Sarah Polley

Sarah Polley

Born: January 8, 1979
in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Sarah Ellen Polley OC (born January 8, 1979) is a Canadian filmmaker, political activist and retired actress. She first garnered attention as a child actress for her role as Ramona Quimby in the television series Ramona, based on Beverly Cleary's books. This subsequently led to her role as Sara Stanley in the Canadian television series Road to Avonlea (1990–1996). She has starred in many feature films, including The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Exotica (1994), The Sweet Hereafter (1997), Guinevere (1999), Go (1999), The Weight of Water (2000), No Such Thing (2001), My Life Without Me (2003), Dawn of the Dead (2004), Splice (2009), and Mr. Nobody (2009).

Polley made her feature film directorial debut with Away from Her (2006), for which she won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Director and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Polley's second film, Take This Waltz (2011), premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, followed by her first documentary film, Stories We Tell (2012). She also wrote the miniseries Alias Grace, based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood. In 2022, Polley wrote and directed the film Women Talking, based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Miriam Toews, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

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Movies for Sarah Polley...

Margaret Atwood: A Word After a Word After a Word Is Power
Title: Margaret Atwood: A Word After a Word After a Word Is Power
Character: Self - Filmmaker
Released: November 7, 2019
Type: Movie
The views and thoughts of Canadian writer Margaret Atwood have never been more relevant than today. Readers turn to her work for answers as they confront the rise of authoritarian leaders, deal with increasingly intrusive technologies, and discuss climate change. Her books are useful as survival tools for hard times. But few know her private life. Who is the woman behind the stories? How does she always seem to know what is coming?
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Title: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Released: September 8, 2015
Type: TV
Stephen Colbert brings his signature satire and comedy to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the #1 show in late night, where he talks with an eclectic mix of guests about what is new and relevant in the worlds of politics, entertainment, business, music, technology, and more. Featuring bandleader Jon Batiste with his band Stay Human, the Emmy Award-nominated show is broadcast from the historic Ed Sullivan Theater. Stephen Colbert, Chris Licht, Tom Purcell, and Jon Stewart are executive producers. Barry Julien and Denise Rehrig serve as co-executive producers.must watch
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Reel Herstory: The Real Story of Reel Women
Title: Reel Herstory: The Real Story of Reel Women
Character: Self
Released: August 10, 2014
Type: Movie
Using rare footage and exclusive interviews with filmmakers from all over the globe, "Reel Herstory" corrects the historic notion that women behind the scenes in motion pictures held peripheral careers compared with their male counterparts.
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Stories We Tell
Title: Stories We Tell
Character: Self (uncredited)
Released: October 12, 2012
Type: Movie
Canadian actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley investigates certain secrets related to her mother, interviewing a group of family members and friends whose reliability varies depending of their implication in the events, which are remembered in different ways; so a trail of questions remains to be answered, because memory is always changing and the discovery of truth often depends on who is telling the tale.
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Trigger
Title: Trigger
Character: Hillary
Released: September 12, 2010
Type: Movie
Ten years after ending their partnership as rock musicians, two women become re-acquainted in the course of one night.
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Splice
Title: Splice
Character: Elsa
Released: June 3, 2010
Type: Movie
Elsa and Clive, two young rebellious scientists, defy legal and ethical boundaries and forge ahead with a dangerous experiment: splicing together human and animal DNA to create a new organism. Named "Dren", the creature rapidly develops from a deformed female infant into a beautiful but dangerous winged human-chimera, who forges a bond with both of her creators - only to have that bond turn deadly.
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Mr. Nobody
Title: Mr. Nobody
Character: Adult Elise
Released: November 6, 2009
Type: Movie
Nemo Nobody leads an ordinary existence with his wife and 3 children; one day, he wakes up as a mortal centenarian in the year 2092.
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The Madness and Misadventures of Munchausen
Title: The Madness and Misadventures of Munchausen
Character: Self - 'Sally Salt'
Released: April 8, 2008
Type: Movie
This is an all new feature length documentary, with interviews from almost everyone involved with the production of the film. Gilliam never shies away from the truth, even when it comes to himself, and so this documentary is self-effacing and refreshingly frank. The documentary details not only the battles Gilliam had with Columbia in getting the film finished and released, but also the imagination and innovation that went into the production.
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Title: John Adams
Character: Abigail Adams Smith
Released: March 16, 2008
Type: TV
Adapted from David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, this lavish seven-part miniseries chronicles the life of Founding Father John Adams, starting with the Boston Massacre of 1770 through his years as an ambassador in Europe, then his terms as vice president and president of the United States, up to his death on July 4, 1826.
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Wrath of Gods
Title: Wrath of Gods
Character: Self
Released: May 6, 2007
Type: Movie
When Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson set upon Iceland to film Beowulf & Grendel starring Gerard Butler and Stellan Skarsgard in 2004, they expected the usual complication involved in making a movie, but what they encountered made them wonder if the Norse gods were actually working against them.
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The Secret Life of Words
Title: The Secret Life of Words
Character: Hanna
Released: December 15, 2005
Type: Movie
A touching story of a deaf girl who is sent to an oil rig to take care of a man who has been blinded in a terrible accident. The girl has a special ability to communicate with the men on board and especially with her patient as they share intimate moments together that will change their lives forever.
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Beowulf & Grendel
Title: Beowulf & Grendel
Character: Selma
Released: September 14, 2005
Type: Movie
The blood-soaked tale of a Norse warrior's battle against the great and murderous troll, Grendel. Heads will roll. Out of allegiance to the King Hrothgar, the much respected Lord of the Danes, Beowulf leads a troop of warriors across the sea to rid a village of the marauding monster.
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Don't Come Knocking
Title: Don't Come Knocking
Character: Sky
Released: May 19, 2005
Type: Movie
Howard Spence has seen better days. Once a big Western movie star, he now drowns his disgust for his selfish and failed life with alcohol, drugs and young women. If he were to die now, nobody would shed a tear over him, that's the sad truth. Until one day Howard learns that he might have a child somewhere out there...
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Siblings
Title: Siblings
Character: Tabby
Released: September 14, 2004
Type: Movie
Joe and his siblings have a couple of problems. First off, their stepparents are despicably evil. Secondly, they seemed to have killed them. Now this mixed up mess of half-sisters and step-brothers have to figure out how to dispose of the bodies, cover up the murders, collect their grandfather's inheritance and somehow stick together as a family -- all without getting caught. Not to mention Joe's incessant need to keep tabs on his promiscuous sister, an eye on the precocious little ones and a lustful watch on the girl next-door. Growing up has its complications. Murder's just one of them.
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Sugar
Title: Sugar
Character: Pregnant Girl
Released: May 22, 2004
Type: Movie
Cliff receives an unusual 18th birthday gift from his younger sister — marijuana, alcohol, a subway token and the mission to lose his virginity. This results in Cliff meeting a young street hustler named Butch. At first, as Butch introduces Cliff to gay street life in Toronto, Cliff is excited by his new relationship. But as the two grow closer, he finds that Butch has problems, including drug addiction, that are cause for serious concern.
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Luck
Title: Luck
Character: Margaret
Released: April 30, 2004
Type: Movie
Shane Bradley, who is fixated on ideas of luck and destiny, tries to win the girl of his dreams. After their relationship falters, Shane begins to think he might be unlucky and turns to gambling as an outlet for his obsession.
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Dawn of the Dead
Title: Dawn of the Dead
Character: Ana
Released: March 19, 2004
Type: Movie
A group of survivors take refuge in a shopping mall after the world is taken over by aggressive, flesh-eating zombies.
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The I Inside
Title: The I Inside
Character: Clair
Released: January 15, 2004
Type: Movie
Simon Cable wakes up in a hospital bed, confused and disoriented. He soon discovers from doctors that he has amnesia and is unable to remember the last two years of his life. Cable investigates what has happened to him and slowly pieces together his enigmatic past.
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Title: Slings & Arrows
Released: November 3, 2003
Type: TV
This darkly comic Canadian series follows the fortunes of a dysfunctional Shakespearean theatre troupe at the fictional New Burbage Festival, exposing the high drama, scorching battles, and artistic miracles that happen behind the scenes.
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My Life Without Me
Title: My Life Without Me
Character: Ann
Released: March 7, 2003
Type: Movie
A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.
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The Event
Title: The Event
Character: Dana Shapiro
Released: January 1, 2003
Type: Movie
An intense relationship drama that takes the form of a mystery, The Event centers around a series of unexplained deaths that occur among the gay community in New York's fashionable Chelsea district. Nick, a district attorney investigating the most recent case, a suspicious apparent suicide, and her interviews with friends and family of the deceased trigger extensive and intricately interwoven flashbacks that reveal surprising facts about the man's life and death.
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No Such Thing
Title: No Such Thing
Character: Beatrice
Released: May 12, 2001
Type: Movie
A young journalist journeys to Iceland to find her missing fiancé only to encounter a mythical creature who longs to die.
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The Claim
Title: The Claim
Character: Hope Burn
Released: December 29, 2000
Type: Movie
A prospector sells his wife and daughter to another gold miner for the rights to a gold mine. Twenty years later, the prospector is a wealthy man who owns much of the old west town named Kingdom Come. But changes are brewing and his past is coming back to haunt him. A surveyor and his crew scouts the town as a location for a new railroad line and a young woman suddenly appears in the town and is evidently the man's daughter.
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Preludes
Title: Preludes
Released: November 15, 2000
Type: Movie
Commissioned by the Toronto International Film Festival to mark the event's 25th anniversary in September 2000, the "Preludes" program consisted of ten short films by Canadian directors which were inspired in some way by the festival. Each film screened as a prelude to a feature film in the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival program. The full "Preludes" anthology was screened on the web in November 2000, and was given theatrical retrospectives at the TIFF Lightbox in the subsequent years.
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The Weight of Water
Title: The Weight of Water
Character: Maren Hontvedt
Released: September 25, 2000
Type: Movie
A newspaper photographer, Jean, researches the lurid and sensational axe murder of two women in 1873 as an editorial tie-in with a brutal modern double murder. She discovers a cache of papers that appear to give an account of the murders by an eyewitness.
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The Law of Enclosures
Title: The Law of Enclosures
Character: Beatty 'Beatrice'
Released: September 15, 2000
Type: Movie
Story of the same couple, first in their teenage years and then in their twilight years, paradoxically set in the same time during the backdrop of the Gulf War in the Middle East.
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This Might Be Good
Title: This Might Be Good
Released: September 7, 2000
Type: Movie
A festival is a concentration of hope. Audiences hungering for something startingly new, famously familiar or just plain "good". Actors hoping their well-conceived sincerity and ritual entrances have that special glow. Press and critics poised to love or hate lucidly. And proud, desperate filmmakers looking for that little blessing on their latest self-projection. All squeezing together for a few days, in a few rooms wondering whether this will truly be the perfect place at the perfect time. Of course, it rarely is. Mostly it's just a collection of almosts. Delicious, shared almosts.
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Love Come Down
Title: Love Come Down
Character: Sister Sarah
Released: August 2, 2000
Type: Movie
Two brothers in their early 20s, one black, one white, each the other's keeper since their family was torn apart by a decade old tragedy. Neville is a comedian struggling with his comedy, and his brother, Matthew, is a boxer consumed with the pleasure and pain of his skin. Neville becomes enchanted with Niko, a beguiling young singer who becomes entangled with him on his journey of self-discovery. With the support of their long-time friend Julian and Sister Sarah, a nun with a past, Neville and Matthew come to understand love in all its forms. Written by Conquering Lion Productions/FilmWorks
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The Life Before This
Title: The Life Before This
Character: Connie
Released: September 15, 1999
Type: Movie
Several innocent persons are hurt after two robbers, fleeing from the police, run into a neighborhood cafe.
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Guinevere
Title: Guinevere
Character: Harper Sloane
Released: September 12, 1999
Type: Movie
A young girl from an affluent family rebels and becomes involved with a much older photographer.
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Title: Teen Choice Awards
Character: Self - Nominee: Movie Breakout
Released: August 1, 1999
Type: TV
The Teen Choice Awards is a teen awards show presented annually by Fox. The first awards were held in 1999. The program honors the year's biggest achievements in music, movies, sports, television, fashion and more, as voted on by teens aged 13–19. The program features a number of celebrities and also musical performers. The winners are awarded with authentic mini size (182 cm) surfboards designed with a summertime theme. The ceremony has created spin-off teen awards on YouTube.
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eXistenZ
Title: eXistenZ
Character: Merle
Released: April 14, 1999
Type: Movie
A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.
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Go
Title: Go
Character: Ronna Martin
Released: April 9, 1999
Type: Movie
Grocery store clerk Simon occasionally sells drugs from his cash register at work, so when soap opera actors Adam and Zack come looking for Ecstasy on a quiet Christmas Eve, they are surprised to find Ronna covering his shift. Desperate for money, Ronna decides to become an impromptu drug dealer, unaware that Adam and Zack are secretly working for obsessed narcotics officer Burke.
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Jerry and Tom
Title: Jerry and Tom
Character: Deb
Released: December 4, 1998
Type: Movie
Tom and Jerry are two hit men, they work by day at a third-rate second-hand car dealership. Tom is a veteran and Jerry is a novice in their business, and their attitude toward their profession differs a lot. It shows when Tom is required to kill his old friend Karl.
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Last Night
Title: Last Night
Character: Jennifer Wheeler
Released: October 23, 1998
Type: Movie
Various citizens of Toronto anxiously await the end of the world, which is occurring at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day.
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White Lies
Title: White Lies
Character: Catherine
Released: March 29, 1998
Type: Movie
How can a smart middle class girl suddenly turn into a devoted right wing debater? That's what happens with Catherine when she meets the charismatic leaders of the neo-nazi organization NIM. Catherine, a first-year university student who feels alienated from the liberal campus, joins a hate group through the Internet and becomes their voice, only to gradually question their beliefs even as she becomes more deeply involved.
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The Sweet Hereafter
Title: The Sweet Hereafter
Character: Nicole Burnell
Released: September 25, 1997
Type: Movie
A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.
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The Planet of Junior Brown
Title: The Planet of Junior Brown
Character: Butter
Released: September 6, 1997
Type: Movie
Powerful story about love, struggle and passion of an over protective mother and her piano prodigy.
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The Hanging Garden
Title: The Hanging Garden
Character: Teen Rosemary
Released: September 5, 1997
Type: Movie
William, a once obese and troubled teen, goes back to his family's home after being gone, without word, for ten years and finds it (and his family) haunted with his past. He had moved to the city and become a fit, well-adjusted gay man, but during his visit home, he becomes unhinged as the newly remembered reasons for his miserable adolescence come to life in each of their presents.
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Children First!
Title: Children First!
Character: Host
Released: January 1, 1996
Type: Movie
A collection of 7 animation short films inspired by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Each NFB award-winning film, in their peculiar way, deals with children's rights and addresses various aspects of the Convention.
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Joe's So Mean to Josephine
Title: Joe's So Mean to Josephine
Character: Josephine
Released: January 1, 1996
Type: Movie
Josephine has her eye on Joe, a hot-headed, petty criminal who taps phones for a living. When she finally worms her way into his heart she realises it's not a nice place to be. But is it too late?
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Exotica
Title: Exotica
Character: Tracey Brown
Released: November 30, 1994
Type: Movie
In the upscale Toronto strip club Exotica, dancer Christina is visited nightly by the obsessive Francis, a depressed tax auditor. Her ex-boyfriend, the club's MC, Eric, still jealously pines for her even as he introduces her onstage, but Eric is having his own relationship problems with the club's female owner. Thomas, a mysterious pet-shop owner, is about to become unexpectedly involved in their lives.
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Johann's Gift to Christmas
Title: Johann's Gift to Christmas
Character: The Angel
Released: September 25, 1992
Type: Movie
A mouse from the streets and a church mouse try to help a priest and an organist save Christmas by composing a Christmas carol.
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Title: Road to Avonlea
Character: Sara Stanley
Released: January 7, 1990
Type: TV
In the fictional small town of Avonlea, Prince Edward Island, in the early 20th century, 10-year-old Montreal heiress Sara Stanley is sent by her wealthy father to live with her two maiden aunts, Hetty and Olivia King, to be near her late mother's side of the family.
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Road to Avonlea: The Movie
Title: Road to Avonlea: The Movie
Released: January 1, 1990
Type: Movie
After her father is accused of embezzlement, wealthy Sara Stanley is sent to live with her deceased mother's relatives on Prince Edward Island. While there, she must adjust to life in the small rural town of Avonlea, learn to cope with her infamous aunts, Hetty and Olivia, and learn to get along with her jealous cousins who become victims and cohorts in Sara’s antics and misadventures. Everything comes to a head when the adults are called away and her older cousin, Felicity, is left in charge – not knowing what troubles will ensue. Soon Sara must make a heart wrenching decision: whether to stay in Avonlea or return to her father. Through the combination of the episodes “The Journey Begins” and “Proof of the Pudding” this digitally-mastered movie was created as an introduction to the award-winning “Road to Avonlea” series.
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Lantern Hill
Title: Lantern Hill
Character: Jody Turner
Released: August 29, 1989
Type: Movie
In 1935 Toronto, Jane Stuart's mother has taken ill, and the two of them have temporarily moved in with her rich, snobbish grandmother, where Jane is verbally abused and her mother bullied. Jane is forced into a private academy, in which the other girls tell her that her father, whom Jane believes to be dead, is actually alive. Soon after, Andrew Stuart sends word that he would like to meet his long-lost daughter, so Jane is sent by train to Bright River to stay with him, where she encounters an old mystery that she must help her father overcome, new friends, and the chance to bring her father and mother back together again.
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Babar: The Movie
Title: Babar: The Movie
Character: Young Celeste
Released: July 28, 1989
Type: Movie
Children's book authors Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff's most beloved elephant comes to the big screen in this animated family tale. Elephant monarch King Babar tells the tale, that unfolds via flashback, of how a much-younger Barbar and his girlfriend Celeste save her village from the pugnacious rhinoceroses that have come to raid it.
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The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Title: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Character: Sally Salt
Released: December 7, 1988
Type: Movie
An account of Baron Munchausen's supposed travels and fantastical experiences with his band of misfits.
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Title: Ramona
Character: Ramona
Released: September 10, 1988
Type: TV
Ramona is a Canadian children's television series which followed the life of eight-year-old title character Ramona Quimby. It was based on the Ramona book series by Beverly Cleary. The television series debuted on September 10, 1988, and its ten episodes spanned four months. The TV series was released on video by Lorimar Home Video, but when Lorimar Home Video was acquired by Warner Communications, video releases were now released by Warner Home Video. It was distributed by Ramona Productions and Atlantis Films, but when Atlantis Films was acquired by Alliance Films, Alliance Atlantis was the owner and was then by Alliance Films in 2008 airings because of the Alliance Atlantis collapse. Eight-year-old Ramona Quimby feels that no one really understands her. She's bright, imaginative, and according to her older sister, Beezus, a "pest". Every day she tries to find out more about herself and her world, with an optimism that only children possess. The series follows Ramona's adventures in school and at home as her family struggles with financial woes and the coming of a new baby.
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Title: Friday the 13th: The Series
Character: Mary
Released: October 3, 1987
Type: TV
Micki and Ryan with the help of their friend Jack try to recover cursed antiques so they can store them in safety inside the antique store's vault.
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Blue Monkey
Title: Blue Monkey
Character: Ellen
Released: September 25, 1987
Type: Movie
While working in a greenhouse, a man receives an insect bite after touching an exotic plant. Immediately, he falls ill and is taken to an emergency room where the doctors diagnose him as suffering from an unknown bacteria, and a strange parasite which emerges from his mouth as a large slimy wormlike creature. Soon, there are more cases of bacterial infection, but the more immediate problem for the hospital is the wormlike creature which after accidental exposure to a genetic growth stimulant grows to monstrous proportions and starts a reign of terror and bloodshed in the hospitals abandoned wing.
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The Big Town
Title: The Big Town
Character: Christy Donaldson
Released: September 25, 1987
Type: Movie
It is 1957. J.C. Cullen is a young man from a small town, with a talent for winning at craps, who leaves for the big city to work as a professional gambler. While there, he breaks the bank at a private craps game at the Gem Club, owned by George Cole, and falls in love with two women, one of them Cole's wife.
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Hands of a Stranger
Title: Hands of a Stranger
Character: Suzie Hearn
Released: May 10, 1987
Type: Movie
A New York cop becomes obsessed with finding his wife's rapist.
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Pretty Kill
Title: Pretty Kill
Character: Karla
Released: March 27, 1987
Type: Movie
A detective tries to track down a serial killer who is murdering prostitutes while at the same time having to deal with his girlfriend's mental problems, which are gradually deteriorating into a split personality.
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Heaven On Earth
Title: Heaven On Earth
Character: Becky Hawthorne
Released: March 1, 1987
Type: Movie
An armful of destitute orphans transported to the New World at the turn of the century. This is the turbulent and moving story of four British 'bricks for Empire building' - based on the memoirs of some of the 100,000 'home children' who helped build the new Canada.
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Confidential
Title: Confidential
Character: Emma (child)
Released: January 1, 1986
Type: Movie
The year is 1949 and reporter Hugh Jameson is looking for a story. He focuses on Emma Porter, a woman who was accused of the axe murder of her father thirty seven years earlier. Jameson disappears during his search and his wife hires Charles Ripley P.I. to find him. Ripley's search leads him to Emma's son who has his own nasty secrets to protect.
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One Magic Christmas
Title: One Magic Christmas
Character: Molly Monaghan
Released: November 22, 1985
Type: Movie
Ginny Grainger, a young mother, rediscovers the joy and beauty of Christmas, thanks to the unshakable faith of her six-year-old daughter Abbie and Gideon, Ginny's very own guardian angel.
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Title: The Oscars
Character: Self
Released: March 19, 1953
Type: TV
An annual American awards ceremony honoring cinematic achievements in the film industry. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette, officially the Academy Award of Merit, that is better known by its nickname Oscar.