Weekend at Bernie's and beyond: 7 movies we grew up with that are secretly Canadian

In April, CBC Arts surveyed critics, film programmers and journalists from across the country, and the results of that poll were revealed last week in our project: CBC Arts presents: The 50 Greatest Films Directed by Canadians. 

Back in the springtime, while researching what to scrawl on my very own survey ballot (read: 15 minutes of Googling), I started building an exhaustive list of Hollywood directors with Canadian roots. My search criteria: were they born here? Did they move here? Was there any record of them mentioning the following terms in a press bio: NFB, CBC, "Celine Dion music video"? If I could find any of those clues on their IMDB, they were in.

The research confirmed my suspicions: Canadians are everywhere in Hollywood, as common as a Tim Horton's drive-thru in suburban Ontario. And yet, as my list grew, I made an astounding discovery. Back in the '90s, it would have been impossible to enter a video store that wasn't displaying a Canadian-directed movie on the new release rack, and I'm not just talking about Terminator 2 (No. 11 on the Greatest 50 list). Canadians have been the makers of cult classics, cheeseball family favourites — and at least a couple titles you probably wore out on VHS. 

Are any of them great? That's a matter of opinion, and considering the results of our critics' survey, the average film expert would likely say otherwise. Still, I've pulled a small selection, the perfect amount for a seven-day rental. If you're old enough to remember Blockbuster Video, you've probably seen these flicks a billion times, but there's a very good chance that you don't know they're directed by Canadians.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, 1989

Director: Jeremiah S. Chechik

Born in Montreal, Chechik went on to direct Benny & Joon (1993) and Disney's Tall Tale (1995), and he's recently been working in TV, serving as a director and executive producer on the SyFy comedy Reginald the Vampire. But back in '89, he was ready for his feature debut, landing on the set of Christmas Vacation after the previous director, Chris Columbus, quit the project. Columbus would go on to direct another John Hughes screenplay (Home Alone, 1990), and like that picture, Christmas Vacation is a beaut of a holiday comedy — a beaut! 

Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo, Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki star as the Griswold family (or the core Griswolds, at least; their entire extended fam comes to visit in this advent calendar of Murphy's Law hijinx). Christmas Vacation is the third chapter of National Lampoon's Vacation series, and upon release, it was a bigger box-office hit than the Griswolds' prior misadventures: Vacation (1983) and European Vacation (1985). Over the decades, the movie's remained a staple of holiday viewing, but even if your family never fired up the VCR to watch it, you already know its most famous bit: Clark's epic struggle with "25,000 imported Italian twinkle lights." (Heck, Chase and D'Angelo re-enacted the gag for a 2020 Ford commercial.)

Angels in the Outfield, 1994

Director: William Dear

In an early scene, the California Angels (our titular heroes), get whooped by the Toronto Blue Jays. Sure, the Jays were the reigning World Series champs when this Disney flick was filmed, but the cameo should have tipped me off way back when: this one's got a Canadian director. 

Born in Toronto in 1944, William Dear was raised on movies. His mom was the manager of the Uptown Theatre on Yonge Street, and according to past interviews, he spent much of his childhood hanging around the cinema. In turn, his Hollywood CV is stacked with kid-friendly fare, including Harry and the Hendersons (1987) and Wild America (1997), but Angels in the Outfield is an unusual nugget of childhood nostalgia, a movie well-remembered by '90s kids, although it's conspicuously absent from the Disney+ streaming library. 

Back in the '90s, Disney actually bought a controlling stake in the real-life Angels, and on the cinematic side of the IP, the movie spawned two made-for-TV sequels in 1997 and 2000. Dear's film, however, is a remake of the 1951 movie of the same name. It's the story of a little boy named Roger (Joseph Gordon Levitt) who believes he can mend his broken family if the Angels win the pennant.

His prayers are answered by actual angels, a flock that's led by a heavenly goon named Al (Christopher Lloyd). And in a crucial plot device that should leave you questioning the film's grasp of moral, spiritual and sporting matters, the angels help the team cheat their way to victory. Only Roger can actually see these celestial crooks in action, but the Angels' gruff-but-kindly coach (Danny Glover) has faith in the kid's visions, never letting the team on to what's happening. And those players! A couple of the dudes getting thrown around the stadium went on to win Oscars. If you can somehow track down a copy, watch for Adrien Brody and Matthew McConaughey.

Weekend at Bernie's, 1989

Director: Ted Kotcheff

Weekend at Bernie's definitely appeared on a few of our critics' ballots for the 50 Greatest list. It never made the final ranking, though, and maybe this quick summary will help explain why: In Weekend at Bernie's, two corporate strivers (Andrew McCarthy and Jonathan Silverman) drag their dead boss around the Hamptons, somehow convincing the community (and a pack of hitmen) that Bernie is not, in fact, a decomposing meat puppet in a windbreaker, but totes alive and ready to party. It's dark, absurd, bizarre — the sort of one-joke premise that never should have worked. And unless you count the 1993 sequel, there's really nothing like it.

Director Ted Kotcheff was already a veteran director when he took the project. A University of Toronto grad, Kotcheff got his start at CBC in the 1950s, directing TV dramas while he was still in his early 20s. From there, he pursued his screen career in England and Australia, returning to Canada for The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974), an adaptation of the novel by Mordecai Richler (one of his long-time buddies). The film would earn an Oscar nomination for its screenplay, and Kotcheff would go on to direct Fun with Dick and Jane (1977) and First Blood (1982), the world's introduction to Rambo. And then came Weekend at Bernie's. 

When the film turned 25, People magazine reflected on its legacy: "over the course of two-plus decades Weekend at Bernie's has managed to age into something close to respectability." The critics never loved it, but audiences made the movie a hit, and it doubled its $15 million US budget at the box office. Home video and TV probably kept Bernie's memory alive through the '90s — at least enough to get it name checked on Friends. (It's Rachel's favourite movie.) And Bernie's still kicking: he's inspired countless memes, a dance craze … and even a Shaggy video that came out last week.

Turner & Hooch, 1989

Director: Roger Spottiswoode 

Never work with corpses or animals. That's the old saying, right? Back in 1989, everybody was cool with ignoring that wisdom, I guess, because in the same year we got Weekend at Bernie's, Hollywood produced two separate buddy comedies about cops with canine partners. There was K-9, starring Jim Belushi. And then there's the one that's somehow stuck around: Turner & Hooch — a.k.a. the one with Tom Hanks, a hulking French mastiff and a Canadian director. 

That director is Roger Spottiswoode, an Ottawa-born/UK-raised filmmaker whose father worked for the National Film Board. In his long movie career, Spottiswoode has made action blockbusters including Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and The 6th Day (2000). But Turner & Hooch happens to be written by a fellow Canadian and second-gen filmmaker, Daniel Petrie Jr. Like Spottiswoode, Petrie Jr. would eventually move behind the camera (In the Army Now, 1994) and when Turner & Hooch was made, he already had a blockbuster screenplay to his credit, 1984's Beverly Hills Cop.

As the story goes, Turner & Hooch broke Hollywood records when Touchstone Pictures paid $1 million US for the script, a story that's as simple as it is goofy: Turner is a straight-laced police detective with neat-freak tendencies; Hooch is, well, a dog — an animal imbued with all the natural gifts of mayhem that entails. And together, they solve a murder … when Hooch isn't chomping on Turner's record collection. As silly as all that sounds, the movie begat a Hooch Cinematic Universe, one that includes a TV-movie sequel and a streaming-series reboot that aired for one season on Disney+ (2021).

Coyote Ugly, 2000

Director: David McNally

It's the year 2000. The place: a bar in New York's Lower East Side, and out on the floor, it's chaos. The people are screeching, fighting and pawing at the coyotes, bartenders required to dance and holler slogans on cue like they're singing waiters at a TGI Friday's. If someone asks for water, it's company policy to publicly shame the patron, a process led by supermodels (Tyra Banks, Bridget Moynahan) and enforced by the proprietor (Maria Bello). Welcome to hell, pals. This is the world of Coyote Ugly, and in the early 2000s, hell is what the people wanted, I guess, so long as LeAnn Rimes was on the soundtrack. 

Based on a real-life chain of bars that are still in operation, the movie was something of a pop culture phenomenon, arriving at a time when magazines looked like Maxim, and it was OK for your boss to shred your favourite shirt off your body without consent. Actually, that was never OK, but Coyote Ugly was still a smash at the box office, earning nearly $114 million US worldwide. The two soundtracks it generated were also hits, particularly the first, a compilation that went four-times platinum in the States (and five-times platinum in Canada). Its director, David McNally, also made the music video for the movie's country-pop theme, "Can't Fight the Moonlight," and the world of music videos is where he got his start.

Raised in Montreal, the British-born director directed clips for Can Con stars like Lisa Lougheed before arriving in Hollywood, and if one ancient press bio is to be trusted, he was also the in-house fashion video director for Le Chateau, a job so Canadian I can't quite believe it's real. His filmography is limited, however. After Coyote Ugly, which was his feature debut, McNally directed Kangaroo Jack (2003) — both were produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

Lilo & Stitch, 2002

Directors: Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders

You know the line. It's often repeated and occasionally tattooed on devoted Disney adults: "Ohana means family, and family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten." So in that spirit, I'm including Lilo & Stitch in this list, even though one of its directors is American. The Canadian, though? That's Dean DeBlois, a Sheridan College grad who wrote and directed the film with Chris Sanders, a creative partnership that also produced the Oscar-winning How to Train Your Dragon franchise. But Lilo & Stitch is where it started for the duo, over at Walt Disney Animation Studios.

The story opens with an alien on the lam, a creature engineered to be vile, foul, flawed — but also cute and fluffy. You can call him Stitch (a.k.a. Experiment 626), and when he crashes on Earth, he's taken in by a pair of sisters who are struggling to make it on their own, Lilo (Daveigh Chase) and her grown-up big sis Nani (Tia Carrere). 

Wacky but sweet, just like its main characters, Lilo & Stitch has become a Disney favourite despite all odds. After a decade of serious, fairy-tale epics — modern classics that were spoofed in the movie's original marketing campaign — Lilo & Stitch took a new path, but it's core theme of chosen family gives the comedy a gooey centre, a genuine sense of heart that's maintained its charm and relevance over the years. Stitch himself has become a one-creature industry, spawning three straight-to-video sequels, plus TV series and spin-offs. And there is, unsurprisingly, a Disney remake in the works. As for DeBlois, he's currently attached to another reboot: a live-action version of How to Train Your Dragon, which he'll write and direct on his own. 

Empire Records, 1995

Director: Allan Moyle

For a movie that was an absolute flop at the box office, making little more than $300,000 US, Empire Records was a sleeper hit on video, and all these years later, it's remained a cult favourite, an artifact of pre-internet tween life, when a minimum-wage gig at the local record shop was the ultimate dream job, and there was no greater sin than selling out. In other words, damn the man, save the Empire.

The story captures a surreal day-in-the-life at a record store. Not just any day, but Rex Manning Day, and if you already know what that means, then you, like me, are almost certainly a member of the same micro-generation, a cohort saddled with the unfortunate label "geriatric millennial." From about the age of 13, I can't think of a single sleepover or after-school hang where Empire Records wasn't played. And somehow, I wasn't alone. Kids everywhere were doing the exact same thing — a cult phenomenon that's never been fully explained, although some exhaustive histories, like this thoughtful retrospective, have traced its rise. 

The music might have been part of the movie's allure. Featuring songs by the Gin Blossoms and the Cranberries, the sound is as '90s as a Big Shiny Tunes compilation, and when the film came out, Variety called Empire Records "a soundtrack in search of a movie" — as if that's ever a bad thing. As for the cast, it's packed with stars on the brink of fame, and the main ensemble includes Renée Zellweger, Robin Tunney, Liv Tyler and Ethan Embry (a duo who'd reunite the next year for That Thing You Do).

Director Allan Moyle, an indie filmmaker from Shawinigan, had previously helmed another cult classic, 1990's Pump Up the Volume, starring Christian Slater as a pirate-radio DJ. When that film came out, it was met with acclaim, earning several nominations at the Independent Spirit Awards. But all through the '90s, Moyle had no clue about Empire Records' burgeoning cult status. As the story goes, decades passed before he discovered it.

By the 2010s, the movie's fandom had all grown up — turning Rex Manning Day into one of those annual meme-sharing rituals, like posting N*Sync gifs on April 30 because it's "gonna be May." In 2014, a sold-out outdoor screening at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery reunited members of the cast, and according to Buzzfeed News: "the scene was beyond Moyle's wildest imagination: fans in costume, people yelling the lines at the screen, and a massive, wholly spontaneous group dance-along to match the one on the screen in the film's final moments. It was, in Moyle's words, the premiere Empire Records never had."