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Bruce McDonald

Bruce McDonald

Highest Rated: 100% Speaking Parts (1990)

Lowest Rated: 35% Hellions (2015)

Birthday: May 28, 1959

Birthplace: Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Bruce McDonald is one of Canada's most inventive and eclectic directors, marrying a love of punk rock immediacy with an interest in formalist techniques. After attending the film program at Toronto's Ryerson University, McDonald began his career with the whimsically strange "Roadkill," which he followed with the road trip comedy "Highway 61." Both films featured actress Valerie Buhagiar, at the time McDonald's girlfriend. The second co-starred and was written by Don McKellar, a fellow Toronto filmmaker who would prove to be one of McDonald's most frequent collaborators. Most notably, the pair co-created "Twitch City," an absurdist sitcom set in downtown Toronto's Kensington neighborhood that starred McKellar as an agoraphobic TV addict. McDonald's other TV work includes several directing credits on the popular teen series "Degrassi: The Next Generation," which brought him several awards from the Directors Guild of Canada. He has developed an interest in experimental film techniques over the years. After the bleak mockumentary "Hard Core Logo," he directed the emotionally and visually complex "The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess," the claustrophobic horror film "Pontypool," and perhaps his best-known work, the visually stunning "The Tracey Fragments," a film about a teenage girl's mental breakdown starring a pre-"Juno" Ellen Page and filmed entirely using split-screen techniques that at times featured over a dozen simultaneous images. Most of these films had original soundtracks by McDonald's favorite band, Broken Social Scene. In 2010, McDonald directed "This Movie Is Broken," a romantic comedy with a Broken Social Scene concert as its centerpiece.

Highest rated movies

86% Edge Codes.com: The Art of Motion Picture Editing
69% Hard Core Logo

Photos

PONTYPOOL, director Bruce McDonald, on set, 2008. Ph: Caitlin Cronenberg/©IFC Films

Filmography

Movies

Credit
54% No Score Yet Dreamland Director - 2019
93% 96% Weirdos Director - 2016
35% 16% Hellions Director - 2015
No Score Yet 27% Hellmouth Kemp (Character) - 2014
83% 44% The Husband Director - 2013
50% 79% Music From the Big House Director - 2010
No Score Yet 72% My Babysitter's a Vampire Director - 2010
No Score Yet 40% Hard Core Logo II Bruce the Filmmaker (Character),
Director
- 2010
83% 44% This Movie Is Broken Director - 2010
88% 64% Trigger Director - 2010
84% 68% Pontypool Director $3.5K 2008
42% 54% The Tracey Fragments Director,
Executive Producer
$31.6K 2007
No Score Yet 17% Killer Wave Director - 2006
86% 100% Edge Codes.com: The Art of Motion Picture Editing Unknown (Character) - 2004
No Score Yet No Score Yet The Love Crimes of Gillian Guess Director - 2004
No Score Yet 36% Picture Claire Director - 2001
No Score Yet 59% Vinyl Executive Producer - 2000
No Score Yet No Score Yet Stuff Executive Producer - 1999
No Score Yet No Score Yet Twitch City Director - 1998
No Score Yet No Score Yet Scandalous Me: The Jacqueline Susann Story Director - 1998
No Score Yet No Score Yet Elimination Dance Director,
Writer
- 1998
No Score Yet No Score Yet Platinum Director - 1997
69% 89% Hard Core Logo Documentary Filmmaker (Character),
Director
$133.3K 1996
69% 90% Dance Me Outside Director,
Writer,
Producer
- 1994
100% 84% Highway 61 Director $8.7K 1991
100% 68% Speaking Parts Film Editing - 1990
No Score Yet 79% Roadkill Bruce Shack (Character),
Director,
Producer
- 1989

TV

Credit
No Score Yet No Score Yet Malory Towers Director 2020 2022-2024
No Score Yet 60% Sight Unseen Director 2024
No Score Yet 73% Ride Director 2023
No Score Yet 67% Creeped Out Director 2017-2019
No Score Yet 79% Ransom Director 2018
66% 81% Lost Girl Director 2015
89% 89% Dark Matter Director 2015
No Score Yet 69% Bitten Director 2015
86% 83% Reign Director 2013
55% 84% Bomb Girls Director 2013
85% No Score Yet Kevin Hill Director 2004
No Score Yet No Score Yet Degrassi: The Next Generation Director 2001-2003
No Score Yet No Score Yet Welcome to Paradox Director 1998