Best Canadian history movies

The story of the Battle of Midway, and the leaders and soldiers who used their instincts, fortitude and bravery to overcome massive odds.

In 79 A.D., Milo, a slave turned gladiator, finds himself in a race against time to save his true love Cassia, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant who has been unwillingly betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator. As Mount Vesuvius erupts in a torrent of blazing lava, Milo must fight his way out of the arena in order to save his beloved as the once magnificent Pompeii crumbles around him.

Based on the story of Jesse Owens, the athlete whose quest to become the greatest track and field athlete in history thrusts him onto the world stage of the 1936 Olympics, where he faces off against Adolf Hitler's vision of Aryan supremacy.

South Africa, 1978. Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee, two white political activists from the African National Congress imprisoned by the apartheid regime, put a plan in motion to escape from the infamous Pretoria Prison.

When Russia's first nuclear submarine malfunctions on its maiden voyage, the crew must race to save the ship and prevent a nuclear disaster.

Sudan, East Africa, 1980. A team of Israeli Mossad agents plans to rescue and transfer thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. To do so, and to avoid raising suspicions from the inquisitive and ruthless authorities, they establish as a cover a fake diving resort by the Red Sea.

In 1843, despite the fact that Dickens is a successful writer, the failure of his latest book puts his career at a crossroads, until the moment when, struggling with inspiration and confronting reality with his childhood memories, a new character is born in the depths of his troubled mind; an old, lonely, embittered man, so vivid, so human, that a whole world grows around him, a story so inspiring that changed the meaning of Christmas forever.

The true story of fraudulent Washington, D.C. journalist Stephen Glass, who rose to meteoric heights as a young writer in his 20s, becoming a staff writer at The New Republic for three years. Looking for a short cut to fame, Glass concocted sources, quotes and even entire stories, but his deception did not go unnoticed forever, and eventually, his world came crumbling down.

Based on the true life story of California gymnast Ariana Berlin. As she zoned in on her Olympic goals, 14 year old Ariana Berlin's life took a sharp turn when she was involved in a debilitating car accident. Gaining her confidence and movement back through learning hip hop dance, she unexpectedly found herself called back to the gymnastics world thanks to world renowned UCLA Coach Valorie Kondos Field. With Val's help, Ariana was eventually able to secure a spot on the UCLA gymnastics team and win an NCAA championship, a lifelong goal that she had always dreamed of. This is a wonderfully inspiring story of persistence, confidence, and the heart and courage to make a somewhat impossible comeback in life.

In the early to mid '90s, when the South African system of apartheid was in its death throes, four photographers - Greg Marinovich, Kevin Carter, Ken Oosterbroek and João Silva - bonded by their friendship and a sense of purpose, worked together to chronicle the violence and upheaval leading up to the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela as president. Their work is risky and dangerous, potentially fatally so, as they thrust themselves into the middle of chaotic clashes between forces backed by the government (including Inkatha Zulu warriors) and those in support of Mandela's African National Congress.

A look at the life of legendary American pilot Amelia Earhart, who disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 in an attempt to make a flight around the world.

A portrait of the brilliant, extravagant Kristina of Sweden, queen from age six, who fights the conservative forces that are against her ideas to modernize Sweden and who have no tolerance for her awakening sexuality.

The true story of the most decorated dog in American military history -- Sgt. Stubby -- and the enduring bonds he forged with his brothers-in-arms in the trenches of World War I.

Set between the two World Wars and based on true historical events, Bitter Harvest conveys the untold story of the Holodomor, the genocidal famine engineered by the tyrant Joseph Stalin. The film displays a powerful tale of love, honour, rebellion and survival at a time when Ukraine was forced to adjust to the horrifying territorial ambitions of the burgeoning Soviet Union.

19 year old Irena Gut is promoted to housekeeper in the home of a highly respected Nazi officer in Poland when she finds out that the Jewish ghetto is about to be liquidated. Determined to help twelve Jewish workers, she decides to shelter them in the safest place she can think of – the basement of the German Major's house. Over the next eight months, Irena uses her wit, humour and immense courage to hide her friends as long as possible.

Sergeant Michael Dunne fights in the 10th Battalion, AKA The "Fighting Tenth" with the 1st Canadian Division and participated in all major Canadian battles of the war, and set the record for highest number of individual bravery awards for a single battle

Oskar Gröning, known as the "Accountant of Auschwitz," was charged with the murder of 300,000 Jews. When he took the stand in 2015, at the age of 94, his trial made headlines worldwide.

Regent Horthy is the leader of Hungary and a German ally, but his favorable standing with Hitler changes as the war comes to an end. Forced to cede Hungary’s power or else witness the execution of his son, Regent Horthy gives up control of his country to the Nazis, who quickly move Hungarians to ghettos and death camps, with no hope in sight. But the despair changes when a young man named Elek emerges. Separated from his family during the relocations and aided by the woman he loves , Elek defies the enemy by becoming one of them. In a race against time, disguised as a Nazi Officer he embarks on a mission to save his family and thousands of his countrymen.

The remarkable true-life survival story of a Jewish boy hiding and being hunted in the forests of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, based on Maxwell Smart's memoir.

Documentary on psychedelic potash mines, expansive concrete seawalls, mammoth industrial machines, and other examples of humanity’s massive, destructive reengineering of the planet.

Missionary Father LaForgue travels to the New World in hopes of converting Algonquin Indians to Catholicism. Accepted, though warily, by the Indians, LaForgue travels with the Indians using his strict Catholic rules and ideals to try and impose his religion.

The Flying Sailor is based on the Halifax Explosion of 1917 when two ships collided in the Halifax Harbour causing the largest accidental explosion in history. Among the tragic stories of the disaster is the remarkable account of a sailor who, blown skyward from the deck of a British cargo steamer, flew over 2 km before landing completely unharmed, but naked except for his boots.

A confessional, cautionary, and occasionally humorous tale of Robbie Robertson's young life and the creation of one of the most enduring groups in the history of popular music, The Band.

Based on a real WWII vet and family man turned bank robber. Disillusioned by his post war circumstances, Eddie Boyd is torn between the need to provide for his young family and an unfulfilled dream to head to Hollywood to become a star. He discovers a way to do both, robbing banks Hollywood style, but his dream leads him down a path of danger and tragedy.

A young woman named Savannah Knoop spends six years pretending to be a transgender writer named JT Leroy, the made-up literary persona of her sister-in-law.

In 1915 a man survives the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, but loses his family, speech and faith. One night he learns that his twin daughters may be alive, and goes on a quest to find them.

In 1993, Canadian Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire was sent by the United Nations to Rwanda as commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR). Its mission, to ensure the ceasefire, is underfunded, excessively bureaucratized and made up of military units which come from dozens of countries and which each have a very different program... These are Lt Gen Dallaire's efforts to stop the madness of the Rwandan Genocide, despite the complete indifference of his superiors.

An extravagant, exotic and moving look at Rembrandt's romantic and professional life, and the controversy he created by the identification of a murderer in the painting The Night Watch.

In 1971, a group of friends sail into a nuclear test zone, and their protest captures the world's imagination. Using never before seen archive that brings their extraordinary world to life, How To Change The World is the story of the pioneers who founded Greenpeace and defined the modern green movement.

It's 1947 and the borderlines between India and Pakistan are being drawn. A young girl bears witnesses to tragedy as her ayah is caught between the love of two men and the rising tide of political and religious violence.

The evolution of the depiction of the various Native American peoples in cinema, from the silent era to the present day: how their image on the screen has changed the way to understand their history and culture.

Computer-generated imagery and other visualization techniques reveal how it would look if all the water was removed from RMS Titanic's final resting place.

Interrogated by a customs officer, a young man recounts how his life was changed during the making of a film about the Armenian genocide.

Cree matriarch Aline Spears survives a childhood in Canada’s residential school system to continue her family’s generational fight in the face of systemic starvation, racism, and sexual abuse. She uses her uncanny ability to understand and translate codes into working for a special division of the Canadian Air Force as a Cree code talker in World War II. The story unfolds over 100 years with a cumulative force that propels us into the future.

A story set against the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the film is based upon the tragedy which occurred in Utah in 1857. A group of settlers, traveling on wagons, was murdered by the Mormons. All together, about 140 souls of men, women and children, were taken.

A landmark WWII docudrama, told through the eyes of three young Canadians, chronicling the events of the Allied invasion of Juno Beach on June 6, 1944 - otherwise known as D-Day.

The truth is way stranger than fiction,” muses one interviewee in this unbelievable true account of an incredible war time saga. As the Second World War was coming to a close, the US Office of Strategic Services trained and parachuted two Jewish refugees and a German deserter deep into Nazi occupied Austria. Through vivid first-person accounts, re-enactments, archival footage and learned commentary, the film reveals how their efforts disrupted a vital supply route between Germany and the Italian front to bring about the surrender of Innsbruck to Allied Forces. Their unbelievable adventure has a finale that beats any Hollywood movie hands down — but a story so powerful that it became the basis for Quentin Tarantino’s mega hit.

The Weight of Chains is a Canadian documentary film that takes a critical look at the role that the US, NATO and the EU played in the tragic breakup of a once peaceful and prosperous European state - Yugoslavia. The film, bursting with rare stock footage never before seen by Western audiences, is a creative first-hand look at why the West intervened in the Yugoslav conflict, with an impressive roster of interviews with academics, diplomats, media personalities and ordinary citizens of the former Yugoslav republics. This film also presents positive stories from the Yugoslav wars - people helping each other regardless of their ethnic background, stories of bravery and self-sacrifice.

A fascinating portrait of Ben Ferencz, the last surviving Nuremberg Trial prosecutor, who continues to wage his lifelong crusade in the fight for law and peace.

Biopic of Louis Cyr, strongest man in the world at the end of the 19th Century.

This highly acclaimed feature film on Pope John Paul II was filmed on location in Italy and Poland. Focusing on the papacy of John Paul and the tremendous impact he had on the Church and the world, Karol: The Pope, The Man stars actor Piotr Adamczyk in a deeply moving portrayal of the beloved pontiff. It is the powerful true story of a charismatic spiritual leader who helped bring down Communism, renewed the life of the Church, greatly impacted youth worldwide with love for Christ, and a Pope who reached out to other religions and world leaders with a message of peace and love. Also stars Raoul Bova (Saint Francis), Michele Placido (Padre Pio: Between Heaven and Earth) and Adriana Asti as Mother Teresa. The beautiful film score is by legendary film composer Ennio Morricone.

The Chronicle of 1812

The explosion at Chernobyl was ten times worse than the Hiroshima bomb and was due to a combination of human error and imperfect technology. An account of the sixty critical minutes prior to the explosion of the nuclear power plant on the night of April 26, 1986.

Take a technological thrill ride The Magic of Flight takes you on a technological thrill ride faster, higher and wider than modern science or even your imagination! Relive the first flight of the Wright Brothers, then soar with the Blue Angels as they defy the laws of gravity. Narrated by Tom Selleck.

Documentary-drama recounting the Martian War of 1913–1917. Europe was on tenterhooks in the 2nd decade of the 20th century, everyone was expecting a Great War between the major European powers. But then, in 1913, something crashed into the forests of SW Germany. Troops were sent to investigate but were wiped out. Martian fighting machines began making their way across Western Europe and the countries of Europe combined forces to resist them. With aspects taken from ‘The War of the Worlds’ by H.G. Wells and from WWI itself, this dramatisation presents a documentary style look at events as they unfolded and the effect they had of our world today. Lots of references to real events including the mass attacks and defeats as men were thrown against machines on the Western front, the Christmas truce and the Angel of Mons, America's isolationism and late entry into the conflict, the worldwide Spanish flu epidemic that killed more people than the war, and many other things.

After the Stonewall riots and at the height of the gay liberation movement in America, an entire generation were busy celebrating their newfound emancipation, unaware of an impending epidemic. A disease that seemed determined to wipe out an entire generation of gay men, was largely ignored by politicians and the mainstream media. Gaetan Dugas was a French-Canadian flight attendant, who offered to help early scientific research into the origins of AIDS. An unfortunate series of events followed and he would be vilified as Patient Zero, the man who gave us AIDS.

Salem, Massachusetts. A small town—with no clear governing body—became embroiled in a scandal that forever stands as one of the darkest chapters in American history. For those accused of witchcraft by their neighbors and friends, there was little chance of clearing their names; the mass paranoia that ravaged through the community took the lives of 19 innocent men and women.

In Japanese, “shi kata ga nai” means “it can't be helped”. As a phrase, it represents the philosophical basis of the Japanese cultural reserve, through which adversity is never acknowledged. Nancy Okura is a Canadian of Japanese decent. During the Second World War, she was involuntarily removed from her home and relocated to an internment camp by the Government of Canada. Shi kata ga nai prevented Nancy Okura from ever speaking about her internment.

Following the fall of the Roman Empire, a Roman woman plots to make her son the new Emperor and to fulfill the former glory of the city.

The life and work of German political philosopher of Jewish descent Hannah Arendt (1906-75), who caused a stir when she coined a subversive concept, the banality of evil, in her 1963 book on the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann (1906-62), held in Israel in 1961, which she covered for the New Yorker magazine.

Molly is a girl living in the year 1944 and WWII has brought many changes to Molly's life. An English girl comes to live with Molly's family to escape the bombings. They slowly become good friends.

A fact-based account of ordinary citizens who found themselves arrested and imprisoned without charge for weeks during the October Crisis in 1970 Quebec.

Why are we still able, today, to view images that were captured over 125 years ago? As we enter the digital age, audiovisual heritage seems to be a sure and obvious fact. However, much of cinema and our filmed history has been lost forever. Archivists, technicians and filmmakers from different parts of the world explain what audiovisual preservation is and why it is necessary. The documentary is a tribute to all these professionals and their important work.

The unbelievable true story of Chelly Wilson, who escaped the Holocaust and built a porn cinema empire in New York City in the 1970s. Chelly was a Greek-born, Christmas-celebrating, Jewish grandma, who married men but was openly gay. This documentary charts her unlikely rise to wealth as a shrewd businesswoman on “The Deuce,” aka New York’s infamous 42nd Street.

In 1458, five years after the fall of Constantinople to the Turk, eighteen cardinals meet to elect a new pope. Rodrigo Borgia, a 27 year old cardinal learns to play a very dangerous game.

The true story of Charlotte Salomon, a young German-Jewish painter who comes of age in Berlin on the eve of the Second World War. Fiercely imaginative and deeply gifted, she dreams of becoming an artist. Her first love applauds her talent, which emboldens her resolve. When anti-Semitic policies inspire violent mobs, she escapes to the safety of the South of France. There she begins to paint again, and finds new love. But her work is interrupted, this time by a family tragedy that reveals an even darker secret. Believing that only an extraordinary act will save her, she embarks on the monumental adventure of painting her life story.

The 20 year old Muslim religious law student Ibn Battuta (1304–1368), whose full name was Abu Abdullah Muhammed Ibn Abdullah Al Lawati Al Tanji Ibn Battuta, set out from Tangier, a city in northern Morocco, in 1325, on a pilgrimage to Mecca, some 3,000 miles (over 4,800 km) to the East. The journey took him 18 months to complete and along the way he met with misfortune and adversity, including attack by bandits, rescue by Bedouins, fierce sand storms and dehydration.

Boris Malagurski explains how the military-industrial complex, big business and political interest groups endanger peoples' health and existence, focusing on the examples of Serbia, Cuba, Chile, Italy and Bolivia.

On September 11, 2001, the unimaginable transpired when devastating attacks on the World Trade Center forced the shutdown of the entire U.S. airspace. Thousands of kilometres away in Gander, Newfoundland, a group of Nav Canada air traffic controllers suddenly had the lives of 33,000 people in their hands and had to think fast to find a place for them to go. Discovery uncovers how these unsung heroes managed to safely land 224 planes in four hours, without incident.

It’s the story of a little girl who is different. Her world is Coyoacan, Mexico City. Sparkling, vibrant, everything interests her and when difficulties arise, she faces them with an overflowing imagination. This little girl is called Frida Kahlo.

Capture, document, record, share, restart. We are making ourselves more memorable than ever by archiving every bit of our daily lives. What if we lost something along the way?

Hungarian physicist Leo Szilard leaves Europe, eventually arriving in the United States. With the help of Einstein, he persuades the government to build an atomic bomb. The project is given to no-nonsense Gen. Leslie Groves who selects physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to head the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, where the bomb is built. As World War II draws to a close, Szilard has second thoughts about atomic weapons, and policy makers debate how and when to use the bomb.

Iraq, 2004: during a routine sortie a US patrol is ambushed and the young soldiers are forced to put their training and skills into action fast. A determined foe with superior local knowledge, the Fedayeen insurgents soon draw them into close quarter combat and a desperate fight for survival.

This historical drama tells the story of Qin Shihuang, who unified China's vast territory and declared himself emperor in 221 B.C. During his reign, he introduced sweeping reforms, built a vast network of roads and connected the Great Wall of China. From the grandiose inner sanctum of Emperor Qin's royal palace, to fierce battles with feudal kings, this film re-creates the glory and the terror of the Qin Dynasty, including footage of Qin's life-sized terra cotta army, constructed 2,200 years ago for his tomb.

In 1839, months after the British army has repressed the insurrection of the Patriots, hundreds of rebels are still in prison. The morning of February 14, Marie-Thomas Chevalier De Lorimier and Charles Hindelang learn that they will be hung in 24 hours, with three others. While they await their death the condemned spend time and consult with companions and loved ones as well as entrust to those their last wills. At dawn, the five Patriots will walk to the scaffold, knowing will they die.