The formally adventurous and psychologically intricate films of renowned Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan unfold according to complex, time-scrambling structures that heighten their searing emotional impact. Exploring issues of identity (including his own Armenian heritage), loss, alienation, and technology, Egoyan’s films frequently revolve around people struggling to make sense of their own shattered sense of self in the wake of profound personal tragedies. His provocative themes and elliptical style are on display in early critical triumphs like NEXT OF KIN and CALENDAR and reach new heights of virtuosity in his masterpieces EXOTICA and THE SWEET HEREAFTER, both of which are widely considered among the greatest Canadian films ever made.
This new piece with writer-director Atom Egoyan was recorded in 2020.
Directed by Atom Egoyan • 1984 • Canada
Starring Patrick Tierney, Berj Fazlian, Sirvart Fazlian
Atom Egoyan’s striking debut finds the director already working through the themes of technology, isolation, and identity that recur obsessively throughout his work. Peter (Patrick Tierney) is cataton...
Directed by Atom Egoyan • 1987 • Canada
Starring David Hemblen, Aidan Tierney, Gabrielle Rose
The fractured family of Atom Egoyan’s darkly comic second feature consists of Stan (David Hemblen), a mild sexual sadist; Sandra (Gabrielle Rose), his live-in mistress and video bondage partner; and his...
Directed by Atom Egoyan • 1989 • Canada
Starring Michael McManus, Arsinée Khanjian, Gabrielle Rose
Haunting images and obsessive sexuality merge in this postmodern thriller about loss, love, power, and the distance that modern technology puts between us. The story of four people—an actor/gigolo ...
Directed by Atom Egoyan • 1991 • Canada
Starring Elias Koteas, Arsinée Khanjian, Maury Chaykin
Noah Render (Elias Koteas) is an insurance claims adjuster who attends to his clients’ every need—including their sexual ones. His wife, Hera (Arsinée Khanjian), is a government censor who spends her d...
Directed by Atom Egoyan • 1993 • Canada
Starring Arsinée Khanjian, Ashot Adamyan, Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan’s at once witty and devastating investigation of identity, memory, and displacement stars the director as a Canadian photographer who, while on an assignment shooting churches in Armenia, fi...
Directed by Atom Egoyan • 1994 • Canada
Starring Bruce Greenwood, Mia Kirshner, Elias Koteas
Atom Egoyan’s acclaimed commercial breakthrough is both a seductive, hypnotic thriller and a shattering meditation on loss and grief. At the eponymous strip club, Francis (Bruce Greenwood), a deeply depr...
Directed by Atom Egoyan • 1997 • Canada
Starring Ian Holm, Sarah Polley, Bruce Greenwood
Winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes, Atom Egoyan’s masterful adaptation of a novel by Russell Banks traces the aftermath of a school bus accident in a small Canadian town that leaves fourteen children dead. W...
