18 Films & TV Shows Set In Canada During The 1900s
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La Bolduc
Quebec The 1890s The 1900s The 1910s The 1920s The 1930s The 1940sThe life story of Mary Travers, a musician and singer of French Canadian music.
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Wild Life
Alberta The 1900s The 1910sAn English dreamer experiences both the beauty and harshness of nature when he relocates to the Canadian prairie.
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Pit Pony
Nova Scotia The 1900sGlace Bay, Nova Scotia Canada, 1901. Willie MacLean is a 10-year-old boy with a love for horses and liking to school to cape the difficult times his family has. Willie's stern, but benevolent father is a coal miner in a local mine along with his older brother John. But when Willie's father is injured and John is killed in an accident at the mine, Willie is forced to step into his brother's shoes to support his older sister Nelle, and two younger sisters until their father recovers. Willie soon finds work at the mine lonely (aka: the pit) and unfriendly in which he forms a bond with a pit pony horse in order to make it though each day.
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The Call of the Wild: Dog of the Yukon
Yukon The 1900sJack London's classic story from 1903 about Buck, a dog kidnapped from his home in California and taken to the Yukon where he is mistreated until a prospector discovers him and relates to his situation. Although the two are bonded, Buck yearns to run free with the wild dogs in the wilderness.
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La sarrasine
Quebec The 1900sMontreal, 1904. Giuseppe and Ninetta own a boarding house where they welcome their fellow Sicilians. One day, as he comes to the defence of one of his boarders, Giuseppe accidentally kills Theo, his French Canadian best friend’s son-in-law. This drama depicts the tensions between people from different ethnic backgrounds and their life-changing impact. Based on a true story, 'The Saracen Woman' paints a portrait of Italian immigration to Quebec and the affinities and conflicts that arose from the clash of two different cultures.
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The Little Kidnappers
Nova Scotia The 1900sLoosely based on a '50's movie of the same name, it tells the story of two young orphan boys who travel by themselves from the Old country to join their father's family in Canada. There they encounter their stern disciplinarian grandfather who has alienated himself from some of his neighbors. There is particularly no love lost between the grandfather and his Dutch neighbors, who he generalizes as being responsible for his son's death in the Boor War. A side product of this animosity is that it is keeping apart the boy's aunt and her Dutch doctor suitor. The two boys change everything though when they find a young baby on the beach...
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The Boy in Blue
Ontario The 1900s The 1880s The 1890s The 1870sEvery era has it's own kind of hero. — Ned Hanlan was Canada's most successful sculling champion at the turn of the 20th century. This dramatization of his life begins in his youth, when the wild young man is informally adopted by a gambler who promotes Ned on the sculling circuit, betting on the boy's rowing skills solely to make money off him. Later, a ruthless businessman named Knox takes over Ned's career, but when Ned realizes how dishonest Knox is, he finds another manager. Walter is an inventor and the first honest man Ned has dealt with in his career and, under Walter's guidance, Ned rises to great success in the sculling world.
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Anne of Green Gables
Prince Edward Island The 1900sAt the turn of the century on Prince Edward Island, Matthew Cuthbert and his sister Marilla decide to take on an orphan boy as help for their farm. But they get an unexpected jolt when they're mistakenly sent a girl instead: Anne Shirley. Anne's a dreamer with an unusual point of view, far removed from Marilla's pragmatic ways, and it's only on trial that Marilla agrees to keep Anne.
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Caffe Italia Montréal
Quebec The 1900s The 1910s The 1920s The 1930s The 1940sUsing archival documents, fictions, current accounts, and excerpts from a theatrical creation, Paul Tana paints a nuanced portrait of the Italians of Montreal. From the first waves of immigration at the beginning of the century to the men and women taken to a prisoner of war camps during World War II, to the hardships and joys of building vibrant lives in Montréal. Caffè Italia Montréal chronicles a significant chapter in Canada’s history.
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The Grey Fox
British Columbia The 1900sIn 1901, after 33 years in San Quentin Prison, Bill Miner, "The Gentleman Bandit", was released into the Twentieth Century. — Old West highwayman Bill Miner, known to Pinkertons as "The Gentleman Bandit," is released in 1901 after 33 years in prison, a genial and charming old man. Entering a world unfamiliar to him, he returns to the only thing that gives him purpose — robbery.
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J.A. Martin Photographer
Quebec The 1900sThe wife of photographer J.A. Martin decides to go with him in his tour of the hard Canadian countryside at the turn of the century. She hopes the intimacy will revive their marriage.
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The Great Race
🇨🇦 Canada New York Alaska 🇷🇺 Russia 🇫🇷 France The 1900sThe movie with 20,000-mile or one-million-laughs guarantee! — Professional daredevil and white-suited hero, The Great Leslie, convinces turn-of-the-century auto makers that a race from New York to Paris (westward across America, the Bering Straight and Russia) will help to promote automobile sales. Leslie's arch-rival, the mustached and black-attired Professor Fate vows to beat Leslie to the finish line in a car of Fate's own invention.
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Drylanders
🇨🇦 Canada The 1900sThe National Film Board's First Feature Length Presentation — The epic story of the opening of the Canadian West and the drought that brought the Depression in the thirties. This is the saga of a family who left eastern Canada to stake their future in the Prairies.
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The Kidnappers
Nova Scotia The 1900sThe frankly sentimental story of love, hate and adventure in a primitive land! — A Scotsman, Jim MacKenzie, living on a primitive homestead in Nova Scotia, is raising his two grandsons, Harry and Davy, following the death of their father in the Boer War. His son's death has developed antagonism by MacKenzie toward all Dutchmen, which leads to Harry brawling at school with the son of a Dutchman. Harry falls down a cliff and is helped home by the community doctor, Willem Bloem, a Dutchman in love with MacKenzie's daughter, Kirsty. Due to the old man's feelings, they must carry on a clandestine romance. Forbidden by their grandfather to have a dog, Harry and Davy "kidnap" an unattended baby and care for the child in a lean-to shack. When found, the baby proves to be the child of MacKenzie's most-bitter Dutch enemy.
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The Naked Heart
Quebec The 1900sAt the beginning of the 20th century, in the North of the Province of Quebec. After five years spent in a boarding school, Maria Chapdelaine comes back to the family farm. Robert Gagnon, a villager and childhood friend, loves her secretly but Maria is wooed by Lorenzo Surprenant, a man who has fled his home town to escape the police. The one she is really in love with is François Paradis, a handsome trapper. The latter promises to marry her in the spring, as soon as he is back from the Far North. Robert, who is aware of how miserable Maria is, writes a letter to François , asking him to come back at once. Unfortunately, the young trapper is buried under the snow during a storm. As for Lorenzo he gets gunned down by the police. Finally understanding that Robert has sacrificed himself out of love for her, Maria accepts to become his wife.
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Jack London
Yukon England 🇯🇵 Japan The 1900s The 1890sHe is a Man! — The true story of the adventurous and remarkable life of the American novelist Jack London(1876-1916).
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One Foot in Heaven
Iowa Colorado Ontario The 1920s The 1910s The 1900sFolks, meet a grand FATHER! He's the affable, laffable head of the most delightful family that ever stepped out of America's screens...into America's hearts! — Episodic look at the life of a minister and his family as they move from one parish to another.
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Water for Canitoga
🇨🇦 Canada The 1900sIn the spring of 1905, the water conduit project in the Canadian city of Canitoga is set to be completed. For years, the completion had been marred by sabotage. Engineer Oliver Montstuart commands the last blasting operation. But again, the explosive charge is too large and thus, further construction is forestalled again. When Montstuart confronts foreman Westbrook, the foreman threatens him with a knife. In self-defence, Montstuart shoots him. Now, he has to flee.
