Donald Brittain

Donald Brittain, a revered Canadian figure, remains cherished for his genuine nature and unparalleled storytelling. He created over 100 acclaimed films, like "Volcano" (1976) portraying Malcolm Lowry and "Paperland" (1979) exposing Canadian bureaucrats. His breakthrough came with "Fields of Sacrifice" (1963), marking a shift in his career. Brittain's legacy isn't just his films; his camaraderie and perfectionism left a lasting impact at the National Film Board. Two decades after his passing, his absence is deeply felt by all who knew him.

Additional information:

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Director:
1961  Everybody's Prejudiced
1964  Bethune
1964  Fields of Sacrifice
1966  Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen
1966  Never a Backward Step
1967  Creative Person: Leonard Cohen
1967  Memorandum
1968  Saul Alinsky Went to War
1970  Tiger Child
1973  Starblanket
1974  Dreamland: A History of Early Canadian Movies 1895-1939
1974  King of the Hill
1976  His Worship, Mr. Montréal
1976  Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry
1978  Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle
1978  Small Is Beautiful: Impressions of Fritz Schumacher
1978  The Champions, Part 1: Unlikely Warriors
1978  The Champions, Part 2: Trappings of Power
1978  The Dionne Quintuplets
1979  Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed
1981  The Running Man
1983  The Accident
1985  Canada's Sweetheart: The Saga of Hal C. Banks
1986  The Champions, Part 3: The Final Battle
1991  Family: A Loving Look at CBC Radio

Producer:
1961  Everybody's Prejudiced
1964  Bethune
1964  Fields of Sacrifice
1966  A Trip Down Memory Lane
1966  Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen
1966  Never a Backward Step
1967  Creative Person: Leonard Cohen
1967  Memorandum
1968  Saul Alinsky Went to War
1970  Tiger Child
1971  The Apprentice
1973  Starblanket
1974  Dreamland: A History of Early Canadian Movies 1895-1939
1974  King of the Hill
1974  Thunderbirds in China
1976  His Worship, Mr. Montréal
1976  Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry
1978  Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle
1978  Small Is Beautiful: Impressions of Fritz Schumacher
1978  The Champions, Part 1: Unlikely Warriors
1978  The Champions, Part 2: Trappings of Power
1978  The Dionne Quintuplets
1979  Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed
1981  The Running Man
1983  The Accident
1985  Canada's Sweetheart: The Saga of Hal C. Banks
1986  The Champions, Part 3: The Final Battle
1991  Family: A Loving Look at CBC Radio

Screenplay:
1961  Everybody's Prejudiced
1964  Bethune
1964  Fields of Sacrifice
1966  A Trip Down Memory Lane
1966  Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen
1966  Never a Backward Step
1967  Creative Person: Leonard Cohen
1967  Memorandum
1968  Saul Alinsky Went to War
1970  Tiger Child
1971  The Apprentice
1973  Starblanket
1974  Dreamland: A History of Early Canadian Movies 1895-1939
1974  King of the Hill
1974  Thunderbirds in China
1976  His Worship, Mr. Montréal
1976  Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry
1978  Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle
1978  Small Is Beautiful: Impressions of Fritz Schumacher
1978  The Champions, Part 1: Unlikely Warriors
1978  The Champions, Part 2: Trappings of Power
1978  The Dionne Quintuplets
1979  Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed
1981  The Running Man
1983  The Accident
1985  Canada's Sweetheart: The Saga of Hal C. Banks
1986  The Champions, Part 3: The Final Battle
1991  Family: A Loving Look at CBC Radio

Script:
1961  Everybody's Prejudiced
1964  Bethune
1964  Fields of Sacrifice
1966  A Trip Down Memory Lane
1966  Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen
1966  Never a Backward Step
1967  Creative Person: Leonard Cohen
1967  Memorandum
1968  Saul Alinsky Went to War
1970  Tiger Child
1971  The Apprentice
1973  Starblanket
1974  Dreamland: A History of Early Canadian Movies 1895-1939
1974  King of the Hill
1974  Thunderbirds in China
1976  His Worship, Mr. Montréal
1976  Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry
1978  Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle
1978  Small Is Beautiful: Impressions of Fritz Schumacher
1978  The Champions, Part 1: Unlikely Warriors
1978  The Champions, Part 2: Trappings of Power
1978  The Dionne Quintuplets
1979  Canada Vignettes: Wop May
1979  Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed
1981  The Running Man
1983  The Accident
1985  Canada's Sweetheart: The Saga of Hal C. Banks
1986  The Champions, Part 3: The Final Battle
1991  Family: A Loving Look at CBC Radio

Writer:
1961  Everybody's Prejudiced
1962  The Clouded Dawn
1964  Bethune
1964  Fields of Sacrifice
1965  Buster Keaton Rides Again
1966  A Trip Down Memory Lane
1966  Helicopter Canada
1966  Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen
1966  Never a Backward Step
1966  Stravinsky
1967  Creative Person: Leonard Cohen
1967  Memorandum
1967  What on Earth!
1968  Saul Alinsky Went to War
1970  Tiger Child
1971  The Apprentice
1973  Starblanket
1974  Dreamland: A History of Early Canadian Movies 1895-1939
1974  King of the Hill
1974  Thunderbirds in China
1975  Scoggie
1975  Whistling Smith
1976  His Worship, Mr. Montréal
1976  Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry
1978  Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle
1978  Small Is Beautiful: Impressions of Fritz Schumacher
1978  The Champions, Part 1: Unlikely Warriors
1978  The Champions, Part 2: Trappings of Power
1978  The Dionne Quintuplets
1979  Canada Vignettes: Wop May
1979  Paperland: The Bureaucrat Observed
1981  The Running Man
1983  The Accident
1985  Canada's Sweetheart: The Saga of Hal C. Banks
1985  First Stop, China
1986  Mobility
1986  The Champions, Part 3: The Final Battle
1991  Family: A Loving Look at CBC Radio
????  The World Of Enrico Fermi

Director:
1977  For The Record

About the Movie Section

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Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).

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Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)

While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:

  • I added "runners up" to Top 10 lists, treating them as ties where applicable and numbering them accordingly at the bottom of each list.
  • Regarding those polls wherein "franchise" movies were submitted as one project until BFI's policy changed to regard them separately, I treated them as ties and renumbered the affected lists accordingly (e.g. the Godfather films).

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Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).

Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.

Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.