Streaming services offer Canadians homegrown movies and TV shows

Oh, Canadiana

STEVE TILLEY

SPECIAL TO POSTMEDIA NETWORK

Now that the post-Canada Day weekend hangover has kicked in, you might want to just curl up on the couch and feed your eyeballs and earholes some classic Canuck fare.

It’s a bit of a tricky proposition, though. Plenty of films and TV shows are shot but not set in Canada, including everything from

to to about a billion sci-fi shows that try to make Vancouver look like somewhere else.

And some of the best-loved Canada-as-Canada movies and series aren’t available on any of the subscription streaming services.

All is not lost, though. Adopting that famous Canadian can-do attitude, we dug deep into the catalogues of the major streaming services available in the Great White North to come up with some of the best Canadian-made, Canadian-set movies and TV shows that you can watch right now. of this long-running and slightly corny whodunit series about a Toronto Constabulary detective in the late 19th century, but it has absolute LEGIONS of devotees all across the world, so it must be doing something right. Plus, star Yannick Bisson has the dreamiest eyes this side of the Rockies.

When this movie came out, it seemed to be trying way too hard to prove that Canadians can make (sort of), funny, (kind of), bigbudget movies about Canadians. The result is not bad, if you can overlook the “HEY EVERYONE, THISISABIGFUNNYCANADIAN MOVIE AND ALSO A BUNCH OF IT IS IN FRENCH, MON DIEU!” self-consciousness. Plus, Colm Feore is awesome in just about anything.

is nowhere to be found on the streaming services, but this other creepy David Cronenberg classic is part of Shudder’s massive catalogue of horror flicks. Jeremy Irons plays twin Toronto gynecologists Elliot and Beverly Mantle with such cold perfection that it made us afraid of the doctor’s office for a good long while. The series is unabashedly set in Toronto, despite having worldwide distribution.

Brent Butt’s sitcom about the inhabitants of Dog River, Sask., isn’t exactly cutting-edge comedy, but it’s undeniably a slice of pure Canadiana, and has been eagerly gobbled up by audiences worldwide. Some of whom still make pilgrimages to Rouleau, Sask., to see the grain elevator repainted with the name of the show’s fictional town.

isn’t just a great Canadian hockey movie, it’s a great — and hilarious — sports movie, full stop. A post-Stifler Seann William Scott is awesome as Doug “The Thug” Glatt, a big-hearted enforcer with the Halifax Highlanders hockey team. The standout Canadianheavy cast includes the likes of Alison Pill, Marc-Andre Grondin and co-writer Jay Baruchel as Doug ’s foul-mouthed friend.