Don McKellar
Don McKellar CM (born August 17, 1963) is a Canadian actor, writer, playwright, and filmmaker. Description above from the Wikipedia article Don McKellar, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Works
Through Black Spruce
The disappearance of a young Cree woman in Toronto traumatizes her Northern Ontario family, and sends her twin sister on a journey south to find her.
Release Date: 2019-03-29
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Character: Journalist
Vote Count: 30
Closet Monster
A creative and driven teenager is desperate to escape his hometown and the haunting memories of his turbulent childhood.
Release Date: 2016-07-15
Department: Writing
Job: Story Editor
Vote Count: 270
It's Not You
Relationships can be an endless cycle of breakups.
Release Date: 2015-09-11
Department: Writing
Job: Writer
The Grand Seduction
A small fishing village must procure a local doctor to secure a lucrative business contract. When unlikely candidate and big city doctor Paul Lewis lands in their lap for a trial residence, the townsfolk rally together to charm him into staying. As the doctor’s time in the village winds to a close, acting mayor Murray French has no choice but to pull out all the stops and begin The Grand Seduction.
Release Date: 2014-05-30
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Vote Count: 326
Treading Water
Mica is born smelling of fish that soap and doctors can't remove. Problems increase starting school as no one'll be his friend. He sees a therapist. His life seems doomed until he meets Laura.
Release Date: 2013-09-13
Character: Richard
Vote Count: 17
Trigger
Ten years after ending their partnership as rock musicians, two women become re-acquainted in the course of one night.
Release Date: 2010-09-12
Character: Brian
Vote Count: 18
This Movie Is Broken
Bruno wakes up in bed next to Caroline, his long time crush. But tomorrow she's off for school in France, and maybe she only granted this miracle as a parting gift for her long time friend. So tonight is Bruno's last chance. And tonight, as it happens, Broken Social Scene, her favourite band, is throwing a big outdoor bash. Maybe if Bruno, with the help of his best pal Blake, can score tickets and give Caroline a night to remember, he can keep this miracle alive.
Release Date: 2010-06-25
Department: Writing
Job: Idea
Vote Count: 14
Cooking With Stella
Inside the Canadian diplomatic compound in New Delhi, a mischievous cook affects the lives of her employers and fellow staff.
Release Date: 2010-03-19
Character: Michael Laffont
Vote Count: 10
Blindness
When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.
Release Date: 2008-05-14
Department: Writing
Job: Screenplay
Character: Thief
Vote Count: 1291
Phone Call From Imaginary Girlfriends: Istanbul
A filmic love letter. One out of two. Premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival; Screened at the 2007 Pocket Festival Film in Paris
Release Date: 2007-06-09
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Phone Call From Imaginary Girlfriends: Ankara
A filmic love letter. One out of the two. Premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival; Screened at the 2007 Pocket Film Festival in Paris.
Release Date: 2007-04-09
Department: Writing
Job: Writer
Monkey Warfare
Two ex-revolutionaries living underground have their lives turned upside down by a sexy young radical who goes from smashing SUVs to fighting gentrification with firebombs.
Release Date: 2006-09-10
Character: Dan
Vote Count: 9
Where the Truth Lies
An ambitious reporter probes the reasons behind the sudden split of a 1950s comedy team.
Release Date: 2005-10-07
Character: Publishing Executive
Vote Count: 296
Childstar
An experimental filmmaker takes a job as a driver for a foul-mouthed child actor and his ambitious stage mother.
Release Date: 2004-09-10
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Character: Rick Shille
Vote Count: 10
Clean
After she ends up in prison and loses custody of her son, a woman struggles to assimilate outside her former life and remain clean long enough to regain custody of her son.
Release Date: 2004-09-01
Character: Vernon
Vote Count: 70
The Event
Manhattan prosecutor Nick is charged with looking into the untimely death of city resident Matt, a musician who had AIDS. As she questions Matt's loyal family members — mother Lila and sister Dana — she comes to learn that his closest pal, health-care worker Brian, is an ardent believer in assisted suicide and that he threw Matt a big party before his death. This presents a dilemma for the humane but dutiful Nick.
Release Date: 2003-01-01
Character: Matt Shapiro
Vote Count: 15
Public Domain
A dark, wryly funny film about a game show run by smug pseudo-intellectuals that awards money to the contestant with the most pathetic life. The "contestants" are unaware they're even playing the game: the show's producers infiltrate houses, install surveillance cameras and broadcast footage for viewers to judge in such existential categories as doubt, alienation and disillusionment. A biting critique of the culture of surveillance as entertainment.
Release Date: 2003-01-01
Character: Host
Vote Count: 1
Rub & Tug
The new manager of a full-body massage parlor must make sure his employees do not grant sexual favors to clients.
Release Date: 2002-09-10
Character: Conrad
Vote Count: 11
Waydowntown
Four young office workers have a bet going to see who can last the longest without going outside. In the maze that is the downtown core of a large city, glass skywalks connect apartment buildings, office towers and shopping malls. Its day 28 of the bet and over the lunch hour, as the office prepares for the company founder's retirement party, things start to seriously unravel.
Release Date: 2002-01-25
Character: Brad
Vote Count: 20
I Was a Rat
A little boy found wandering the streets is taken in by Bob and Joan, a kindly couple. The boy is cold, wet and desperate for shelter, but Bob and Joan are perplexed by his claims that he was once a rat. Meanwhile, rumours are rife at the newspaper about the prince's new love: a girl who captivated everyone at the palace ball.
Release Date: 2001-12-09
Character: Oliver Tapscrew
The Art of Woo
Alessa Woo (Lee) is an ambitious art dealer who meets her match in gifted painter Ben Crowchild (Beach) in this romantic comedy.
Release Date: 2001-09-09
Character: Nathan
Vote Count: 1
Preludes
Commissioned by the Toronto International Film Festival to mark the event's 25th anniversary in September 2000, the "Preludes" program consisted of ten short films by Canadian directors which were inspired in some way by the festival. Each film screened as a prelude to a feature film in the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival program. The full "Preludes" anthology was screened on the web in November 2000, and was given theatrical retrospectives at the TIFF Lightbox in the subsequent years.
Release Date: 2000-11-15
Department: Directing
Job: Director
A Word from the Management
Don McKellar’s autobiographical, wryly comic short looks at Toronto International Film Festival–goers’ fierce desire to get into a screening.
Release Date: 2000-09-07
Department: Directing
Job: Director
This Might Be Good
A festival is a concentration of hope. Audiences hungering for something startingly new, famously familiar or just plain "good". Actors hoping their well-conceived sincerity and ritual entrances have that special glow. Press and critics poised to love or hate lucidly. And proud, desperate filmmakers looking for that little blessing on their latest self-projection. All squeezing together for a few days, in a few rooms wondering whether this will truly be the perfect place at the perfect time. Of course, it rarely is. Mostly it's just a collection of almosts. Delicious, shared almosts.
Release Date: 2000-09-07
Vinyl
Toronto filmmaker Alan Zweig analyzes the phenomenon of record collecting.
Release Date: 2000-08-01
Character: Himself
Vote Count: 20
eXistenZ
A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.
Release Date: 1999-04-14
Character: Yevgeny Nourish
Vote Count: 1991
The Red Violin
300 years of a remarkable musical instrument. Crafted by the Italian master Bussotti (Cecchi) in 1681, the red violin has traveled through Austria, England, China, and Canada, leaving both beauty and tragedy in its wake. In Montreal, Samuel L Jackson plays an appraiser going over its complex history.
Release Date: 1998-11-13
Department: Writing
Job: Writer
Character: Evan Williams (Montréal)
Vote Count: 422
Last Night
Various citizens of Toronto anxiously await the end of the world, which is occurring at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day.
Release Date: 1998-10-23
Department: Directing
Job: Director
Character: Patrick Wheeler
Vote Count: 152
Elimination Dance
Ever more bizarre criteria are used to eliminate couples from a secret dance event.
Release Date: 1998-09-12
Department: Writing
Job: Writer
Character: Male Dance Partner
Vote Count: 1
Joe's So Mean to Josephine
Josephine has her eye on Joe, a hot-headed, petty criminal who taps phones for a living. When she finally worms her way into his heart she realises it's not a nice place to be. But is it too late?
Release Date: 1997-01-18
Character: Mike
Vote Count: 4
Dance Me Outside
Explores the sensitive, and tense, relationship between life on an First Nations reservation and life in the outside world. When Native Canadian Silas Crow is forced to write a personal essay in order to get a much-desired job, he tells the story of the rape and murder of an Indian girl by a drunken thug. When the killer received a lenient two-year sentence for manslaughter, the First Nations community felt shock and anger—and tried desperately to deal with the after-effects of this lack of justice.
Release Date: 1995-03-10
Department: Writing
Job: Writer
Vote Count: 20
When Night Is Falling
Camille is a professor at a Protestant college who is engaged to Martin, a respected minister and fellow professor. When Camille meets Petra, a bold and flamboyant performer in a circus troupe, she is inexplicably drawn. Pursuing Petra, Camille throws her whole conservative life into disarray.
Release Date: 1995-02-01
Character: Timothy
Vote Count: 82
Camilla
Freda Lopez, an aspiring musician, travels with her husband to the beautiful beaches of Georgia where she befriends Camilla, an odd and exotic elderly woman who plays the violin. When the two embark on a journey together, Camilla reclaims a lost love and makes peace with herself and her son, while Freda discovers inner resources she never knew she had.
Release Date: 1994-11-25
Character: Security Guard
Vote Count: 20
Exotica
In the upscale Toronto strip club Exotica, dancer Christina is visited nightly by the obsessive Francis, a depressed tax auditor. Her ex-boyfriend, the club's MC, Eric, still jealously pines for her even as he introduces her onstage, but Eric is having his own relationship problems with the club's female owner. Thomas, a mysterious pet-shop owner, is about to become unexpectedly involved in their lives.
Release Date: 1994-09-29
Character: Thomas
Vote Count: 353
Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould
A collection of vignettes highlighting different aspects of the life, work, and character of the acclaimed Canadian classical pianist.
Release Date: 1993-11-26
Department: Writing
Job: Screenplay
Character: Concert Promoter
Vote Count: 42
Giant Steps
A boy with an alcoholic father befriends a jazz musician.
Release Date: 1992-09-12
Character: Real Estate Hucker
Blue
New carpet factory footage intercut with old porn creates a brief but telling glimpse into the human psyche.
Release Date: 1992-01-10
Department: Writing
Job: Writer
Vote Count: 10
Highway 61
A naive Canadian barber who knows US popular culture inside and out meets a flamboyant roadie who needs someone to drive her and her "brother's" corpse from Thunder Bay, Ontario to New Orleans. Chaos ensues after the barber agrees to drive her, the corpse, and the drugs stashed within all the way.
Release Date: 1991-09-05
Department: Writing
Job: Screenplay
Character: Pokey Jones
Vote Count: 20
Roadkill
A music promoter sends a young woman on a road trip in search of a band who hasn't been showing up for their gigs.
Release Date: 1989-09-16
Department: Writing
Job: Screenplay
Character: Russel, the Serial Killer
Vote Count: 13
No Other Choice
After being unemployed for several years, a man devises a unique plan to secure a new job: eliminate his competition.
Department: Writing
Job: Writer
The Sympathizer
Near the end of the Vietnam War, a spy who was embedded in the South Vietnam army flees to the United States and takes up residence in a refugee community, where he continues to gather intelligence and report back to the Viet Cong.
Release Date: 2024-04-14
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Episode Count: 7
Vote Count: 98
Crimes of the Future
With his partner, a celebrity performance artist publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. An investigator from the National Organ Registry obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed... Their mission — to use the artist's notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.
Release Date: 2022-05-25
Character: Wippet
Vote Count: 1143
The Middle Man
Frank Farrelli takes on the job as a middle man in the God-forsaken town of Karmack, USA, a community in a depression so deep that they need a middle man to professionally communicate more of the bad news.
Release Date: 2021-09-17
Character: Doctor
Vote Count: 44
The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw
A devout community suffering from a plague is torn apart by a beautiful young woman and the forces of witchcraft, black magic, and possession.
Release Date: 2020-09-30
Character: Bernard Buckley
Vote Count: 66
Target Number One
Ex heroin junkie, Daniel Léger, gets involved in a drug deal with the wrong people for the wrong reasons. When the deal goes sour, Daniel gets thrown into a Thai prison and slapped with a 100-year sentence. While he tries to survive his Bangkok incarceration, the news of his conviction captures the attention of Globe and Mail journalist Victor Malarek, who decides to go after the shady undercover cops responsible for wrongly accusing Daniel.
Release Date: 2020-07-10
Character: Norm
Vote Count: 125
Hey Lady!
Nothing is safe when fearlessly off-the-charts senior citizen Lady and her chain-smoking best friend embark on a rampage of urban vengeance, upturning everything in their path.
Release Date: 2020-01-14
Character: Dr. Wolfe
Episode Count: 5
Vote Count: 1
American Woman
A political activist helps take care of a group of America’s most wanted fugitives, including a well-known, recently radicalized heiress.
Release Date: 2019-09-12
Character: Newscaster 1 (voice)
Vote Count: 15
Waiting for Ishtar
A conversation about guilty pleasures turns into one man's quest to find others on a library waiting list, while simultaneously examining the fate of the famous Hollywood bomb Ishtar (1987).
Release Date: 2017-12-14
Character: Self
Meditation Park
A devoted wife and mother is forced to reassess her reverence for her husband after she finds another woman’s thong in his laundry.
Release Date: 2017-09-08
Character: Gabriel
Vote Count: 18
Blood Honey
Tortured by the memory of a childhood trauma, a woman returns after a decade to her family's fly-in hunting lodge to assist her siblings with their dying father, only to find herself stuck in a life threatening nightmare.
Release Date: 2017-09-01
Character: Dr. Bert Morrison
Vote Count: 15
Lolz-ita
A naïve but internet savvy 22 year old navigates the reality of her boring, small town Canadian life juxtaposed with the fantasy of her provocative and powerful Instagram celebrity.
Release Date: 2017-08-30
Character: Eric
Vote Count: 5
Window Horses
Rosie Ming, a young Canadian poet, is invited to perform at a Poetry Festival in Shiraz, Iran, but she’d rather be in Paris. She lives at home with her over-protective Chinese grandparents and has never been anywhere by herself. Once in Iran, she finds herself in the company of poets and Persians, all who tell her stories that force her to confront her past; the Iranian father she assumed abandoned her and the nature of Poetry itself. It’s about building bridges between cultural and generational divides. It’s about being curious. Staying open. And finding your own voice through the magic of poetry. Rosie goes on an unwitting journey of forgiveness, reconciliation, and perhaps above all, understanding, through learning about her father’s past, her own cultural identity, and her responsibility to it.
Release Date: 2017-03-10
Character: Dietmar
Vote Count: 16
Michael: Every Day
Every Day picks up five years after Micheal: Tuesdays & Thursdays, with Michael well established in his new city, and David struggling to continue his practice.
Release Date: 2017-01-15
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Episode Count: 6
Vote Count: 1
Your Mother and I
Johnna's dad changed the world. Or so he says. Whilst Johnna and her dad are talking, they can't seem to connect, each growing more and more frustrated with one another, revolving around one another in their own orbits.
Release Date: 2016-09-14
Character: Father
Vote Count: 7
Zoom
A multi-dimensional interface between a comic book artist, a novelist, and a film director. Each lives in a separate reality but authors a story about one of the others.
Release Date: 2015-09-11
Character: Horowitz
Vote Count: 105
Sensitive Skin
Davina and her husband Al try to revamp their lives as they struggle with the uncertainties of middle age.
Release Date: 2014-07-20
Department: Production
Job: Executive Producer
Character: Al
Episode Count: 12
Vote Count: 6
Three Days in Havana
A businessman gets caught up in an assassination plot when he travels to Cuba.
Release Date: 2014-03-28
Character: Pepe
Vote Count: 12
Subconscious Password
In this short animation, Oscar®-winning director Chris Landreth uses a common social gaffe - forgetting somebody's name - as the starting point for a mind-bending romp through the unconscious. Inspired by the classic TV game show Password, the film features a wealth of animated celebrity guests who try (and try, and try) to prompt Charles to remember the name. Finally, he realizes he will simply have to surrender himself to his predicament.
Release Date: 2013-06-10
Character: The Host (voice)
Vote Count: 8
I'm Yours
A road movie romance that conjures a heady concoction of free love and end of the world conspiracy.
Release Date: 2012-04-20
Character: Phil
Vote Count: 5
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
As bass guitarist for a garage-rock band, Scott Pilgrim has never had trouble getting a girlfriend; usually, the problem is getting rid of them. But when Ramona Flowers skates into his heart, he finds she has the most troublesome baggage of all: an army of ex-boyfriends who will stop at nothing to eliminate him from her list of suitors.
Release Date: 2010-08-12
Character: Director
Vote Count: 8056
Republic of Doyle
Jake Doyle and his ex-cop father, Malachy, run a Newfoundland detective agency. Their rugged seaside town never lacks for intriguing cases, and the Doyles don't always land on the right side of the law.
Release Date: 2010-01-06
Character: J.J. Murphy
Episode Count: 1
Vote Count: 36
Leslie, My Name Is Evil
A young jury member becomes infatuated with Leslie, a troubled teenager and former homecoming princess, who became a follower of Charles Manson's cult and is now on trial for murder.
Release Date: 2009-09-14
Character: Prosecutor
Vote Count: 25
Green Door
Release Date: 2008-09-07
Character: Ron
Redacted
A fictional documentary discusses the effects the Iraq war has had on soldiers and local people through interviews with members of an American military unit, the media, and local Iraqis.
Release Date: 2007-11-16
Character: Criminal Investigator (voice)
Vote Count: 173
Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story
In 1930s Saskatchewan Tommy Douglas, a small town parish pastor, sees the poverty and injustice around him which seem beyond his power to address from the pulpit. Douglas enters politics with the socialist Canadian Commonwealth Federation where his idealism runs into powerful opposition from the wealthy and the powerful. Despite the long odds, Douglas' new calling would soon make him a leader that would transform Canada.
Release Date: 2006-03-12
Character: Clarence Fines
Episode Count: 2
Vote Count: 2
Weird Sex and Snowshoes: A Trek Through the Canadian Cinematic Psyche
This compelling documentary explores Canadian film culture and tries to discover what defines Canadian film through interviews with notable filmmakers.
Release Date: 2004-01-01
Character: Self / Pokey Jones / Patrick Wheeler / Matt Shapiro / Brad
Vote Count: 4
Slings & Arrows
This darkly comic Canadian series follows the fortunes of a dysfunctional Shakespearean theatre troupe at the fictional New Burbage Festival, exposing the high drama, scorching battles, and artistic miracles that happen behind the scenes.
Release Date: 2003-11-03
Character: Darren Nichols
Episode Count: 18
Vote Count: 18
Odd Job Jack
Odd Job Jack was a Canadian animated comedy television show featuring Don McKellar, about one man's misadventures in temporary employment. Seen on and produced for the The Comedy Network, a cable specialty channel, and shown on Adult Swim in Latin America, the show has currently finished its production run as of its fourth season. The second season has been released to DVD, and seasons two through four can currently be seen on the on demand streaming video service Hulu.
Release Date: 2003-03-05
Character: Jack Ryder (voice)
Episode Count: 52
Vote Count: 1
Trudeau
This docu-drama spans fifteen turbulent years in the political and personal life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, one of the most enigmatic and polarizing Prime Ministers in Canadian history. The film explores the many facets of his character and his vision for his country which has both inspired and frustrated Canadians.
Release Date: 2002-03-31
Character: Greenbaum
Vote Count: 4
Degrassi
The life of a group of adolescents going through the trials and tribulations of teendom at Degrassi Community School.
Release Date: 2001-10-14
Character: Keith
Episode Count: 2
Vote Count: 99
Sea People
At 14, Amanda is a perfect swimmer and a great student. When the factory where his father works closes and he must go to work in another city, she feels very sad. One morning she meets the McRea, a very nice elderly couple who, like her, cannot live without the sea, although in another sense.
Release Date: 1999-06-21
Character: Mr. Whittaker
Vote Count: 6
The Passion of Ayn Rand
Author Ayn Rand becomes involved with a much younger and married man, to the dismay of those close to her.
Release Date: 1999-01-27
Character: Alfred
Vote Count: 12
Twitch City
Twitch City is a surreal sitcom set in the Toronto, Ontario neighbourhood of Kensington Market, and follows Curtis, a television addict who refuses to leave his apartment, and his friends and roommates Nathan and Hope. In the series' first episode, Nathan is sent to prison for killing a homeless man with a can of cat food, leaving Curtis and Hope to find a replacement roommate to help with the rent.
Release Date: 1998-01-19
Department: Writing
Job: Story
Character: Curtis
Episode Count: 7
Vote Count: 5
Sarabande
The film explores the relationships that a limousine driver, a doctor, and a real estate agent have amongst each other and with Yo-Yo Ma as he travels to Canada to perform Bach's Cello Suites.
Release Date: 1997-10-24
Character: Max
Vote Count: 2
In the Presence of Mine Enemies
In the Warsau ghetto of 1943, one man's struggle to keep his family together leads him to the ultimate crisis of faith and one final chance at redemption.
Release Date: 1997-04-20
Character: Paul Heller
Vote Count: 4
Once a Thief
Once a Thief is a 1997 Canadian television show inspired by the 1996 film of the same name.
Release Date: 1996-09-29
Episode Count: 1
Vote Count: 8
Never Met Picasso
Still living at home with his avant-garde actress mother, constantly rejected by art schools, and without a lover, aspiring painter Andrew decides to enter a contest in hopes of winning a six month stay in Kenya. Though things aren't great for Andrew, neither are they wonderful for his lesbian friend Lucy who constantly bickers with her lover Ingrid. Lucy complicates Andrew's life when she introduces him to the suspicious-looking, enigmatic Jerry.
Release Date: 1996-01-01
Character: Jerry
Vote Count: 4
Arrowhead
A man claims to have found a dinosaur skeleton in a vacant lot next to his apartment building.
Release Date: 1994-01-01
Character: Ray Bud
Vote Count: 1
My Niagara
Shadowed by the death of her mother, Julie Kumagai's life with her widower father is marked by pained, turbulent exchanges. Indifferent to a break-up with her boyfriend and the lure of a long-planned trip, she finds some refuge in her workplace where she meets Tetsuro, a young Korean man newly emigrated from Japan who is obsessed with all things American. But together they discover no easy resolutions.
Release Date: 1992-09-12
Character: Cabel
Vote Count: 2
The Adjuster
An uptight insurance man and his film-censor wife become a kinky couple's landlords.
Release Date: 1991-11-27
Character: Tyler, the young censor
Vote Count: 67