The Best Movies to Watch From Canada on Philo

Despite the fact that this isn’t the light fantasy romcom it seems to present itself as at the onset, Paging Mr. Darcy nevertheless becomes a breezy, likable little TV movie because it allows its main characters to be adult human beings. The story is still mostly fluff that ends far too abruptly, but for the […]

When vampires choose not to kill a human, it’s usually played up with so much drama, angst, and maybe a bit of romance. Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person on the other hand takes this choice as a comedic one. It may be a tad ludicrous for a vampire to refuse to drink blood on […]

Hallmark is the last place you’d expect to find a low-budget movie that decries excessive automation and advocates for local businesses, but for some reason this is the setting against which Love & Jane’s story is told. And the movie doesn’t come across as insincere either, as it uses a familiar romcom template to actually […]

As exciting as it sounds to have a real person transported into a fictional story, An American an Austen really doesn’t do much with its protagonist’s foreknowledge of the plot, nor is it particularly clear about the rules or consequences of Harriet’s situation, if any. This means that much of the film consists of watching […]

If you’re hard working and well-situated enough, you get to chase and achieve and live out your dreams for your whole life. But if you’re lucky enough, you get to choose how you’ll leave. Swan Song is the journey Canadian ballet icon Karen Kain took to direct one last production of Swan Lake just before […]

Red Rooms is a slow-burn thriller that follows Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy) as she gets drawn into the case of a suspected serial killer in Montreal. She religiously attends every trial, even camping outside the courthouse to secure a seat, and eventually neglects work for it. Her obsession—maybe more than the case itself—is the film’s true […]

In TV and cinema, meeting your partner’s parents is a tried-and-tested formula that’s bound to generate relatable laughs. Meet the Parents, The Proposal, and Happiest Season are some modern classics that come to mind. Yet, French Girl fumbles this opportunity by peddling cliche after cliche with zero charm. Braff’s character is supposed to possess at […]

Even if Crimes of Fashion: Killer Clutch faithfully sticks to the general template of a mystery film, that doesn’t guarantee its quality. It may have structure and suspects and motive but it doesn’t inject its own color into the expected story beats. Maybe it’s a consequence of the film being made for a network that […]

Hallmark movies aren’t automatically bad if they’re cheesy and on the cheaper side; there are ways to make these characteristics work, of course. But these qualities definitely don’t help if the story they’re telling is uninteresting and if the actors in front of the camera couldn’t be compelled to deliver convincing emotions if their lives […]

If the sheer intensity of The Novice’s storytelling can at times feel like it’s trying too hard to be in-your-face—rather than authentically disturbed—the ambition of Laura Hadaway’s direction is still quite the spectacle to behold. Where some of the film’s relationships don’t come off as complex as they should be, Hadaway and her team more […]

A character study in the absolute purest sense, Anne at 13,000 Ft. doesn’t even have the kind of satisfying closure one would expect from any story, nor does it explain anything about its protagonist’s difficult, erratic behavior in the context of mental health. It’s an exercise in testing how much empathy a character can earn […]

Keira Knightley stars in this incredible true story of an Iraq War whistleblower who remains relatively little-known in the U.S. Katharine Gun was working for the communications office for the British government when she received a memo in the months leading to the war that showed that the U.S. requested illegal wiretapping assistance from the […]

A truly bizarre comedy that shoots far beyond the boundaries of what should probably be considered good taste, The Twentieth Century stands as one of the strangest movies ever made based on a historical figure. Adapted from the real Mackenzie King’s (Canada’s longest-serving prime minister) diaries, the film replaces any traces of reality with psychological […]

From The Babadook director Jennifer Kent comes another horror, although this one is more about the horrors of humanity. Set in 1825 Tasmania, The Nightingale follows Irish settler Clare as she seeks bloody revenge on the monsters who wronged her and her family. She teams up with an Aboriginal guide named Billy to accomplish her […]

This is a hilarious political comedy starring the ever-great Steve Buscemi. Set in the last days before Stalin’s death and the chaos that followed, it portrays the lack of trust and the random assassinations that characterized the Stalinist Soviet Union. Think of it as Veep meets Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator. Although to be fair, […]

This drama from France and Canada is about Matthieu, a 33-year-old from Paris who never knew his father. One morning he gets a call to go to Montreal, where he is told his dad has passed away and where a funeral will take place. To add to his confusion, upon arrival Matthieu is asked to […]

Full of twists on classic horror themes, this hilarious and gory comedy will have your sides aching, and still you’ll want more. The plot centers on two rednecks who are trying to have a good time while fixing up a summer home. True to horror movie form, a group of college kids set up camp […]

The Grand Seduction, a remake of 2003 French-Canadian film La Grande Séduction (2003), is a lighthearted comedy about the residents of the small fishing village of Tickle Head, Newfoudland attempting to convince a young doctor to become its long-term caregiver in order to secure a contract for a new petrochemical facility. Desperate to guide the […]

Starring Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, Kelli Garner and Patricia Clarkson. Lars and the Real Girl is a funny and thought-provoking look at the psychology of loneliness and the healing power of love. I rented this a few years back because of Ryan Gosling – he had just blown me away in Fracture so I […]

The shiver-inducing talents of Stephen King, David Cronenberg, and Christopher Walken meld to produce this supremely chilly supernatural thriller adaptation. Schoolteacher Johnny’s (Walken) perfect life is overturned when a horrific car accident puts him in a coma that robs him of five years of his life — and with them, his job and girlfriend Sarah […]

In an age where recent horror films mostly use the jump-scare as a crutch to make their CGI-spawned (not to mention generic) creatures seem scary, The Babadook portrays real scares, relatable characters and a moving story. Jennifer Kent (director and writer) sets this on the backdrop of heavily Lars von Trier-inspired cinematography, elevating The Babadook […]

Polytechnique directed by Denis Villeneuve, is a dramatization of the 1989 Montreal massacre of multiple female engineering students. This film focuses on a male student navigating the massacre for the majority of the film’s run time. The performances and minimal dialogue in this film certainly make this an unnerving film to watch. Littered with the […]

Though it starts off somewhat slow, I was delightfully surprised at how much I loved this movie. A 28-year-old man ventures through Europe with a buddy, ending in Copenhagen, where he hopes to contact the last of his family. There he enlists a local girl to help him. An interesting relationship unfolds as they take […]

In this raw, psychedelic drama, an American drug dealer living in Tokyo with his sister is killed at a night club. His spirit continues to float above the city and past, present, and future are woven together to complete the tale of his life. Taking a page from the Tibetan book of the dead, the […]