Oh Canada

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Oh Canada

Released Dec 6, 2024

1h 35m

Drama

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

65%

Tomatometer

103 Reviews

90%

Popcornmeter

250+ Ratings

Fiery but feeling his years and his illness, ailing filmmaker Leonard Fife (Richard Gere) wants to tell his life story, unfiltered, before it's too late. As the director of lauded documentary exposés, he has much to be proud of, but his avoidance of the Vietnam War draft and his past relationships harbor thorny truths. Finally choosing to reveal the truth and lies in his life and career, Leonard sits for an extended filmed interview with his former student Malcolm (Michael Imperioli), charging ahead with candid stories about his younger self (Jacob Elordi) in the fractious 1960s and beyond. At Leonard's insistence, his wife and indispensable partner, Emma (Uma Thurman), hears it all. Leonard's successes are held up against his failings--the fibs held up against the facts--and as the man in full is cleansed of the myth, Leonard must confront what is left.

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Critics Consensus

Anchored by Richard Gere's egoless performance, Oh Canada is a thorny and sometimes muddled memory play that fits solidly into director Paul Schrader's self-reflective filmography.

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Stephen Romei

The Australian

...this film has had a profound effect on me. I wept during it...It may not have the same impact on other viewers, but that is the nature of art, and of life.

Rated: 5/5

Apr 3, 2025

Full Review

Sandra Hall

The Age (Australia)

In the end, the fragmentary shape of it all fails to invite any emotional investment in Leo or his story.

Rated: 3/5

Mar 27, 2025

Full Review

Peter Rainer

FilmWeek (LAist)

The movie doesn't have as much emotional weight as it should have been the narrative is so fractured.

Jan 17, 2025

Full Review

Clotilde Chinnici

The Indiependent

With its nonlinear and contradictory storytelling, Schrader invites us into the mind of a brilliant man as he faces his last moments and questions what kind of legacy he will leave to the people who survive him.

Rated: 4/5

Jul 27, 2025

Full Review

Cameron Ritter

Geek Vibes Nation

Oh, Canada is admittedly Schrader’s weakest production in recent memory but is still packed with moving ideas of mortality, memory, and reckoning with what we have done in our past.

Rated: 6.5/10

Jul 20, 2025

Full Review

Simon Foster

Screen-Space

Wheelchair-bound and conveying physical and emotional pain with an aching acuity, Richard Gere gives a career-best performance in iconoclast filmmaker Paul Schrader’s introspective study of a man struggling with legacy, memory and artistry.

Rated: 4/5

Mar 30, 2025

Full Review

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Ghederick Eshmont

A brilliant meditation on the self-indulgence of the “draft dodgers” of the Vietnam era…however the film ends so abruptly, it questions the point?

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

12/21/24

Full Review

Mimi

What a horrid, despicable, depressing look at someones life choices. What was Richard Gere thinking?? Do yourself a favor and go do anything, but see this film!

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

12/14/24

Full Review

Shannon P

It was moving, confusing, sad, and a trip back to the Vietnam war era. Worth a watch, especially if you expetienced that era.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

12/14/24

Full Review

*sunseasand *

A wonderful non-linear reflective which captures the evanescent nature of memory and profundity of regret. Beautiful performances by all. Evocative soundtrack by Matthew Huock. Excellent.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

07/07/25

Full Review

Joe G

A sadly disjointed memoir, anchored by two great performers, Richard Gere and Uma Thurman, but weighed down by a montage of mismatched scenes and subplots. It was like Schrader randomly opened the book and shot whatever was on that page. Then, running out of time or money, I suppose, left it to the editor to piece it all together. As voiceovers go, this is a good example of how to *not* use voiceovers. The movie lacks the discipline that any good filmmaker must exercise in the execution of the work. It leaves us with no one to root for (except, perhaps, Emma) and no sense of who anybody really was.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

06/19/25

Full Review

Alan W

Paul Schrader's adaptation of Russell Banks' novel Foregone now renamed Oh, Canada is barely 90mins long but it felt much longer. Ostensibly a film about Richard Gere's dying documentary filmmaker Leonard Fife reflecting upon his life on camera, where he's trying to reveal something less than savory about his celebrated past as a draft evader during the Vietnam War, he's your typical unreliable narrator where we're never sure whether those flashbacks we're watching are true or not. Jacob Elordi plays a younger Fife in the flashbacks but sometimes Gere plays that too. The use of different camera style, aspect ratios, colours and even voiceover POV point to something profound or meaningful, but it feels so deconstructed and intangible, I was never able to grasp what exactly that is. The end result is a stylized but confusing mess, a waste of its cast and perhaps not the best film to finish a super long flight and a 5-movie marathon.

Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars

06/16/25

Full Review

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Paul Schrader

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Jacob Elordi

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Oh Canada: Trailer 1

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Synopsis

Fiery but feeling his years and his illness, ailing filmmaker Leonard Fife (Richard Gere) wants to tell his life story, unfiltered, before it's too late. As the director of lauded documentary exposés, he has much to be proud of, but his avoidance of the Vietnam War draft and his past relationships harbor thorny truths. Finally choosing to reveal the truth and lies in his life and career, Leonard sits for an extended filmed interview with his former student Malcolm (Michael Imperioli), charging ahead with candid stories about his younger self (Jacob Elordi) in the fractious 1960s and beyond. At Leonard's insistence, his wife and indispensable partner, Emma (Uma Thurman), hears it all. Leonard's successes are held up against his failings--the fibs held up against the facts--and as the man in full is cleansed of the myth, Leonard must confront what is left.

Director: Paul Schrader
Producer: David Gonzales, Tiffany Boyle, Luisa Law, Scott LaStaiti, Meghan Hanlon
Screenwriter: Paul Schrader
Distributor: Kino Lorber
Production Co: Northern Lights, Vested Interest, Ottocento Films, Left Home
Genre: Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 6, 2024, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 21, 2025
Box Office (Gross USA): $199.0K
Runtime: 1h 35m
Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

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