A collection of Canadian archival films, this is a website for anyone with an interest in history. For educators, these are innovative, accessible sources of history and tools for teaching. These century-old films cover a wide range of subjects and were highly popular in the era they were made. Both documentaries and narrative films are featured on this site. The former provides details about work and workplaces or important societal changes. Narrative films feature moral lessons that tell us much about attitudes and social values.
Sample titles:
Old Logging Mills 1930 (8:34)
Miners in the Making 1922 (9:49)
Life in a Mining Camp 1921 (3:35)
Read more: Canada’s Early Industrial Films are Useful to Labor and Social Historians
Category Archives: A: New/Just Added
THE MOVING PAST
ON THE END
2025; 1h 55m
Based on true story of a working-class couple’s fight against gentrification in the Hamptons. Tom, a down on his luck mechanic, finds unexpected love with a fellow outcast named Freckles, but their romance is put in jeopardy when the town of Montauk conspires to forcibly remove him from his home.
Director: Ari Selinger
Writer: Ari Selinger
Stars: Tim Blake Nelson, Mireille Enos, Anna Chlumsky
SHAME AND MONEY
2026; 2h 9m
Director: Visar Morina
Writers: Doruntina BashaVisar Morina
Stars: Astrit Kabashi, Flonja Kodheli, Fiona Gllavica
A proud family man struggles to provide as financial pressures mount. Though his mother and brother-in-law offer help, accepting support wounds his dignity. As stability slips away, he faces tough choices about pride versus survival.
“After losing their livelihood in a village, a Kosovar family is forced to move to the capital in pursuit of a place in a hypercapitalist society. Shame and Money is a finely crafted portrait of hardworking people striving for a decent life while navigating relentless pressures and chronic instability. Shaban, a traditional head of the household, wants to be the provider, yet his mother’s savings keep the family afloat, and accepting help from a wealthy brother-in-law comes with additional challenges. With his pride steadily bruised and dignity slipping out of reach, Shaban drifts closer to an unseen edge — raising the question of how much more he can possibly endure.”
TUNER
2025; 1h 49m
Director: Daniel Roher
Writers: Robert Ramsey, Daniel Roher
Stars: Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman, Havana Rose Liu
A talented piano tuner’s meticulous skills for tuning pianos lead him to discover an unexpected aptitude for cracking safes, turning his life upside down.
AMERICAN DOCTOR
United States/State of Palestine/Malaysia/Qatar 2026 93 min English, Arabic
Director: Poh Si Teng
Stars: Thaer AhmadMark PerlmutterFeroze Sidhwa
“When three American doctors — Palestinian, Jewish, and Zoroastrian — enter Gaza to save lives, they find themselves caught between medicine and politics, risking everything to expose the truth. From Gaza hospitals to the halls of American power, director Poh Si Teng unflinchingly depicts a terrible reality and also shows a path forward to engage on such a difficult issue with humanity and collective action.”
A USEFUL GHOST (Pee chai dai ka)
2025; 2h 10m
Director: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke
Writers: Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke, Geoffroy Grison
Stars: Davika Hoorne, Wisarut Himmarat, Apasiri Nitibhon
Thai filmmaker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke upends pre-existing genres with a fantastical story about a ghost that inhabits a vacuum cleaner to become useful. This humorous and visually striking debut feature was the Grand Prix winner of Cannes Critics’ Week.
After the death of an employee at a family-run appliance factory, a strange phenomenon occurs. Spirits are possessing their products. A forced closure by the authorities is imminent, but the coming of the ghosts ironically turns out to be good news for March (Wisarut Himmarat), the son of the factory owner, who is deep in mourning following the dust-poisoning death of his pregnant wife Nat (Davika Hoorne).
March is reunited with his beloved, who is now in the form of a vacuum cleaner. Changing the social conception of ghosts, Nat’s love makes her decide to be of service by getting rid of the useless ghosts. Alongside the tale of the couple is the story of a repair guy (Wanlop Rungkumjud) who shows up at the door of a self-declared “Academic Ladyboy” (Wisarut Homhuan) to fix another possessed vacuum. The intertwining stories and unimaginable turn of events reveal complex layers and deeper context beneath the setting dust. Don’t let the breathtaking images fool you. There is more than what meets the eye.
TIFF note
UNION
2024; 100 minutes; US
Follows former and current workers of Amazon, as they form the Amazon Labor Union, and take on the company to form a union.
Directed by Brett Story & Stephen Maing
THE MATRIX
1999; R; 2h 16m
When a beautiful stranger leads computer hacker Neo to a forbidding underworld, he discovers the shocking truth–the life he knows is the elaborate deception of an evil cyber-intelligence.
Directors: Lana Wachowski; Lilly Wachowski
Writers: Lilly Wachowski; Lana Wachowski
Stars: Keanu Reeves; Laurence Fishburne; Carrie-Anne Moss
THE DAY ICELAND STOOD STILL
2024; 1h 10m
Oct. 24, 1975, Iceland: 90% of women just took the day off, and men scrambled to fulfill their duties, sometimes comically so. A gleeful, amazing tale of the feminist collective, “The Red Stockings”, and their search for equality.
Director: Pamela Hogan
Writer: Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir
Stars: Guðrún Erlendsdóttir; Vigdís Finnbogadóttir; Ágústa Þorkelsdottir
THE LABOR FILM DATABASE 