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Movies

Narco nannies, sharks and other TV dangers

Denise Duguay 4 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

Anticipation has value, but it requires familiarity. Those viewers in that camp are already counting the days to the likes of the next Margaret Atwood-inspired feminist dystopia, The Testaments, which premières the first three of eight episodes on April 8, on Disney+. Fans of the Vermont-born singer-songwriter are already primed for the documentary-concert combo Noah Kahan: Out of Body, premièring on Netflix on April 13.

But this list of viewing suggestions is more targeted to the series and movies that are less well telegraphed, or more easily overlooked (hidden?) in the streaming-app menus. And so, behold five series and movies you might be less likely to already know about, but should give a try.

●Dear Killer Nannies (series premières with all eight episodes Wednesday, April 1, on Disney+)

Child care is an important consideration for every family. Despite being a violent Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar is no exception. His son Juan Pablo Escobar’s memoir is the basis for this new series, which centres the story of young Juampi, the hitman caregivers assigned by papa Pablo (John Leguizamo) and Juampi’s struggle over whether — and how — to accept or reject the family legacy.

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Daniel Boczarski / Getty Images files

Director BenDavid Grabinski frequented the Handsome Daughter while in Winnipeg.

Daniel Boczarski / Getty Images files
                                Director BenDavid Grabinski frequented 
the Handsome Daughter while in Winnipeg.

Film director calls Winnipeg a ‘chill’ place to shoot

Randall King 5 minute read Preview

Film director calls Winnipeg a ‘chill’ place to shoot

Randall King 5 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

The action-comedy Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice (now streaming on Disney+) stars Vince Vaughn as Nick, a gangster who employs time travel to right a personal wrong.

So it’s only fair to ask the film’s director, BenDavid Grabinski, to step back into 2024, when he worked on the film in Winnipeg from May to October.

Winnipeg wasn’t a particular culture shock for Grabinski, by the way. Though he is based in Los Angeles, he was born in Nebraska and spent his formative years, ages 16 to 23, in Iowa, so he was familiar with a Prairie landscape.

“I gotta tell you, I had a really good time in Winnipeg,” says Grabinski, 43, during a Zoom interview Thursday. “I shot 42 nights in a row, so I didn’t get to have that much of a life.

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2:00 AM CDT

Merit photo

Jeff Newman (left) is the director of Athens: Birth of Democracy, co-produced by Winnipeg’s Merit Motion Pictures for CBC’s Nature of Things.

Merit photo
                                Jeff Newman (left) is the director of Athens: Birth of Democracy, co-produced by Winnipeg’s Merit Motion Pictures for CBC’s Nature of Things.

Tracing the roots of democracy to today’s fragmentation

Conrad Sweatman 5 minute read Preview

Tracing the roots of democracy to today’s fragmentation

Conrad Sweatman 5 minute read Thursday, Mar. 26, 2026

People sometimes joke that we would be no worse off if we picked someone at random from the phone book to rule the country.

Well, the ancient Greeks tried something just like that with their “kleroterion,” a slab of stone and primitive machine used by the Athenians to choose citizens for public office.

Near the end of Athens: Birth of Democracy, co-produced by Winnipeg’s Merit Motion Pictures for CBC’s Nature of Things, host Anthony Morgan and a group of students give this contraption a whirl under the blazing Athenian sun.

Students applaud as they’re randomly chosen by the machine’s system of dice. In reality, Athenians often grumbled at this rude imposition of civic duty.

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Thursday, Mar. 26, 2026

Thomas Fricke photo

Director Rebekah McKendry chats with executive producer Slash on the set of Sundown, which was shot in Manitoba.

Thomas Fricke photo
                                Director Rebekah McKendry chats with executive producer Slash on the set of Sundown, which was shot in Manitoba.

Manitoba-born star not afraid for what comes after Sundown

Randall King 5 minute read Preview

Manitoba-born star not afraid for what comes after Sundown

Randall King 5 minute read Thursday, Mar. 26, 2026

For four weeks in January and February, a creepy movie called Sundown crept into Winnipeg and outlying communities with little fanfare.

But it’s notable in many ways. It’s a female-centred horror production with some exciting talent, including the Manitoba-born star of an upcoming Stephen King adaptation by director Mike Flanagan (Dr. Sleep).

The title Sundown implies a kind of vampire story from director Rebekah McKendry, who shot the horror indie The Elevator Game in Winnipeg in 2022. (She also scripted another locally shot 2022 horror film, Bring It On: Cheer or Die, which she could not attend because she was directing the Lovecraftian thriller Glorious in Mississippi at the same time.)

At the time Cheer or Die was released, McKendry expressed some frustration with shooting films under COVID-19 restrictions, even though they were actually conducive to conveying the atmosphere of The Elevator Game, given that it involved shooting large chunks of the film in an elevator, or in easily enclosed locations in Winnipeg’s Exchange District. Glorious, too, was almost entirely set in the washroom of a roadside rest stop.

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Thursday, Mar. 26, 2026

Jonathan Olley/Amazon MGM Studios via AP

Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) heads to space as part of a last-ditch attempt to save humanity in Project Hail Mary.

Jonathan Olley/Amazon MGM Studios via AP
                                Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) heads to space as part of a last-ditch attempt to save humanity in Project Hail Mary.

Space odyssey’s optimism, humour and stellar star turn Hail Mary into sure thing

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Preview

Space odyssey’s optimism, humour and stellar star turn Hail Mary into sure thing

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Friday, Mar. 20, 2026

A family-friendly crowd-pleaser that combines flashes of the sci-fi sublime with bursts of slapstick comedy, this space odyssey is goofy, peppy and — more than anything — hopeful.

Based on Andy Weir’s 2021 hard science-fiction novel, Project Hail Mary is powered by a passionate belief in pragmatism, ingenuity and science. There’s a sunny confidence here that people can figure things out, work together and act for the common good.

And sure, that might be wildly optimistic, but it’s a wild optimism a lot of us need right now.

Ryland Grace — an (inter)stellar performance from Barbie’s Ryan Gosling — is a molecular biologist whose academic career was scuttled by a stubbornly unorthodox position on alien life. Now he’s an underpaid but inspiring middle school science teacher in California.

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Friday, Mar. 20, 2026

Apple TV

From left: Elisabeth Moss, Kerry Washington and Kate Mara play best friends in Imperfect Women, premièring Wednesday.

Apple TV
                                From left: Elisabeth Moss, Kerry Washington and Kate Mara play best friends in Imperfect Women, premièring Wednesday.

You just can’t keep a good plotline down

Denise Duguay 4 minute read Preview

You just can’t keep a good plotline down

Denise Duguay 4 minute read Tuesday, Mar. 17, 2026

Esteemed Irish playwright Samuel Beckett could likely have written some excellent absurdist sitcoms if he had been born a little later (though no quibbles with his stellar oeuvre, including Waiting for Godot, which will be onstage at Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre next spring). But especially on point for this edition of viewing recommendations, consider his most famous quote: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” This is the dogged spirit that propels the characters in these streaming options beyond death, war and career failure. Enjoy.

● Imperfect Women (series premières with the first two of eight episodes Wednesday, March 18, on Apple TV)

If indeed “friendships are built on secrets,” as the trailer for this mystery intones, some hard stares will be on the menu at the next brunch. Onscreen here, Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale) and Kerry Washington (Scandal) star and produce, joined by a solid supporting cast including Kate Mara (The Astronaut), Joel Kinnaman (The Killing), Corey Stoll (House of Cards) and Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton). The basic story — a crime shatters lives and assumptions in the decades-long friendship of three women — sounds very similar to that of the newish How to Get to Heaven From Belfast (Netflix). The latter is darkly hilarious, with some good twisty developments, whereas the new series sounds a little worryingly slick.

● Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man (movie sequel to the series premières Friday, March 20, on Netflix)

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Tuesday, Mar. 17, 2026

Warner Bros Entertainment

The Bride! needs a jolt of excitement.

Warner Bros Entertainment
                                The Bride! needs a jolt of excitement.

Monster mashup never comes alive

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Preview

Monster mashup never comes alive

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Saturday, Mar. 7, 2026

A risky, ambitious and fabulous mess for the first half, an aimless and frustrating mess for the second, writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal’s second feature is a fiercely feminist American gothic take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein story.

Actor-turned-filmmaker Gyllenhaal (who made her directorial debut with 2021’s The Lost Daughter) starts here with Mary Shelley herself (Hamnet’s Jessie Buckley), who may be long dead but has a lot more to say. To do so she takes possession of Ida (also Buckley), a gangster moll in 1930s Chicago.

Entertaining some hoods at a night club, Ida suddenly breaks into rolling British phraseology, speaking out for silenced, stifled and suffocated women everywhere. The mobsters not much liking this speech, Ida soon ends up buried in a pauper’s grave.

Meanwhile, Frankenstein’s monster — understandably, he prefers to be called Frank — is visiting the office of Dr. Euphronius (Annette Bening). The immensely lonely Frank (Christian Bale in rather endearing prosthetics) is hoping the doctor will create a companion for him.

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Saturday, Mar. 7, 2026

Julijette Productions

Roy Dupuis plays an avid outdoorsman with lessons to teach.

Julijette Productions
                                Roy Dupuis plays an avid outdoorsman with lessons to teach.

Filmmakers first foray into fiction bares all in Manitoba

Randall King 4 minute read Preview

Filmmakers first foray into fiction bares all in Manitoba

Randall King 4 minute read Thursday, Mar. 5, 2026

Two years after shooting a movie in the wilds near Lac du Bonnet, co-directors James McLellan and Alexandre (Sasha) Trudeau finally unveiled the dramatic feature Hair of the Bear last Thursday in Toronto, with Alexandre’s brother Justin Trudeau on hand to celebrate the première in advance of its opening Friday. (The former prime minister even made a joke about the good/evil brother dynamic in the film’s designated antagonists.)

While a little political star power never hurts a première, the film itself is not explicitly political. It’s a gritty survival story in which a troubled teen (Malia Baker, The Baby-Sitters Club), suffering social anxiety, is sent to live with her outdoorsman grandfather (Roy Dupuis, Rumours) where his survival lessons prove to be invaluable in the face of an outside threat.

It’s a scripted feature debut for both directors, who met while doing officer training in CTC Gagetown in New Brunswick in 1996.

The launch went well, says Winnipeg producer Juliette Hagopian, who was in attendance.

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Thursday, Mar. 5, 2026

Still Vivid

The film is undramatic but never dull, partly due to the sheer beauty of the backdrop.

Still Vivid
                                The film is undramatic but never dull, partly due to the sheer beauty of the backdrop.

The Love That Remains an intimate family divorce drama

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Preview

The Love That Remains an intimate family divorce drama

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Friday, Feb. 27, 2026

From Icelandic writer-director Hlynur Palmason (Godland, A White, White Day), this family story is intimate but emotionally guarded, lightly funny but deeply melancholy.

The Love That Remains (in Icelandic, Swedish, French and English, with subtitles) could be called a divorce drama, but Palmason’s “scenes from a marriage” aren’t the usual round of regret, recrimination and wall-punching we see in such tumultuous films as Marriage Story.

Using a slow, subdued narrative that is both intermittently surreal and sweetly, completely mundane, the 41-year-old filmmaker starts with the separation of Anna (Saga Gardarsdottir) and Magnus (Sverrir Gudnason) as a quietly established fact.

He then tracks a year in the life of this rural family as the former couple and their somewhat confused children attempt to adjust, mostly with good intentions and the love that’s right there in the title. (Mostly.)

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Friday, Feb. 27, 2026

Warner Bros. Pictures

Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi, left) and Cathy (Margot Robbie) could have been hornier.

Warner Bros. Pictures
                                Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi, left) and Cathy (Margot Robbie) could have been hornier.

Brontë film sumptuous fanfic… and that’s just fine

Jen Zoratti 6 minute read Preview

Brontë film sumptuous fanfic… and that’s just fine

Jen Zoratti 6 minute read Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026

I saw Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” — quotation marks intentional and, it turns out, crucial — and therefore my Instagram algorithm is now filled with many, many takes because I posted a single story saying I liked this zany fanfic based (very, very loosely) on Emily Brontë’s 1847 classic.

Right from the trailer, the Charli XCX soundtrack and the casting — Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff — it was clear this movie was going to be a problem. And I absolutely agree with some of the criticism: I do not defend the casting choices, for example. While I’m cool with Cathy being played by a grown woman, I am in full agreement that Heathcliff should have been played by an actor of colour.

What I don’t quite understand are the people who were expecting, like, a six-part BBC miniseries from the lady who made Saltburn. This is “Wuthering Heights” by the lady who made Saltburn. It’s precisely what I expected. Actually, I think she pulled her punches a bit. It could have been weirder and hornier.

It is a sumptuous, visual spectacle laced with much viscous — and, frankly, vaginal — imagery. It is not subtle. It is not period. It is absolutely not faithful. It’s like if a teenage girl’s bedroom collage were a movie (complimentary). It’s pure fanfic. It’s Brat Summer: The Moors edition. It’s the pure id of desire. It’s also very, very sad.

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Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026

Merit Motion Pictures

A group of Sherpa climbers ascend Mount Everest to bring down a body in order to restore peace to the mountain.

Merit Motion Pictures
                                A group of Sherpa climbers ascend Mount Everest to bring down a body in order to restore peace to the mountain.

Meaning of Mount Everest to Sherpas explored in documentary

Conrad Sweatman 6 minute read Preview

Meaning of Mount Everest to Sherpas explored in documentary

Conrad Sweatman 6 minute read Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026

There are an estimated 200 unrecovered bodies on Mount Everest.

For many in the Tibetan Buddhist ethnic community known as Sherpas, this represents a disturbance to the spiritual and natural order.

Not only is the mountain itself a sacred living thing, a corpse left stranded on Everest represents a soul that can’t find peace and end its karmic cycle.

Mingma Tsiri Sherpa, the subject of Canadian-made documentary Everest Dark (produced by Winnipeg’s Merit Motion Pictures and directed by Jereme Watt), is touched by these views.

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Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026

ELEVATION PICTURES

Matthew Johnson (left) and Jay McCarrol figure out time travel.

ELEVATION PICTURES
                                Matthew Johnson (left) and Jay McCarrol figure out time travel.

Canadian comedy dives into pool of sheer ridiculousness with time travel, guerrilla footage

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Preview

Canadian comedy dives into pool of sheer ridiculousness with time travel, guerrilla footage

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Friday, Feb. 13, 2026

Hugely likable, idiosyncratically Canadian and laugh-out-loud funny, this madcap mockumentary follows two underemployed musician friends, Matt (Matt Johnson) and Jay (Jay McCarrol), as they travel back and forth through time, all in an attempt to book their band, called Nirvanna the Band, at the Rivoli, a storied Toronto club.

The comic anarchy starts with Matt, who likes to diagram out needlessly complicated plans on his handy whiteboard. He declares the best way to book a Rivoli show involves skydiving from the CN Tower into the Skydome. (Obviously, right?)

When that sweetly delusional plot — spoiler alert! — doesn’t work, Matt decides to double down on the lunatic ideas. Clearly, the only viable alternative is travelling back in time.

Ridiculously, brilliantly, this strategy succeeds. Inspired by Back to the Future — which they own on VHS — Matt rigs up a Rube Goldberg contraption inside their lumbering vintage RV.

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Friday, Feb. 13, 2026

Jordan Strauss / Invision Files

Catherine O’Hara was beloved by seemingly everyone.

Jordan Strauss / Invision Files
                                Catherine O’Hara was beloved by seemingly everyone.

Catherine O’Hara flipped tropes, brought humanity to every role

Jen Zoratti 6 minute read Preview

Catherine O’Hara flipped tropes, brought humanity to every role

Jen Zoratti 6 minute read Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026

Like many kids growing up in the ’90s, I first encountered Catherine O’Hara as Kevin’s mom in Home Alone.

Back then, she was just that: Kevin’s (Macaulay Culkin) mom. But watching the 1990 holiday classic as an adult, as I do every single Christmas with a lovely cheese pizza just for me, you realize the brilliance she brought to the character of Kate McCallister.

Only O’Hara could elevate one line into a movie-trailer tentpole catchphrase — “Kevin!” — by delivering it in a wide-eyed, two-syllable shriek.

Her comedic genius is everywhere, from her interactions on the phone with the Chicago police — “Yeah, hi, look…” — to her banter with real-life friend John Candy, as the Polka King of the Midwest.

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Saturday, Feb. 7, 2026

Netflix

Jodie Foster’s French is a highlight of A Private Life.

Netflix
                                Jodie Foster’s French is a highlight of A Private Life.

French film has no clue about what kind of mystery it is

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Preview

French film has no clue about what kind of mystery it is

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Friday, Jan. 30, 2026

There are a “lot of loose ends,” worries one amateur sleuth midway through this elegant, intelligent but ultimately unsatisfying French film.

That’s a frustrating problem with A Private Life (in French with English subtitles). Filmmaker Rebecca Zlotowski (Other People’s Children) throws out intriguing ideas and sly cinematic riffs, but the narrative lines keep flying off in all directions.

By its anticlimactic conclusion, this would-be psychological thriller is held together only by the astonishing centrifugal force of star Jodie Foster.

Foster plays Lilian Steiner, an American expatriate living in Paris and working as a psychoanalyst. (Foster speaks very good French, though her character falls back on English whenever she needs to swear.)

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Friday, Jan. 30, 2026

Elevation pictures

Diana (Grace Glowicki) faces numerous challenges following a car accident.

Elevation pictures
                                Diana (Grace Glowicki) faces numerous challenges following a car accident.

Touching story buried in creepy Canadian film

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Preview

Touching story buried in creepy Canadian film

Alison Gillmor 4 minute read Friday, Jan. 23, 2026

Flawed but still fascinating, this Canadian horror flick — which made its North American debut at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival — is also, at times, an oddly sweet and sincere love story.

That’s an unusual genre mashup, but it could be because Honey Bunch’s creators are Ontario-based Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli (Violation), a scripting and directing team who are also partners in life.

Set in the 1970s — a decade that’s resonating right now at the movie theatre — Honey Bunch centres on husband and wife Homer and Diana, played by Ben Petrie and Grace Glowicki (also a real-life couple, who have worked together previously on The Heirloom).

After a catastrophic car crash, Diana is left with chronic pain and a brain injury that has led to short-term memory loss.

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Friday, Jan. 23, 2026

Row K

Dacre Montgomery (front) is taken hostage by Bill Skarsgård in Gus Van Sant’s latest feature, based on a real 1977 incident.

Row K
                                Dacre Montgomery (front) is taken hostage by Bill Skarsgård in Gus Van Sant’s latest feature, based on a real 1977 incident.

‘Based on true story’ drama Dead Man’s Wire lacks crucial information

Alison Gillmor 5 minute read Preview

‘Based on true story’ drama Dead Man’s Wire lacks crucial information

Alison Gillmor 5 minute read Friday, Jan. 16, 2026

Loosely based on a real-life hostage taking in Indianapolis in 1977, this period crime drama from veteran director Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting, Milk) and screenwriter Austin Kolodney (making his feature-film debut) is packed with scruffy retro style and some cool callbacks.

The 1970s were a decade of paranoia, cynicism and division. (Maybe that’s why they’re resonating in pop culture right now.) Dead Man’s Wire channels some of the antihero energy of Dog Day Afternoon. It riffs on the mad-as-hell rants of Network. It gives us a turtlenecked, leather-jacketed cop like Serpico.

The hair is long, the cars are the size of barges and the colour palette suggests old Polaroid photos.

There’s dark humour and some sly, intriguing performances, but there’s also something missing. Dead Man’s Wire throws out heady ideas — looking at the era’s deepening distrust of institutions, the rise of vulture capitalism and the shifting role of media — but never really follows them up.

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Friday, Jan. 16, 2026

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