highest and third highest-grossing films of all time, Avatar and Titanic, respectively.

Other notable filmmakers from or based in Canada include David Cronenberg, Guy Maddin, Atom Egoyan, Patricia Rozema, Sarah Polley, Deepa Mehta, Thom Fitzgerald, John Greyson, Clement Virgo, Allan King, Michael McGowan, and Michael Snow, Claude Jutra, Gilles Carle, Denys Arcand, Jean Beaudin, Robert Lepage, Denis Villeneuve, Jean-Marc Vallée, Léa Pool, Xavier Dolan, Philippe Falardeau, and Michel Brault.

Canadian actors who achieved success in Hollywood include Mary Pickford, Norma Shearer, Christopher Plummer, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox, Keanu Reeves, Jim Carrey, Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, Ryan Reynolds, and Seth Rogen among hundreds of others.

History

1890s–1909

Prefacing the intertwining of Canadians with the American film industry, in 1894, Andrew and George Holland of Ottawa had opened the world’s first Kinetoscope parlour in New York City featuring the latest invention of Thomas Edison's.^[6] Moreover, the June 1896 film Niagara, Les chutes by Frenchmen Auguste and Louis Lumière was made with a stationary camera looking across the Niagara Falls from the United States' side, thereby possibly being the first time Canada had been shown on film.^[6]

The first public screening of a film in Canada took place in Montreal, Quebec, on 28 June 1896. The following month, the Holland brothers introduced Edison’s Vitascope to the Canadian public in the now-closed West End Park, Ottawa. Among the films screened The Kiss, starring May Irwin from Whitby, Ontario. The first screening in Toronto followed on August 31 at Robinson’s Musée on Yonge Street. The first screening in Vancouver was in December 1898.^[6]

Producing a series of short documentary films in mid-1897, James Freer is recognized to have been the first Canadian filmmaker.^[6][7] Capturing his life as an immigrant farmer in Manitoba, Freer's work depicted life on the Prairies. In 1898, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) sponsored Freer to tour England with his films, collectively titled Ten Years in Manitoba, which were so successful that the Canadian government sponsored Freer to tour again in 1902 in an effort to promote immigration to Manitoba.^[6]

The CPR continued to produce films promoting British immigration into the 1930s. In 1898, the CPR hired a British company to bring together a group of filmmakers, known as the Canadian Bioscope Company, to produce Living Canada, a series of 35 scenes depicting Canadian life. This series included the first fictional drama made in Canada: Hiawatha, The Messiah of the Ojibway (1903), a 15-minute-long film by Joe Rosenthal.^[5][6]

In 1903, Canada’s first film exchange was established in Montreal by Léo-Ernest Ouimet, who later opened that city's first theatre in 1906, followed in 1907 by the largest (1,200 seats) luxury theatre (also in Montreal) in North America.^[6]

1910s

Evangeline (1913), the first feature film in Canada; made by Canadian Bioscope Company

Promotional films highlighting Canada were characteristic of most Canadian productions through 1912. Typically financed by Canadians but produced by non-Canadians, their objective was to sell Canada or Canadian products abroad. In 1910, the Edison Company was hired by the CPR to produce 13 narrative films dramatizing the virtues of settling in Western Canada. The few Canadians who produced their own films made only newsreels or travelogues, meanwhile U.S. film companies were beginning to use Canada as the setting for narrative films—many of which would feature villainous French-Canadian lumberjacks, Métis, gold prospectors, and noble Mounties.^[6]

In 1911, the Ontario government established the first Board of Censors in North America, while Manitoba passed an act that delegated film censorship to the City of Winnipeg. British Columbia, Alberta, and Quebec established active censor boards in 1913.^[6]

After 1912, Canadian film companies began producing fiction films in addition to non-fiction. In 1913, the Canadian Bioscope Company produced the first Canadian feature film, Evangeline, which was shot in Halifax, Nova Scotia and garnered both critical and commercial success. Other notable films around this time were The Battle of the Long Sault (1913) by The British American Film Company of Montreal; The War Pigeon (1914) by the All Red Feature Company in Windsor, Ontario; and several comedy and adventure films in 1914 and 1915 by the Conness Till Film Company in Toronto.^[6]

In 1917, Adanac Films (later Trenton Studios) of Trenton, Ontario, became the first film studio in Canada. Its principal promoter was George Brownridge, who produced three feature films, including The Great Shadow (1919). The most successful Canadian producer of this period was Ernest Shipman, who was initially a reputable promoter in the US. He returned to Canada in 1919 with his actress wife, Nell Shipman, to produce Back to God’s Country (1919) in Calgary.^[6]

In May 1917, Ontario established the Ontario Motion Picture Bureau (OMPB), "to carry out educational work for farmers, school children, factory workers, and other classes." It was the first state-sponsored film organization in the world. (The OMPB bought Trenton Studios in 1923 and began making its own films.) The federal Exhibits and Publicity Bureau (later the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau) was subsequently founded in 1918, becoming the first national film production unit in the world. By 1920, the Bureau maintained the largest studio and post-production facility in the country. Nonetheless, the Bureau actively discouraged the development of a domestic film production industry in Canada, instead favouring a business model that saw Canada as a branch plant of the American industry. (See also: Staple Thesis.)^[6]

1920s–1937

The British Columbia Patriotic and Educational Picture Service, which produced and distributed short films about British Columbia in an attempt to counteract "Americanism" in Hollywood films, operated from 1920 to 1923.

In 1924, the Motion Picture Exhibitors and Distributors of Canada (MPEDC) was formed. (It was later known as the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association, or CMPDA, and is now the Motion Picture Association – Canada.) This association, consisting of the Canadian offices of the major American distribution companies, was essentially a branch of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association of America. In 1930, under the federal Combines Investigation Act, Prime Minister R.B. Bennett appointed Peter White to investigate over 100 complaints against American film interests operating in Canada. White’s report concluded that Famous Players Canadian Corporation (FPCC) was a combine "detrimental to the Public Interest." The provinces of Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and BC took FPCC and the American distribution cartel represented by the CMPDA to court in Ontario. The defendants were ultimately found not guilty on three counts of "conspiracy and combination."^[6]

As Hollywood domination was also a concern for European film industries in the 1920s, most governments in the continent took quick action to protect their domestic industries, typically by controlling the ownership of exhibition and distribution companies, or by stimulating national production.^[6] Among these was the U.K. Cinematograph Films Act 1927, which established a quota wherein 15% of films shown in Britain had to originate in Britain or the Commonwealth, which stimulated Canadian film production. Between 1928 and 1937, a total of 22 low-budget feature films were produced in Canada by Canadian-based, American-financed companies in order to take advantage of the quota. These films were commonly known as "quota quickies."^[6] The subsequent Cinematograph Films Act 1938, however, mollified the British film industry by specifying only films made by and shot in Great Britain would be included in the quota, an act that severely reduced Canadian film production.^[8]

1938–1950s

In 1938, the Government of Canada invited John Grierson, a British film critic and film-maker, to study the state of the government's film production and this led to the National Film Act of 1939 and the establishment of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), an agency of the Canadian government. The NFB effectively replaced the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau, which was officially absorbed by the Board in 1941.^[6]

By 1945, the NFB had grown into one of the largest film studios in the world, having released over 500 films. These included the propaganda series Canada Carries On (1940–59) and The World in Action (1942–45), which were shown monthly in Canadian and foreign theatres.^[9]

In the 1940s, only one English Canadian feature film was made: Bush Pilot (1946), an imitation of the Hollywood-made Captains of the Clouds (1942).^[6]

By 1947, there were two large theatre chains in Canada: Odeon Theatres and the U.S.-owned Famous Players, which controlled roughly two-thirds of the theatrical market in Canada. As Odeon was later sold to the British Rank Organization, the United Kingdom's largest vertically-integrated film company, both of the major theatre chains in Canada were thereby foreign-owned. After World War II, due to a balance of payments issue with the US, the Canadian government in 1947 restricted imports on a large number of goods. During this time, there was discussion on introducing a quota system for Canadian films, as well as compelling Hollywood to invest part of its box-office profits in Canada. In February that year, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) leader M.J. Coldwell proposed in the House of Commons that the federal government impose a protective tariff on Hollywood films exhibited in Canada. Later that year, Liberal Minister of Finance Douglas Abbott met with Famous Players and the CMPDA, asking them to voluntarily invest some of their box-office profits from the Canadian exhibition market in Canadian production facilities.^[9]

In 1949, the Canadian Film Awards were introduced as Canada's first national film awards.

In 1950, the National Film Act gave the NFB the mandate "to interpret Canada to Canadians and to other nations." In the late 1950s, Québécois filmmakers at the NFB and the NFB Candid Eye series of films pioneered the documentary processes that became known as "direct cinema" or cinema vérité.

Geneviève Bujold has starred in many Canadian films including Entre la mer et l'eau douce (1967), Isabel (1968), Dead Ringers (1988) and Last Night (1998)

David Cronenberg's films Dead Ringers (1988) and Naked Lunch (1991) both won multiple Genie Awards including Best Motion Picture

Atom Egoyan received critical acclaim for Exotica (1994) and The Sweet Hereafter (1997), the first Canadian film to win the Grand Prix at Cannes

Sarah Polley won the Genie Award for Best Actress for My Life Without Me (2003) and Best Director for Away From Her (2006)

Denis Villeneuve has won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Director four times, for Maelström (2000), Polytechnique (2009), Incendies (2010) and Enemy (2013)

Guy Maddin won critical acclaim in the 2000s for films such as The Saddest Music in the World (2003) and My Winnipeg (2007)

Xavier Dolan's films Mommy (2014) and Juste la fin du monde (2016) each won major prizes at Cannes and multiple Canadian Screen Awards including Best Picture

1960s–1970s

Federal government measures as early as 1954, and through the 1960s and 1970s, aimed to foster the development of a feature film industry in Canada; in 1968 the Canadian Film Development Corporation was established (later to become Telefilm Canada) and an effort to stimulate domestic production through tax shelters peaked in the late 1970s (see Meatballs below).

The 1961 surrealist 3-D horror film The Mask was the first Canadian film to be extensively marketed in the United States since the silent film era.^[10] Toronto filmmaker Don Owen's drama Nobody Waved Good-bye (1964) is said to have "virtually inaugurated the modern English-Canadian feature-film"^[11] and was on the 1984 Toronto International Film Festival list of the Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time. David Secter's 1965 drama Winter Kept Us Warm was the first English-Canadian film ever screened at the Cannes Film Festival.^[12] Larry Kent directed low-budget counter-culture films such as The Bitter Ash (1963), Sweet Substitute (1964), and High (1967). Michael Snow's 1967 experimental 45-minute structural film Wavelength is considered a landmark of avant-garde cinema and was named by the Village Voice as one of the 100 best films of the 20th century.^[13]

Gilles Carle's 1965 comedy drama La vie heureuse de Léopold Z (The Merry World of Leopold Z) helped inaugurate a popular national cinema in Quebec.^[14] Michel Brault's 1967 drama Entre la mer et l'eau douce (Between Salt and Sweet Water) enjoyed critical success and was screened at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival. This film helped launch the career of actress Geneviève Bujold, who would go on to become a major star of Canadian and international films. Paul Almond's 1968 thriller Isabel, starring Bujold, won four Canadian Film Awards and was among the first Canadian films to be distributed by a major Hollywood studio.^[15]

The year 1970 saw the release of the influential drama film Goin' Down the Road, directed by Toronto's Donald Shebib. This film has been listed on each of the once-a-decade Toronto International Film Festival polls of the greatest Canadian films of all time. Bob Clark directed several notable Canadian films in the 1970s including the early slasher film Black Christmas (1974) and the mystery thriller Murder by Decree (1979), which picked up five Genie Awards, including Best Actor for Christopher Plummer. Toronto-based director David Cronenberg first emerged as a notable figure in Canadian cinema during the late 1970s with the seminal body horror films Shivers (1975), Rabid (1977) and The Brood (1979).

Montreal-based director Claude Jutra won critical acclaim for historical dramas such as Mon Oncle Antoine (My Uncle Antoine) (1971) and Kamouraska (1973). The former film has been a fixture on the TIFF polls of the Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time. Gilles Carle's films La Vraie Nature de Bernadette (The True Nature of Bernadette) (1972) and La Mort d'un bûcheron (The Death of a Lumberjack) (1973) both won multiple Canadian Film Awards and were entered at the Cannes Film Festival. Denys Arcand established himself as a filmmaker of note with La maudite galette (Dirty Money) (1972) and Réjeanne Padovani (1973). Michel Brault became the first (and to date, only) Canadian to win Best Director at Cannes,^[16] sharing the award for his 1974 film Orders (Les Ordres), which is often listed as one of the best Canadian films of all time. Jean Beaudin's 1977 historical drama J.A. Martin Photographer (J.A. Martin photographe) won a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for Monique Mercure.

1980s

This decade would see David Cronenberg direct the body horror classics Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983) and Dead Ringers (1988), the latter of which won 10 Genie Awards, including Best Motion Picture, and is considered one of the greatest Canadian films of all time. Frequent Cronenberg collaborators around this time included actors Nicholas Campbell, Stephen Lack and Robert A. Silverman, cinematographer Mark Irwin, and composer Howard Shore.

The 1980s saw the emergence of the loosely-affiliated Toronto New Wave group of directors, including Atom Egoyan, John Greyson, Bruce McDonald and Patricia Rozema among others. Rozema's 1987 comedy drama I've Heard the Mermaids Singing was the first English-language Canadian feature film to win an award at the Cannes Film Festival,^[17] and won a Genie Award for Best Actress for Sheila McCarthy. Winnipeg-based Guy Maddin launched his career as a feature film director with 1988's Tales from the Gimli Hospital.

Montreal's Denys Arcand gained international recognition in the 1980s with such films as 1986's Le Déclin de l'empire Américain (The Decline of the American Empire) and 1989's Jésus de Montréal (Jesus of Montreal), which each won prizes at the Cannes Film Festival and took home multiple Genie Awards including Best Motion Picture. Francis Mankiewicz's 1980 drama Les Bons débarras (Good Riddance) won eight Genie Awards, including Best Motion Picture, and has been named on several occasions as one of the Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time by the Toronto International Film Festival. Jean-Claude Lauzon's 1987 crime thriller Un Zoo la nuit (Night Zoo) was screened at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival and won a record 13 Genie Awards including Best Motion Picture.

Micheline Lanctôt directed the drama films L'Homme à tout faire (The Handyman) (1980) and Sonatine (1984), becoming the first woman to win the Genie Award for Best Director for the latter film. Léa Pool won several accolades for dramas such as La Femme de l'hôtel (A Woman in Transit) (1984), which won a Genie Award for Best Actress for Louise Marleau, and Anne Trister (1986).

This decade saw the release of several controversial Canuxploitation films that would become cult favourites, such as Terror Train (1980), Prom Night (1980), Happy Birthday to Me (1981), My Bloody Valentine (1981), Class of 1984 (1982), and Visiting Hours (1982). The 1981 science fiction film Threshold won Donald Sutherland a Genie Award for Best Actor. The 1983 Bob and Doug Mackenzie comedy Strange Brew, directed by and starring Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas, was among the first English-language Canadian comedy films to achieve commercial success and is considered a cult classic. ^[18] The film earned over $8.5 million at the box office on a $4 million budget and won the Golden Reel Award for highest-grossing domestic film of the year.

1990s

Atom Egoyan directed several films which won widespread critical acclaim in the 1990s: The Adjuster (1991) won awards at several festivals, Exotica (1994) won the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes as well as eight Genie Awards including Best Motion Picture, and The Sweet Hereafter (1997) became the first Canadian film to win the Grand Prix at Cannes,^[19] won seven Genies including Best Motion Picture, and was nominated for two prizes at the 70th Academy Awards. The latter film is frequently cited as one of the greatest Canadian films of all time, placing third in both the 2004 and 2015 TIFF polls. Actors Maury Chaykin, Bruce Greenwood, Elias Koteas, Don McKellar and Sarah Polley each appeared in two of these films, and Egoyan's wife Arsinée Khanjian acted in all three.

David Cronenberg polarized audiences and critics alike in the 1990s with films such as Naked Lunch (1991), Crash (1996) and Existenz (1999). Bruce McDonald directed cult favourites including Highway 61 (1991) and Hard Core Logo (1996), the latter of which won Toronto Film Critics Poll for Best Canadian Film. Don McKellar's directorial debut Last Night (1998) featured an ensemble cast of notable Canadian stars such as Sandra Oh (who won her second Genie Award for Best Actress), Callum Keith Rennie, Sarah Polley, David Cronenberg, Geneviève Bujold and McKellar himself. The film picked up a prize at Cannes along with the Toronto Film Critics Association award for Best Canadian Film and three Genie Awards.

Several noted Canadian films exploring the theme of sexuality were released in this decade, including John Greyson's Zero Patience (1993) and Lilies (1996) and Thom Fitzgerald's The Hanging Garden (1997). Toronto director Clement Virgo's 1995 feature film debut Rude was nominated for eight Genie Awards, won the Toronto Film Critics Poll for Best Canadian Film and is credited with helping usher in a Black Canadian film aesthetic.^[20] Lynne Stopkewich's controversial 1996 erotic thriller Kissed won a Best Actress Genie Award for Molly Parker. Vincenzo Natali's 1997 independent science-fiction horror film Cube achieved significant cult status and would go on to spawn a film series.

Jean-Claude Lauzon's 1992 coming of age-fantasy film film Léolo won three Genie Awards and is now considered one of the best Canadian films of all time, but it was to be his last film as his life was cut short by a 1997 plane crash. Montreal's Denis Villeneuve made his feature directorial debut with the 1998 drama Un 32 août sur terre (August 32nd on Earth), which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.^[21]

The 1997 ice hockey comedy Les Boys (The Boys) became the biggest domestic box-office success in Canadian history up to that point, with a take surpassing $7 million in Quebec^[22] along with another $4 million in the US^[23] and would spawn a series of sequels and a TV series.

2000s

Denys Arcand's Les Invasions barbares (The Barbarian Invasions, 2003) was the first Canadian film to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.^[24]

In 2001, the Department of Canadian Heritage gave Telefilm Canada more funds in 2001 to help develop the Canadian film industry, with the goal of having Canadian feature films obtain 5% of the domestic box office by 2005.^[25] Telefilm divided this between English films then capturing four per cent of the market and French films at 12%. At first, the new initiative did not seem to be making much progress: at the end of 2003, English films represented only one per cent of the domestic box office, while French films made up 20%. The overall goal of the Canada Feature Film Fund now is to have Canadian feature films capture five per cent of the domestic box office by 2006, one year behind schedule.^{[citation needed]} According to Telefilm Canada, From Script to Screen, the two-year-old feature film policy created to improve the success rate of Canadian films, is seeing results. Before the initiative, the market share for Canadian films was 1.4% and is now 3.6%. Furthermore, the French-language cinema accounts for 20% of the market.

Montreal director Xavier Dolan's 2009 debut feature film J'ai tué ma mère (I Killed My Mother), in which he also starred, picked up three awards at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

The 2001 epic film Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, directed by Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk, won the Caméra d'Or (Golden Camera) at Cannes, and was named the greatest Canadian film of all time by a 2015 Toronto International Film Festival poll of filmmakers and critics. Sarah Polley made her feature film directorial debut with Away from Her (2006), which received two nominations at the 80th Academy Awards and won seven Genie Awards including Best Motion Picture and an unprecedented third Best Actor win for Gordon Pinsent. The First World War drama Passchendaele (2008), directed by and starring Paul Gross, picked up five Genies including Best Motion Picture and received the Golden Reel Award for Canada's top-grossing film of 2008.

Winnipeg director Guy Maddin, known for incorporating the aesthetics of silent-era films into his work, won international acclaim in the 2000s for such films as Cowards Bend the Knee (2003), The Saddest Music in the World (2003), Brand Upon the Brain! (2006), and My Winnipeg (2007), the latter of which won the Toronto Film Critics Association award for Best Canadian Film and was named by Roger Ebert as the tenth best film of the decade. Actors Darcy Fehr and Louis Negin each appeared in three of these films.

This decade saw the release of numerous popular Canadian comedy films such as FUBAR (2002), Men with Brooms (2002), Bon Cop Bad Cop (2006), Fido (2006), and Trailer Park Boys: The Movie (2006). The 2009 police comedy De père en flic (Father and Guns) was a box-office smash in Quebec^[26] and would later be followed by a sequel.

2010s–2020s

In 2011, Toronto ranked third in North America, behind only Los Angeles and New York City, in total industry production.^[27]

In 2013, the Genie Awards were merged with TV's Gemini Awards and renamed the Canadian Screen Awards.

Xavier Dolan continued his rise to prominence in the 2010s, directing and sometimes starring in multiple-award-winning films such as Les amours imaginaires (Heartbeats, 2010), Laurence Anyways (2012), Tom à la ferme (Tom at the Farm, 2013), Mommy (2014), and Juste la fin du monde (It's Only the End of the World, 2016), the latter of which became the second Canadian film to win the Grand Prix at Cannes.

Denis Villeneuve's 2010 film Incendies was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and several Genie Awards. He followed this up with the English-language surrealist neo-noir psychological thriller Enemy (2013), which earned numerous accolades including the 2014 Toronto Film Critics Association award for Best Canadian Film, before departing for Hollywood.

Philippe Falardeau won acclaim for the 2011 film Monsieur Lazhar, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and won six Genie Awards. Kim Nguyen's 2012 film Rebelle (War Witch) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, making the third consecutive year a film from Quebec was nominated.^[28]

In 2015, two Canadian co-productions, partly funded by Telefilm Canada, were nominated for Best Picture at the 88th Academy Awards: Room and Brooklyn.^[29] Also in 2015, Jean-Marc Vallée's 2005 coming of age film C.R.A.Z.Y. was ranked among the Top 10 Canadian Films of All Time by Toronto International Film Festival critics.

This decade also saw impressive directorial debuts from several English-language Canadian filmmakers. Brandon Cronenberg's feature-length directorial debut, the 2012 science fiction horror film Antiviral, competed in the Un Certain Regard category at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Albert Shin directed the films In Her Place (2014) and Disappearance at Clifton Hill (2019) which were both nominated for multiple Canadian Screen Awards. Matthew Rankin's feature-length directorial debut, the surrealist historical comedy drama The Twentieth Century (2019), won prizes at various film festivals and took home three Canadian Screen Awards.

The 2010s also experienced a resurgence in Canadian horror and exploitation films such as Hobo with a Shotgun (2011), Backcountry (2014), The Void (2016), Les Affamés (2017; Ravenous), Pyewacket (2017), and Random Acts of Violence (2019).

In recent years, there has been a cultural resurgence in Canada's aforementioned documentary stream. Films exploring Canada's identity and role on the world stage have become popular. Due to a political and social split between their American counterparts, Canadian independent documentaries have begun garnering a cult status. Current examples are Mark Achbar's award-winning and top grossing Canadian feature documentary The Corporation, and Albert Nerenberg's underground hit Escape to Canada. These films not only nurture homegrown talent, inspiring local industry but also creating a unique voice for Canada itself.

Contemporary production and distribution

The major production centres in Canada are Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. In 2011, Toronto ranked third in North America, behind only Los Angeles and New York City, in total industry production.^[27]

A typical Canadian film production is made with funds from a complex array of government funding and incentives, government mandated funds from broadcasters, broadcasters themselves, and film distributors. International co-productions are increasingly important for Canadian producers. Smaller films are often funded by arts councils (at all levels of government) and film collectives.

The National Film Board of Canada is internationally renowned for its animation and documentary production. More recently it has been criticized for its increasingly commercial orientation; only one third of its budget is now spent on the production of new films.^{[citation needed]}

Much of Canada's film industry services American producers and films driven by American distribution, and this part of the industry has been nicknamed "Hollywood North". Alliance Atlantis (acquired by CanWest Global Communications in 2007) is the major Canadian distributor of American and international films and in 2003 it ceased to produce films (and almost all television) to focus almost exclusively on distribution. Lions Gate Entertainment has also become a major distributor in recent years.

Very often, a Canadian film's largest opportunity to achieve a significant audience comes from negotiating television carriage rights with a broadcaster such as CBC Television, Crave or Showcase.^[25]

An established network of film festivals also provide important marketing and audience exposure for Canadian films. The largest and most prominent festivals are the Toronto International Film Festival, considered one of the most important events in North American film, and the Vancouver International Film Festival, but a large number of film festivals throughout the country, both general interest events and specialty festivals devoted to particular genres of film, provide important opportunities for both Canadian and international filmmakers to gain exposure.^[25]

Film awards and celebrations

Canada's national film awards were first introduced in 1949 as the Canadian Film Awards. Often plagued with organizational problems, they were taken over in 1978 by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to become the Genie Awards; in 2012, the Academy merged the Genie Awards with its Gemini Awards program for English-language television production to create the contemporary Canadian Screen Awards.

Although all Canadian films regardless of language are eligible for the Canadian Screen Awards, Québec Cinéma also presents the separate Prix Iris program for film production in Quebec. A few other regions in Canada also have their own regional film and television production awards, including the Rosie Awards in Alberta and the Leo Awards in British Columbia.

Many of Canada's film festivals present awards to honour the best Canadian and international films screened at each annual event; the most famous and important of these are the awards presented by the Toronto and Vancouver film festivals. The Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award, in particular, has built an international reputation as one of the first major "precursor" awards to the Academy Award nomination race.^[30] Annual critics' awards are also presented by the Toronto Film Critics Association, the Vancouver Film Critics Circle and the Association québécoise des critiques de cinéma.

Various local chapters of ACTRA, Canada's labour union for actors and actresses, present annual ACTRA Awards to honour performances in film and television production within the chapter's local service area; ACTRA formerly presented Canada's main national television awards from 1972 to 1986, when they were taken over by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television as the Gemini Awards. Craft awards are also presented by the Directors Guild of Canada for film and television direction, the Writers' Guild of Canada for screenwriting, the Canadian Society of Cinematographers for film and television cinematography, and the Canadian Alliance of Film and Television Costume and Arts Design for costume design.

As well, the Toronto International Film Festival polls film critics and festival programmers from across Canada to announce an annual Canada's Top Ten list of the year's best Canadian feature and short films.

Organizations and publications

Film organizations in Canada

Non-government organizations

• Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television
• Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers
• Canadian Cinema Editors
• Canadian Film Centre
• Canadian Film Institute
• Canadian Society of Cinematographers
• Ciné-Asie
• Cinema Politica
• Documentary Organization of Canada
• Film and Video Arts Society
• Independent Filmmakers Cooperative of Ottawa
• Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto
• Québec Cinéma
• Reel Canada
• Saskatchewan Filmpool Cooperative
• TIFF Cinematheque
• Toronto Film Critics Association
• Trinity Square Video
• Volatile Works
• Winnipeg Film Group
• Writers Guild of Canada

Government organizations

• BC Film Commission (BC)
• Manitoba Film and Music (MB)
• Motion Picture Association – Canada
• National Film Board of Canada
• Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (QC)
• Telefilm Canada

Defunct organizations

• Atelier national du Manitoba
• Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada
• BravoFACT
• British Columbia Patriotic and Educational Picture Service (government agency)
• Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau (government agency)
• Challenge for Change
• Federal Women's Film Program (government program)
• Greater Victoria Film Commission
• Ontario Film Review Board (provincial government agency)

Collections and exhibitors

• Cinémathèque québécoise
• The Cinematheque
• Film Reference Library
• Metro Cinema Edmonton

Canadian film theatres

Chains/brands

• Cinémas Guzzo (Quebec)
• Cineplex Entertainment (see also list of Cineplex movie theatres)
  • Alliance Cinemas
  • Cineplex Odeon Corporation
  • Famous Players
  • Festival Cinemas
• Entertainment Centrum (Ontario)
• Imagine Cinemas
• IMAX Corporation
• Landmark Cinemas
• Rainbow and Magic Lantern Cinemas
• SimEx-Iwerks

Defunct chains

• Empire Theatres
• Entertainment Centrum
• Stinson Theatres

Individual film theatres

• Broadway Theatre (Saskatoon)
• CAA Theatre (Ottawa)
• Corona Theatre (Montreal)
• Garneau Theatre
• Lyric Theatre (Swift Current, SK)
• Outremont Theatre (Montreal)
• Park Theatre (Vancouver)
• Port Elmsley Drive-In theatre
• Princess Theatre (Edmonton)
• Rex Theatre (Whitewood, SK)
• Roxy Theatre (Saskatoon)
• Rio Theatre (Vancouver)
• Stanley Industrial Alliance Stage (Vancouver)
• VIFF Centre (Vancouver)
• Vogue Theatre (Vancouver)

Former theatres:

• Ouimetoscope (Montreal)
• Barrie Uptown Theater (Barrie, ON)
• ByTowne Cinema (Ottawa)
• Capitol Cinema (Ottawa)
• Capitol Theatre (Woodstock, ON)
• Elgin Theatre (Ottawa)
• Seville Theatre (Montreal)
• Snowdon Theatre (Montreal)
• York Theatre (Montreal)

Film magazines

• 24 images
• Ciné-Bulles
• CineAction
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Film schools

• The Art Institute of Vancouver
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Issues in the Canadian film industry

The Bridge Studios in Burnaby, British Columbia

Of all Canadian cultural industries, English-Canadian cinema has the hardest time escaping the shadow of its American counterpart.^{[citation needed]} Between the marketing budgets of mainstream films, and the largely US-controlled film distribution networks, it has been nearly impossible for most distinctively Canadian films to break through to a wide audience.^[25]

Although Canadian films have often received critical praise, and the National Film Board has won more Academy Awards than almost any other institution (for both their animation and documentary work), in many Canadian cities moviegoers do not even have the option of seeing such films, as they have poor distribution and are not shown at any theatres. One This Hour Has 22 Minutes sketch parodied an Atom Egoyan-like director whose films had won numerous international awards, but had never actually been released or exhibited.^{[citation needed]}

Almost all Canadian films fail to make back their production costs at the box office.^{[citation needed]} For example, Men With Brooms made CA$1,000,000 in its general domestic release, which by Canadian standards is fairly high. However, it was made on a budget of over CA$7,000,000. French-Canadian films, on the other hand, are often more successful—as with French-language television, the language difference makes Quebec audiences much more receptive to Canadian-produced films. In most years, the top-grossing Canadian film is a French-language film from Quebec. (See also Cinema of Quebec.) By comparison, Australian films, made in a country with a smaller population than Canada's, more frequently make their money back from the domestic market. Many do comparatively better; the best known example is Mad Max, made with the then unknown Mel Gibson, and with a budget of A$350,000, and which made A$5.6 million in its domestic release alone.

Although many Canadians have made their names in Hollywood, they have often started their careers in Los Angeles, despite Toronto, Vancouver or Montréal being thriving filmmaking centres in their own right. Some actors or directors who have started their early careers in Canada include: David Cronenberg, John Candy, Lorne Michaels, Dan Aykroyd, Michael J. Fox, Mike Myers, Ivan Reitman, Derek Harvie, Seth Rogen, Eugene Levy, Tom Green, Scott Mosier, and Paul Haggis. However, despite these successes, several actors have favoured moving to Los Angeles to further pursue their careers.

Canada's difficulties in the film industry are often difficult to explain. The following explanations have been proposed for why Canadian films and television have often failed to establish an audience in Canada or internationally:

• Films labelled as American films could often be better described as collaborations between Canada and the US. In addition, films which are sometimes designated as "American" productions often involve a higher-percentage of Canadian participation but the "American" designation is favoured for tax purposes. Also, unlike other countries who tend to have citizens with discernible accents, the American media too rarely highlights or identifies actors, directors or producers as Canadian in origin, leaving the false perception that few Canadians work in the industry.
• Canada's film industry competes directly with that of the United States. Production costs between the two countries are similar (they are lower in Australia) meaning that Canadian films often need a budget equal to that of an American film of similar quality. Canadian film studios rarely, if ever, have the budgets to make films that can directly compete with the most popular Hollywood fare. Instead, the vast majority of Canadian films are character-driven dramas or quirky comedies of the type that often appeal to critics and art house film audiences more than to mass audiences.^[25]
• During the 1970s, Canada's tax policy encouraged making films merely to obtain a significant tax credit. As such, many films were produced merely for tax purposes, and quality became unimportant. For example, producers of Canadian films were allowed to take a fee out of the production costs, something that is not allowed in the United States, where producers may only take a fee once the film earns back its production costs (the exact situation that drove the plot line in The Producers). This rule, in particular, led to a large rush of Canadian-made B-movies in the 1970s and 1980s.
• While British and Australian filmmakers embrace their cultural heritage in film, Canadian films often have no discernible connection to Canada. It often comes as a surprise to many people that movies like Porky's, Children of a Lesser God and The Art of War were partially produced in Canada, as they are indistinguishable from films made entirely in the United States.
• When there are major Canadian productions, the lead roles often go to American or British actors. For example, in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, both the role of Duddy and his father went to American-born actors (the then unknown Richard Dreyfuss and the established character actor Jack Warden respectively). Joseph Wiseman, who played Duddy's uncle, was born in Montreal, but had not lived or worked in Canada in over forty years. Although this phenomenon is not as common today as it was in the 1970s, Canadian films do still sometimes cast famous foreign actors: Michael Caine starred in the 2003 film The Statement, Helena Bonham Carter played the lead role in 1996's Margaret's Museum and Olivia Newton-John had a starring role in Score: A Hockey Musical.^[25]
• Unlike radio and television, which both have strict Canadian content regulations, there is no protection for Canadian content in movie theatres. The distribution networks for Canadian movie theatres are largely controlled by the American studio system, and Canada is in fact the only non-U.S. country that is considered part of the domestic market by Hollywood studios. As a result, the marketing budgets and screening opportunities for Canadian films are limited. In many cities outside of Canada's largest metropolitan markets, the local movie theatres almost never book a Canadian film, and even in many of the major markets Canadian films are usually only available in repertory theatres or on the film festival circuit. Once again, the exception is Québec, which has many French-Canadian produced films running on multiple screens all over the province alongside both French-produced films and dubbed or subtitled American films.
• In a phenomenon which can be likened to the theory of cultural cringe, a considerable number of Canadians reflexively dismiss all Canadian films as inherently inferior to Hollywood studio fare.^{[citation needed]} This is not necessarily connected to reality, as many critically acclaimed films have been made in Canada, but the idea nevertheless presents a significant hurdle to Canadian filmmakers seeking to build an audience for their work.

Porky's and Meatballs

For many years the most successful Canadian film of all time at the Canadian box office was Porky's; it was produced by a Canadian team (though directed by Bob Clark, an American, and shot in Florida), but only with one of the major American studios backing distribution. (Porky's' record was widely reported as broken in 2006 by the bilingual police comedy Bon Cop, Bad Cop, but that assessment does not take inflation into account. Porky's still retains its status as the most successful Canadian film internationally.)^{[citation needed]}

Meatballs makes an excellent case study on common criticisms of the Canadian film industry. Produced and shot entirely in Canada on a budget of CA$1,600,000, it was a tremendous hit, one of the most financially successful Canadian films of all time. As with Children of a Lesser God, although it takes place in a summer camp, there is nothing recognizably Canadian about the location or the characters, except for a Montreal Canadiens sweater. The starring role went to American comedian Bill Murray in his earliest featured film role. The chief love interest was played by Canadian Kate Lynch, who won the Genie Award that year for Best Actress. The casting of Americans in the "Tax-Shelter Era", as well as today, often caters to an American audience. However, it provided Murray with his breakout role. Almost all of its box office gross was in the United States, where it took in US$43,000,000. It received a much more limited release in Canada.

In 2010, Resident Evil: Afterlife grossed more than $280 million at the box office internationally and nearly $7 million domestic, making it the most successful production in Canadian film history.^[31][32][33]

Notable films

For all the industry's challenges, quite a few Canadian films have succeeded in making a cultural impact. Some of the most famous or important Canadian films include:

Before 1960

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

Notable filmmakers

Directors

Canadian film tends to be more director-driven than star-driven, and have much more in common with the European auteur model of filmmaking than with the Hollywood star system. The most famous Canadian film directors are very often the real star power of their films, more so than the actors they cast. Notable Canadian film directors include:

Notable Canadian expatriate directors who are or have worked primarily in Hollywood include:

Actors

While countless Canadian-born actors have worked in Hollywood over the decades, there are a large number who have enjoyed significant success in the domestic cinema of Canada. This is a list of performers who have received multiple Canadian Screen Award nominations and/or appeared in many notable Canadian-made films (including international co-productions). Most of these actors are Canadians, but some foreign-born performers who have achieved notable distinction in the Canadian film industry are also included.

Notable Canadian expatriate film actors who are or have worked primarily in Hollywood and only occasionally, if at all, appeared in Canadian-produced films include:

Producers

• Al Christie
• Charles Christie
• Harold Greenberg
• Suresh Joachim
• Louis B. Mayer

Writers

• Ed Gass-Donnelly
• Paul Haggis
• Suresh Joachim
• Ian Iqbal Rashid
• Seth Rogen
• Evan Goldberg
• PJ Torokvei