The NFB is committed to respecting your privacy

We use cookies to ensure that our site works efficiently, as well as for advertising purposes.

If you do not wish to have your information used in this way, you can modify your browser settings before continuing your visit.

Learn more
Skip to content
My List
Your request could not be processed.
This film is already in your list

Couples (29)

  • "... and They Lived Happily Ever After"
    "... and They Lived Happily Ever After"
    Kathleen Shannon Irene Angelico , … 1975 13 min
    Made in 1975, as part of the Challenge for Change program, this film takes a long, hard look at marriage and motherhood as expressed in the views of a group of young girls and married women. Their opinions cover a wide range. At regular intervals glossy advertisements extolling romance, weddings, babies, flash across the screen, in strong contrast to the words that are being spoken. The film ends on a sobering thought: the solution to dashed expectations could be as simple as growing up before marriage.
  • Act of Dishonour
    Act of Dishonour
    Nelofer Pazira 2009 1 h 30 min
    Set in the northern region of Afghanistan, this feature drama tells the story of a young bride-to-be who strays from local customs after befriending an Afghan-Canadian translator. Part lament against injustice, part testament to the spirit of a people who have survived decades of war, this film is a compelling drama in which East and West, love and honour, modernity and custom clash with tragic consequences.
  • Between You and You All
    Between You and You All
    Gilles Groulx 1969 1 h 4 min
    A chronicle of daily life that lays bare people’s dependency on consumer society, which reduces and degrades individuals via its very structures—and which, the filmmaker argues, must be challenged and transformed. There is no story as such—that is, no conventional episodic structure or plot, but rather a sequence of seven tableaux depicting the life of a couple and its gradual disintegration, set against the socio-economic backdrop of 1969, a world in which seduction is ever-present.
  • The Big Snit
    The Big Snit
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Richard Condie 1985 9 min
    This wonderful wacky animation film looks at two simultaneous conflicts, a macrocosm of global nuclear war and a microcosm of a domestic quarrel, and how each conflict is resolved. Filled with warmth and unexpectedly off-the-wall humour, the film leaves it to viewers to decide which Snit has really been the Big One.

    Love this film?
  • Crossroads
    Crossroads
    Don Haldane 1957 28 min
    This sensitive drama tells the story of a couple, Roy and Judy, and the reactions they encounter when they announce their intention to marry, reactions complicated by the fact that Roy is black and Judy is white.
  • The Cannonball Woman
    The Cannonball Woman
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Albertine Zullo  &  David Toutevoix 2017 14 min
    Madeleine the human cannonball puts on a spectacular travelling show with her husband. But at home, every day seems to unfold just like the one before it. The Cannonball Woman is a bittersweet stop-motion animated film about love standing the test of time.
  • The Deserter
    The Deserter
    Julian Biggs 1956 30 min
    This short drama highlights the work of the Family Welfare Service in its compassionate tale of a husband who abandons his wife and children. Part of the Perspective series.
  • Heaven on Earth
    Heaven on Earth
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Deepa Mehta 2008 1 h 44 min
    In Heaven on Earth, acclaimed director Deepa Mehta highlights the isolation and disappointment faced by a family of Punjabi immigrants to Canada. When Chand leaves her family and community behind in India to marry a man she's never met in Brampton, Ontario, she finds herself at the mercy of his temper and her mother-in-law's controlling behaviour.

    After a magic root fails to transform her husband into a kind and loving man, Chand takes refuge in a familiar Indian folk tale featuring a King Cobra.
  • J.A. Martin Photographer
    J.A. Martin Photographer
    Jean Beaudin 1977 1 h 41 min
    In this feature drama, a wife takes the courageous decision to leave her 5 children at home and accompany her husband on his yearly summer tour as an itinerant photographer. This despite housework, routine and 14 years of marriage having created a mutual indifference. They travel through a turn-of-the-century countryside of narrow lanes and old-time weddings, but most importantly, to an eventual rediscovery of each other.
  • Kid Stuff
    Kid Stuff
    Pierre M. Trudeau 1990 5 min
    How conflict between parents is reflected in the anguished drawing of a child. An animated film combining puppets and drawings on paper. Film without words.
  • The Last Glacier
    The Last Glacier
    Roger Frappier  &  Jacques Leduc 1984 1 h 23 min
    Schefferville, a single-industry town, is closing down because the mine that gave it birth has ceased operation. There is a general exodus. The film singles out Raoul and Carmen, for whom the demise of the town signals the irrevocable breakdown of their marriage. Professional actors mix smoothly with the local population to heighten the documentary aspect of this drama. The resulting docudrama illustrates the vulnerability of the citizens of these artificially created towns. With English sub-titles.
  • The Masculine Mystique
    The Masculine Mystique
    John N. Smith  &  Giles Walker 1984 1 h 26 min
    This feature-length drama explores the changing role of men in today's society by delving into the stories of 4 men and their relationships with women. Blue, in his mid-30s, has spent his adult years searching for the right woman, without any luck. Alex, the same age as Blue, married with two small children, says he needs his freedom. He's having an affair. Mort and Ashley are both in their 40s, divorced with children. Mort has found someone new but she balks at a permanent relationship. Ashley, devastated by his divorce, is unwilling to risk a new commitment.
  • Multiple Choices - Picture Perfect
    Multiple Choices - Picture Perfect
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Alison Burns 1995 12 min
    It's never easy reconciling fairy tales to reality, especially when the reality is, to say the least, complicated. You know things are tough when young people don't expect a good relationship, let alone a perfect one, because as one young woman puts it, "all good things must come to an end." Participants discuss their expectations of marriage, homosexual relationships, and how the changing roles (and role models) of men and women have affected marital responsibilities.
  • Multiple Choices - Loves Me Loves Me Not
    Multiple Choices - Loves Me Loves Me Not
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Alison Burns 1995 17 min
    What's love got to do with it? Not only has the importance we place on romantic love changed through the centuries, betrothal customs and rituals differ from culture to culture and between men and women. The participants discuss fidelity, monogamy, polygamy, arranged marriages, love and lust and how love has figured in their relationships.
  • Nose and Tina
    Nose and Tina
    Norma Bailey 1980 27 min
    This short documentary tells the unusual story of Nose and Tina, 2 people in love. He is employed as a brakeman, she as a sex worker. The film captures the domestic details of their life together and documents their hassles with work, money and the law.
  • Namrata
    Namrata
    Shazia Javed 2009 9 min
    This short documentary tells the intensely personal story of Namrata Gill – one of the many real-life inspirations for Deepa Mehta’s Heaven on Earth – in her own words. After six years, Gill courageously leaves an abusive relationship and launches a surprising new career.
  • Return Home
    Return Home
    Michelle Wong 1992 29 min
    First-generation Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Michelle Wong returns to her birthplace, St. Paul, Alberta, to get reacquainted with her aging grandparents. Her visit becomes an emotional journey into the past and into herself as she documents their stories, their lives. Return Home touchingly explores intergenerational relations while capturing the spirit and experiences of early Chinese-Canadian immigrants and their role in Canadian history. Also available in a Chinese version.
  • Rosa Rosa
    Rosa Rosa
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Félix Dufour-Laperrière 2008 8 min
    While war is thundering at the gates of the city, Rosa and her lover live serenely together, trying to preserve a fragile normality. Rosa Rosa is the interweaving of individual and collective fates via a love story simply told by the couple themselves. In this animation using reworked photos, Félix Dufour-Laperrière offers an unusual graphic world where public and private spaces overlap.
  • Seven Brides for Uncle Sam
    Seven Brides for Uncle Sam
    Anita McGee 1997 52 min
    This documentary shares the stories of seven women from Newfoundland who married American soldiers. From the beginning of World War II to the end of the Cold War, Newfoundland housed some of the largest military bases outside of the U.S. As a result, as many as 40,000 Newfoundland women married American soldiers. Using a combination of interviews and old war footage, Seven Brides for Uncle Sam shows how some of the most important events in world history can serve as the backdrop to the timeless tales of romance, heartbreak and joy.
  • Special Delivery
    Special Delivery
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    John Weldon  &  Eunice Macaulay 1978 7 min
    In this Oscar®-winning animated short, Ralph's day gets off to a bad start when he dismisses his wife's orders to clear the snow from the front walk. When he comes home and finds the mailman dead on his front stairs, Ralph attempts a massive cover-up with disastrous results. One dead mailman leads to a case of mistaken identity, a runaway bride, and a very confused coroner. Life starts looking up for Ralph once he decides to stop worrying about it all.
  • The Spine
    The Spine
    Chris Landreth 2009 11 min
    In this animated short, Oscar® winner Chris Landreth returns with a poignant story of redemption that takes us into the relationship between a man and a woman trapped in a spiral of mutual destruction after 26 years of marriage. The Spine continues Landreth's pursuit of a twisted, beautiful and highly original visual aesthetic, using digital imagery to create characters whose physical appearances are metaphors for their unique souls.
  • Sexy Laundry
    Sexy Laundry
    Izabela Plucinska 2015 12 min
    How can the flames of desire be rekindled after 25 years of married life? Izabela Plucinska’s erotic comedy, made entirely through the use of modelling clay, delves into the private lives of Alice and Henry, a couple in their fifties numbed by routine.
  • Some Kind of Arrangement
    Some Kind of Arrangement
    Ali Kazimi 1997 45 min
    In this documentary, the age-old tradition of arranged marriages takes a modern twist when 3 second-generation South Asian young people decide to marry. Engaging and refreshingly candid in their opinions, they make it clear that arranged marriages aren't what they used to be.
  • "There Are Others Worse Off than Us ...."
    "There Are Others Worse Off than Us ...."
    Yves Dion 1972 57 min
    This is a look at the daily life of a young couple. Both wife and husband suffer from cerebral palsy. Although every movement is made with effort, and every day is a struggle, they choose, instead of dependence on others, to marry, to have a child and to derive strength and courage from each other. By showing their problems, their needs and their hopes, this film reaches out for greater public understanding and acceptance of the physically disabled in our midst.
  • This Is No Time for Romance
    This Is No Time for Romance
    Fernand Dansereau 1966 28 min
    Idle hours at a summer cottage, when her husband is at work and the children busy at play, give a wife time to dream a little and reflect on her life and her marriage. Is it enough? What else might she have made of herself? But then her husband returns and she opts for things as they are. A relaxed drama that has much of the mood of a summer outdoors.
  • Travel Log
    Travel Log
    Donald Winkler 1978 9 min
    This short, experimental road movie is a study in mystery and atmosphere. Juxtaposing photographs on the screen with a woman's words, the film tells the story of a couple who drifts apart, of a journey with no return. Introspective and haunting, this mood piece is a travel album about intimacy and dispossession.
  • Women and Men Unglued
    Women and Men Unglued
    Katherine Gilday 2003 1 h 26 min
    At the start of the new millennium, relations between men and women are in turmoil. Traditional marriage is challenged on all fronts. Long-held notions about gender, commitment and courtship have been cast aside. And 'marriageable' people are staying single in record numbers.

    Is this an historical blip or a fundamental change in society? Do men and women even need each other anymore? Women and Men Unglued dares to ask these questions.

    This provocative documentary takes an uncensored look at single, urban Gen-Xers living on the edge of this social change. Operating in a free-for-all zone where old mating rules don't apply and new ones don't exist, these young urbanites struggle to find intimacy amid chaos.

    Against this backdrop, leading experts like Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and Bert Archer take a fresh look at how relations between the sexes are evolving.
  • Why Thee Wed?
    Why Thee Wed?
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Cal Garingan 2005 50 min
    This documentary profiles the eight couples who challenged marriage laws in British Columbia in court until same-sex marriage was recognized in 2003. As controversy swirls around this issue worldwide, Why Thee Wed? offers surprising and diverse perspectives on what it means for gay and lesbian couples to walk down the aisle and to fight for the right to do so under the law.

    Why Thee Wed? was produced as part of the Reel Diversity Competition for emerging filmmakers of colour.
  • You Won't Need Running Shoes, Darling
    You Won't Need Running Shoes, Darling
    We're sorry, this content is not available in your location.
    Dorothy Todd Henaut 1996 53 min
    In this feature-length documentary, acclaimed filmmaker Dorothy Todd Hénaut chronicles a critical two-year period in the lives of her parents, Mildred and Bob Todd. The Todds, retired octogenarians, live a simple but full life by the river in rural Ontario until a sudden change in their health forces a change in their lives. Their old routine of tending the garden and visiting with friends is replaced by hospital stays and home care. And even though the couple’s tenderness and mutual care soften the reality of diminishing strength, Hénaut’s film reveals a gritty, sensitive look at the human aging process.