The film narrates that when in 1962 Pete Harjo, the director's grandfather, mysteriously went missing after his car crashed on a rural bridge in Sasakwa, Oklahoma, members of his Seminole and Mvskoke community searched for him while singing songs of faith and hope that had been passed on for generations, with roots in both Scottish hymn lining and African American music. Harjo interviews family members and locals, as well as academic experts on the subject including the Yale professor Willie Ruff and Rogers State University's Hugh Foley.

Director Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Creek) has gained critical and audience acclaim with his films throughout the world. In 2006 he was selected as one of the inaugural recipients (the youngest and the first Native American recipient) of the prestigious United States Artists Fellowship, which is supported by a consortium of major foundations. He was selected for a 2006 Media Arts Fellowship from Renew Media. In the same year, he won the Creative Promise Award from Tribeca All Access for his script Before the Beast Returns (working title).

Oklahoma-born Christina D. King (Creek/Seminole) is a producer and filmmaker whose work focuses largely on human rights issues, civic engagement through storytelling and democratizing filmmaker opportunities for minority voices. King is the co-director and producer of Warrior Women (ITVS), a documentary about the women and daughters on the front lines of the fight for Native rights in the 1970’s. King recently produced the documentary Up Heartbreak Hill (POV) that follows the lives of three Navajo teens during their senior year at a reservation high school.

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001): directed by Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk and produced by his company Isuma Igloolik Productions. It was the first feature film ever to be written, directed and acted entirely in the Inuktitut language.

Based on an ancient Inuit folktale, Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) is the first Inuktitut-language feature film ever made. A critically-acclaimed commercial success, it won numerous awards worldwide, including the Camera d’or for best first feature at the Cannes Film Festival and five Genie Awards, including Best Screenplay, Best Direction and Best Motion Picture, as well as the Claude Jutra Award (now the Canadian Screen Award for Best First Feature). It is widely considered one of the best Canadian films ever made, and in 2015 was ranked No. 1 of all time in a poll conducted by the Toronto International Film Festival.

At the dawn of the first millennium, the arrival of a mysterious shaman upsets the natural balance in a community of nomadic Inuit, resulting in the murder of the camp’s leader. Years later, power in the community begins to shift when the tribe’s two best hunters — the brothers Amaqjuaq, the Strong One (Pakak Innuksuk), and Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner (Natar Ungalaaq ) — innocently provoke the new chief’s son, Oki (Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq). After Atanarjuat wins the hand of Oki’s promised wife, the beautiful but flirtatious Atuat (Sylvia Ivalu), in a head punching duel, Oki vows revenge.

When Oki and his friends attempt to kill the brothers in their sleep, Atanarjuat miraculously escapes, running naked for his life across the spring sea ice and eluding Oki with supernatural assistance. He is taken in and nursed back to health by an elderly couple who fled the cursed tribe years earlier. With their guidance and assistance, Atanarjuat regains his spiritual strength, avenges his brother's death and brings harmony back to the tribe. The first feature film written, produced, directed and acted by Inuit, Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner) was shot on widescreen digital betacam over six months with a budget of $1.9 million. Igloolik Isuma Productions — led by writer-director Zacharias Kunuk and New York-born cinematographer Norman Cohn — had been producing award-winning, community-based media in Nunavut for more than 10 years. They began in 1998 to adapt the ancient folktale of Atanarjuat, recording eight elders telling the story as it had been passed down to them by their ancestors. These accounts were combined into a single detailed treatment in Inuktitut and English, then adapted into the various drafts of the screenplay by Paul Apak Angilirq. He consulted with community elders and Toronto-based story consultant Anne Frank before passing away in December 1998.

All props and costumes were made by Inuit artisans in accordance with traditional methods. Co-produced through the National Film Board’s Aboriginal Filmmaking Program, the film was transferred from betacam to 35mm for its theatrical release. It was the first film of Igloolik Isuma’s Fast Runner Trilogy, which also includes The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (2006) and Before Tomorrow (2008).

A Canadian-American independent film released in 1998, directed and co-produced by Chris Eyre and with a screenplay by Sherman Alexie, based on the short story "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona" from his book The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993). The film won several awards and accolades, and was well received at numerous film festivals.

In 2018, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

“Though Victor (Adam Beach, Flags of Our Fathers) and Thomas have lived their entire young lives in the same tiny town, they couldn't have less in common. But when Victor is urgently called away, it's Thomas who comes up with the money to pay for his trip. There's just one thing Victor has to do: take Thomas along for the ride! You're in for a rare and entertaining comic treat as this most unlikely pair leave home on what becomes an unexpected unforgettable adventure of friendship and discovery.”

(CONTENT WARNING: Abuse) Rhymes for Young Ghouls is a 2013 Canadian drama film and the feature film debut of writer-director Jeff Barnaby. It is set in 1976 on an Indian reserve in the context of the residential school system. Although it tells the fictional story of a teenager named Aila and her plot for revenge, it is based on the history of abuse of the First Nations people by government agents, including a large number of reported cases of the mental and physical abuse of residential school children. It is presented from the perspective of a teenage girl.

Red Crow Mi'kmaq reservation, 1976: By government decree, every Indian child under the age of 16 must attend residential school. In the kingdom of the Crow, that means imprisonment at St. Dymphna's. That means being at the mercy of "Popper", the sadistic Indian agent who runs the school.

Reel Injun Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond takes a look at the Hollywood Indian, exploring the portrayal of North American Natives through a century of cinema. Traveling through the heartland of America, and into the Canadian North, Diamond looks at how the myth of "the Injun" has influenced the world's understanding — and misunderstanding — of Natives.

Reel Injun traces the evolution of cinema's depiction of Native people from the silent film era to today, with clips from hundreds of classic and recent Hollywood movies, and candid interviews with celebrated Native and non-Native film celebrities, activists, film critics, and historians.