Peter Krantz

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.

A cat burglar is forced to take a bickering, dysfunctional family hostage on Christmas Eve.

A couple's life is torn apart by the disappearance of their new-born son.

The story of an Olympic high jumper, played by Brent Carver, who loses his leg and yet doggedly persists in his pursuit of athletic glory. Released a year before Terry Fox's Marathon of Hope, this made-for-Canadian-TV movie, which also stars Sex and the City's Kim Cattrall, has been described as a tear-jerker.

A humorous and inspiring adventure about an ordinary middle school student who strikes up an online friendship with someone bearing the screen name Average Joe, only to discover that he's been corresponding with and giving political advice to the President of the United States.

Hotel employee Lisa develops an obsession with her co-worker Lance, a struggling actor who has appeared in several films as an extra.

A murderous sociopath (and former battered child) uses her naive younger brother in a scheme to do away with her inconvenient lover.

Sam Giancana is a ruthless mob boss from Chicago. During a trip to Las Vegas, he sees a performance by the McGuire Sisters, a popular singing group with a pure image. Sam is attracted to Phyllis and begins aggressively courting her. The two enter into an epic romance, but it brings unwanted attention and tarnishes Phyllis's reputation. For Sam, however, the consequences are far more drastic, landing him in trouble with the law and his fellow mobsters.

This finely crafted drama, set in Ontario's cottage country, revolves around two teenaged boys from the city who pick up two local girls on a Saturday night and take them for a ride. Based on an Alice Munro short story, Thanks for the Ride is about values and morals, expectations and broken dreams, class differences and peer pressure. It is also about the overwhelming intensity of adolescent emotions and that momentous event--the first sexual encounter. An excellent film for use in family life, values education, Canadian literature, and creative writing courses.