47 Movies Like Avatar (2009) On Netflix Canada (Page 2)

I think it’s safe to say you’ve never seen a Pinocchio adaptation quite like Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. It still largely stays true to the source material, which is to stay it’s still about a father grappling with the loss of his son and a boy figuring out where he figures in the world. But the movie departs from it in significant ways too. Instead of a fairy tale setting, for instance, this Pinocchio has 1930s fascist Italy as its background, lending the film a realism and historicism that weren’t there before.

Stars Ewan McGregor, Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton, and newcomer Gregory Mann lend their voice in this tender and stellar stop-motion animated movie.

Genre: Animation, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Music

Actor: Alfie Tempest, Ariana Molkara, Benjamin Valic, Burn Gorman, Cate Blanchett, Christoph Waltz, David Bradley, Ewan McGregor, Finn Wolfhard, Francesca Fanti, Gregory Mann, John Turturro, Peter Arpesella, Rio Mangini, Ron Perlman, Roy Halo, Scott Martin Gershin, Sky Alexis, Tilda Swinton, Tim Blake Nelson, Tom Kenny

Director: Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson

Rating: PG

Like a Wes Anderson movie, The Last Black Man in San Francisco takes artistic risks and nails every one of them. There are many quirky, aesthetically well-studied, and even funny aspects to this moving story.

Jimmie has been maintaining a typical San Francisco Victorian house, regularly painting the windows and watering the plants. One small problem: other people live there and they don’t want him around. It turns out this was once Jimmie’s family house, having been built by his grandfather in 1948, and he misses it deeply.

This story is based on writer Jimmie Fails’ life, as he tried to reclaim his family home in SF. However, it’s not a movie that limits itself to gentrification. It transcends that to being about the universal yearning to find a place to call home.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Andy Roy, Daewon Song, Danny Glover, Finn Wittrock, Isiain Lalime, Jamal Trulove, Jello Biafra, Jimmie Fails, John Ozuna, Jonathan Majors, Mari Kearney, Mike Epps, Rob Morgan, Thora Birch, Tichina Arnold, Tonya Glanz

Director: Joe Talbot

Rating: R

We’re familiar with dick jokes from stand-up comedians, especially male stand-up, but Jacqueline Novak’s 90-minute show about the blow job feels completely new. Get on Your Knees feels like casual storytelling from someone experienced yet distant enough to be a cool authority on it (say, your best friend’s older sister’s best friend), but funnier. It’s like a gossip session about a first experience, except the breathless, dizzying stream of thought is peppered with philosophical thought and points out the absurdity around the language and common attitudes about sex. And as she does so, and as she talks about self-conscious fumbling and unanswered questions, she strides back and forth, in an easy, self-assured way, the way we’d like to feel going into the act.

Genre: Comedy

Actor: Jacqueline Novak

Director: Natasha Lyonne

Rating: R

This uplifting Canadian sports drama is based on a true story set in the remote Nunavut town of Kugluktuk. The small community has the highest teen suicide rate in North America, as it suffers from intergenerational trauma, and the resulting alcohol and drug abuse. A new young history teacher who is sent by the government is shocked by the state of the school and the lives of the teenagers. He realizes that he can't engage the kids with history, and turns to his passion for Lacrosse to try to ignite change.

The teacher and director of the movie are both white, which, added to the story, raise red flags about white savior tropes. But thanks to First Nation producers who made sure the kids had time to develop their characters, The Grizzlies narrowly misses disaster. Instead, it gives a voice to communities that are rarely heard from. 

Genre: Drama

Actor: Anna Lambe, Ben Schnetzer, Booboo Stewart, Brad Fraser, Eric Schweig, Fred Bailey, Jack Anawak, Madeline Ivalu, Natar Ungalaaq, Seth Burke, Tantoo Cardinal, Will Sasso

Director: Miranda de Pencier

Rating: R

Friday Night Plan resembles many a classic teen film (most notably, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Booksmart), but it also doubles as a thoughtful inquiry into the delicate bond between siblings who could not be more different from one another. Sid and his younger brother Adi (Amrith Jayan) have different ideas of what matters most in life, ideas that get tested when their mother’s car gets towed away during their night of fun. Sid thinks it’s only right to come clean and retrieve the car no matter what, but Adi believes this can all wait until tomorrow morning: tonight is Sid’s night to celebrate and finally connect with peers he’s shut off all his life. This tension comes as a surprise in what otherwise looks like an ordinary teen movie, but it’s also a welcome addition that helps Friday Night Plan stand out from the rest. 

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Family

Actor: Aadhya Anand, Amrith Jayan, Babil Khan, Juhi Chawla, Juhi Chawla Mehta, Ninad Kamat

Director: Vatsal Neelakantan

Rating: TV-14

An 80-minute documentary about a diver who gets stranded in the deep sea with 5 minutes of oxygen left, while the nearest rescue team was 30 minutes away. This type of diving in the depths of the sea, as someone explains, is like “going into space but underwater”.

The documentary uses genuine footage from the dive as well as interviews of people who were present. Still, some parts of this incredible story can’t be explained. And if like me you’re not familiar with diving, everything will have more appeal. The vessel they use is quite impressive, the duration of its dive is obscene (28 days!), and lastly: the divers inhale helium (and speak with a funny voice) the whole time they are down there.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Alex Parkinson, Chris Lemons, Duncan Allcock, Kjetil Ove Alvestad, Michal Cichorski, Richard da Costa, Stuart Anderson

Director: Alex Parkinson, Richard da Costa

Rating: N/A

This Canadian drama produced by Clint Eastwood is based on the true story of Saul Indian Horse, a famous indigenous hockey player who survived Canada’s residential school system. As recently as 1996, indigenous children were taken away from their families to attend brutal assimilation boarding schools.

Indian Horse, by virtue of being based on true events, is not an against-all-odds story. The main character goes through a series of ups and downs between the 70s and 90s, when the movie is set, which reflect the recent history of abuse that Indigenous communities suffered in Canada.

Genre: Drama

Actor: Ajuawak Kapashesit, Anders Yates, Edna Manitowabi, Emily Klassen, Forrest Goodluck, Irene Poole, Jill Frappier, Johnny Issaluk, Martin Donovan, Melanie McLaren, Michael Murphy, Michiel Huisman, Skye Pelletier, Sladen Peltier, Will Strongheart

Director: Stephen S. Campanelli

Rating: Not Rated

The Centre Will Not Hold explores the life of the famous Joan Didion – professional observer and cultural spectator. The film gives only a small window into the complexity of her mind and the space in which she processes and understands the world, which stems from her capacity to sit above everything that is happening around her and just observe. From writing for Vogue, to war journalism, to her famous novels – from watching a child do acid, to reporting on the first gulf war – Didion is as prolific as she is insightful and majestic in her writing. Throughout the documentary she gives her first hand perspectives on love, relationships, motherhood, and grief – beautifully articulating it as “a place we do not know unless we’ve been there.” A beautiful woman, and an incredible film.

Genre: Documentary

Actor: Amy Robinson, Anna Wintour, Bobby Beausoleil, Calvin Trillin, Charles Manson, David Hare, Dick Cheney, Griffin Dunne, Harrison Ford, Hilton Als, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Joan Didion, Linda Kasabian, Oliver North, Patricia Hearst, Patricia Krenwinkel, Phyllis Rifield, Shelley Wanger, Susanna Moore, Tom Brokaw, Tuesday Weld, Vanessa Redgrave

Director: Griffin Dunne

Rating: N/A, Not Rated

There are two ways to sum up this documentary. One will make you decide against watching it. Here’s that pitch: This is the story of a homeless woman who was found dead.

Here’s the better pitch: That woman was highly educated and generally lived a happy life. But she also left behind a detailed journal that recounts her final days in one of the coldest winters on record. She lived on apples and rainwater and fought off insanity.

Her heartbreaking story is one of disappointment and betrayal by society at a time when she was most vulnerable. A haunting and compelling documentary that is sure to stay with you for a long time and, in a way, might help you take on adversity.

Genre: Documentary, Drama, History, Mystery

Actor: Doug Bixby, Joan Bishop, Kevin Carbone, Lori Singer, Michael Maggiani, Paul Appelbaum

Director: Jedd Wider, Todd Wider

Rating: N/A

It's slower and stranger than most comedies you may be used to, but there's still lots of heart to be found in the way Classmates Minus follows the lapsed hopes and wishes of its core characters. Beneath all its stereotypically male yearnings for control and romantic wish fulfillment, there are potent ideas here about how a tired economy and jaded political culture can turn those in their middle age into completely different people. Writer/director Huang Hsin-yao provides narration for his own film, but rather than being distracting or conceited, his words add a level of needed sympathy to everything we see on screen.

Genre: Comedy, Drama

Actor: Ada Pan, Chen Yi-wen, Chen Yiwen, Cheng Jen-shuo, Cres Chuang, Evelyn Yu-Tong Cheng, Evelyn Zheng Yu-tong, Hung Shiao-ling, Jacqueline Zhu, Jacqueline Zhu Zhi-Ying, Jennifer Hong, Joanne Yang, Kuan-Ting Liu, Lan Wei-Hua, Liu Kuan-ting, Lotus Wang, Ming-Shuai Shih, Na-Do, Nadow Lin, Rexen Cheng Jen-Shuo, Shih Ming-shuai, Taka Katou, Tong Chih-Wei, Yi-Wen Chen

Director: Huang Hsin-Yao

A thrilling French movie about a nuclear submarine division that is confronted with a world-ending scenario.

One sonar agent is at the center of the story, his exceptional hearing capabilities are the main resource of the submarine commanders he works for (one of whom is played by the masterful Reda Kateb).

Wolf’s Call tries very hard to be a Hollywood movie, but even if it serves as a reminder that countries like France don’t have to always make arthouse films to be noticed, the visual effects and the writing fall short of that big-budget feel.

Still, if you’re looking for a fun movie that’s full of surprises, solid acting, and a great heroism tale, you’ll love this.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Actor: Alexis Michalik, Antonin Baudry, Arthur Choisnet, Bastien Ughetto, Damien Bonnard, Etienne Guillou-Kervern, François Civil, Guillaume Clement, Guillaume Duhesme, Jean-Yves Berteloot, Léopold Bara, Marc Ruchmann, Mathieu Kassovitz, Nicolas Van Beveren, Omar Sy, Paul Granier, Paula Beer, Philippe Maymat, Pierre Cevaer, Reda Kateb, Sébastien Landry, Sebastien Libessart, Stefan Godin

Director: Abel Lanzac, Antonin Baudry

Rating: TV-14