Made-in-Manitoba Movies: ‘Tis the Season! A Film Training Manitoba Guide to Manitoba-shot Holiday Movies
Happy Holidays! The crisp winter air is finally here. It’s time to cosy up to the fire with a cup of hot cocoa in hand and a film playing on your tv screen. Not sure what to watch?
Well, we’ve got a select list of Made-in-Manitoba movies you’ll want to check out while you keep warm from the snowy outdoors.
Five Gold Rings (2024)
Synopsis: A painter and a private eye collaborate during the holidays to complete her late grandmother’s unfinished mission.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Holland Roden, Nolan Gerard Funk, Reena Jolly
Director: Steven R. Monroe
Writers: Aloura Melissa Charles, John Christian Plummer
Hanukkah on the Rocks (2024)
Synopsis: Recently unemployed lawyer, Tory, embarks on a journey to find Hanukkah candles, leading her to a Chicago bar where she transforms the holiday spirit, and finds the courage to pursue a new path in life.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg, Niverville, Selkirk, Stonewall
Synopsis: Nobody is ready for the mayhem and surprises that ensue when six of the worst youngsters disrupt the town’s yearly Christmas performance.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Kynlee Heiman, Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez, Jody Greer, Lauren Graham, Pete Holmes,
Director: Dallas Jenkins
Writers: Platte F. Clark, Darin McDaniel, Ryan Swanson
A Carol for Two (2024)
Synopsis: A talented singer starts working at a Broadway restaurant with singing waiters.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Ginna Claire Mason, Jordan Litz, Charlotte d’Amboise
Director: Jeff Beesley
Writer: Nina Weinman
Maria and the Mennos, Episode 5 “Menno Pinoy Christmas”
Synopsis: Christmas episode of Maria and the Mennos
Filming Locations in Manitoba: Winkler
Starring: Kenton Dyck, Victoria Exconde, Chuck Fefchak
Director: Orlando Braun
Writer: Paul Plett
Meet Me Under the Mistletoe (2023)
Synopsis: Two rival realtors are forced to work together to sell one special house, owned by a renowned botanist and mistletoe grower, before Christmas.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Sarah Fisher, Simon Arblaster, Jerni Stewart
Director: Robin Dunne
Writers: Laura Brienza, Blaine Chiapetta
The Jinglebell Jubilee (2023)
Synopsis: A city manager recruits the help of a childhood friend in setting right his town’s Christmas charity event, while she gets to work setting him up with her close friend.
Synopsis: After leaving London, Abby connects with an anonymous caller while working at a cooking hotline. The caller is single dad “John” who Abby unknowingly has become smitten with in real life
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Emily Tennant, Niall Matter, Myla Volk
Director: Mark Jean
Writers: Julie Sherman Wolfe, Duane Poole
Never Been Chris’d (2023)
Synopsis: Best friends Naomi and Liz return home for the holidays and simultaneously enter a love triangle when they both reconnect with their high school crush, Chris Silver.
Synopsis: To get her dream job at a foodie startup, Megan needs to learn how to bake, and she recruits bakery owner Aaron to help her.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Laura Osnes, Christopher Russell, Amy Groening
Director: Robin Dunne
Writers: Bob Sáenz, Guy Yosub
Under the Christmas Sky (2023)
Synopsis: Kat is an esteemed astrophysicist who is scheduled for her first trip into space next year until an accident grounds her. While on leave, coming to terms with the reality that her dream of being an astronaut is over, she volunteers at the local planetarium. There, she is paired up with by-the-book David to work on an exhibit opening right before Christmas. Will the stars align and bring these two together for the holidays?
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Jessica Parker Kennedy, Ryan Paevey, Emmy Richardson
Director: Séan Geraughty
Writer: Kristine Huntley
Miracle in Bethlehem, PA (2023)
Synopsis: Just before Christmas, Mary Ann adopts a baby girl to raise alone. She and the infant spend the Christmas stuck in Bethlehem, PA, due to bad weather. Her only choice when the inn is full is to stay with Joe, the brother of the innkeeper.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Laura Vandervoort, Benjamin Ayres, Amy Groening
Director: Jeff Beesley
Writers: Kimberly Daugherty, Laura Kampo Lennon
The Santa Summit (2023)
Synopsis: At a Santa-themed holiday event, three teachers get their groove back, strengthen their friendship, and unexpectedly find love along the way.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Hunter King, Benjamin Hollingsworth, Amy Groening
Director: Jeff Beesley
Writer: Russell Hainline
Hanukkah on Rye (2022)
Synopsis: A matchmaker connects Molly and Jacob, but their new romance is put to the test when they realize that they are competing deli owners. Will a Hanukkah miracle keep them together?
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Yael Grobglas, Linda Darlow, Jeremy Jordan
Director: Peter DeLuise
Writer: Julie Sherman Wolfe
A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe (2022)
Synopsis: Annie Cooper has big shoes to fill when she takes over as CEO of her late grandmother’s small-town cookie company.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg, Carman
Starring: Rachel Boston, Victor Webster, Averie Peters
Director: Jeff Beesley
Writer: Robin Gadsby
Violent Night (2022)
Synopsis: When an elite team of mercenaries breaks into a family compound on Christmas Eve, a disgruntled Santa Claus must take them out to save both the hostages and his Holiday.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Beverly D’Angelo
Director: Tommy Wirkola
Writers: Pat Casey, Josh Miller
‘Tis the Season to be Merry (2021)
Synopsis: Looking for a fresh angle on her new book on relationships, Merry heads to snow covered Vermont. She finds a new perspective and Christmas cheer with charismatic aid worker Adam.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Rachel Leigh Cook, Travis Van Winkle
Director: Gary Yates
Writers: Jen Kirman, Duane Poole
A Kiss Before Christmas (2021)
Synopsis: Ethan, a married father of two teens, wakes up one morning shocked to find that he’s unmarried, has no kids, and is the CEO of his company. His wife is the key to him being able to reclaim his original life and family.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: James Denton, Teri Hatcher, Rod Wilson
Director: Jeff Beesley
Writers: Mark Amato, Tracy Andreen
Crashing Through the Snow (2021)
Synopsis: Maggie and Sam are crashing Christmas. When he proposes that they team up against his sister’s perfect Christmas, neither of them are prepared for the blended family challenges that lie ahead.
Synopsis: A travel-averse journalist chases her dream assignment where she soon finds herself mentoring a handsome B&B owner who wants to be a tour guide.
Synopsis: Annie, a lawyer, must help her loved ones this holiday season. Her family’s restaurant, The Starlight Café, is slated for demolition. The heir to the development firm responsible, William, makes her an unlikely proposition: he’ll spare the café if Annie spends the week “appearing” as the legal counsel his father is demanding he hire in the wake of some costly mistakes.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Kimberley Sustad, Paul Campbell, Darren Martens
Synopsis: For years Lucy has played Santa to her small town’s community by making their holiday wishes come true. But when Lucy grants a little girl’s wish for a Christmas like she used to have with her mom, she unexpectedly finds her own wishes coming true in life and love.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Carman
Starring: Amanda Schull, Travis Van Winkle, Averie Peters
Director: Jeff Beesley
Writer(s): Anne Abramowitz Junget, Joie Botkin, Brook Durham
Synopsis: When journalist Julia goes back home to find inspiration, she discovers her childhood friend has built a giant snow maze which prompts her to find her way to true love.
Filming Locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg, St. Adolphe
Amazing Winter Romance(2020)
Starring: Jessy Schram, Marshall Williams, Zoe Fish
Synopsis: When marketing exec Lucy learns that she’s inherited her grandfather’s year-round Christmas store, “Forever Christmas,” she makes a trip back home to support the store during its final Christmas season before she sells it to a hip athletic leisurewear company. But once she is back in Vermont, she begins to understand why her grandfather’s shop is so special with the help of local diner owner, Scott and the magic of a Christmas stranger from the north.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg, Selkirk, Stonewall, Trappist Monastery Provincial Park
Starring: Lexi Lawson, Mark Ghanimé, Beth Broderick
Synopsis: When country star Melody Jones is accused of plagiarizing her holiday single, she returns home to spend Christmas with her estranged family and old flame and learns what is important in life
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Alicia Witt, Brendan Hines, Andrea del Campo
Synopsis: With Christmas approaching in New York City, historian Jessica is hired to create an exhibition honoring the history of Christmas at The Plaza Hotel. When she is paired with Nick, a handsome decorator, they wind up enjoying a host of holiday traditions together and find themselves falling for each other.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Elizabeth Henstridge, Ryan Paevey, Bruce Davison
Synopsis: Two busy strangers meet when they help an elderly woman find her lost Christmas savings. Thanks to fate and Christmas magic, they also find something they were both missing: true love.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Elizabeth Mitchell, Cameron Mathison, Zoe Fish
Synopsis: Dr. Sharon Hayes (DeLoach) searches for a beloved family heirloom in a small Christmas town. When she unexpectedly discovers an adorable little girl and her disheartened father (Rady), she realizes that Christmas miracles really do happen.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Nikki Deloach, Michael Rady, Michaela Russell
Director: Lesley Demetriades
Writer(s): Ian Carroll, Lesley Demetriades, Christine Demetriades
Synopsis: Cate, CEO of the Merry and Bright Candy Cane Company, meets Gabe during the busy Christmas season. She assumes Gabe is the suitor her well-meaning mother is trying to set her up with when in reality, he works for Empire Corporate Recovery, which has been hired to take a closer look at Merry and Bright’s operation and find ways to make the company more profitable. As Cate and Gabe begin to work together, they find ways to elevate the business and find that they have more in common than savvy business sense.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Jodie Sweetin, Andrew W. Walker, Sharon Lawrence
Director: Gary Yates
Writer(s): Mary Kay Andrews, Karen Wyscarver, Sanford Golden
Synopsis: Cara and Ben return to the resort where they fell in love a year earlier. They invite her friend Megan, hoping she’ll reconnect with Ben’s friend Sean, now the resort’s doctor. During the trip Cara finds a jewelry receipt, leading her to expect a proposal from Ben, but a misunderstanding may ice his plan.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Taylor Cole, Jack Turner, Rukiya Bernard
Synopsis: A radio host from Philadelphia is forced to relocate her show ‘Radio Christmas’ to a small town where she meets a handsome local and discovers a big town secret. As she settles in and the pair start to bond, an accidental broadcast will jeopardize not only her career, but her new found home and romance.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg, Stonewall
Starring: Keshia Knight Pulliam, Michael Xavier, Nakai Takawira
Synopsis: When the successful hardworking marketing executive Emma finds her gift to a former lover in a pawn shop, emotions she thought she had sworn off begins to surface. Forced to spend Christmas in Vermont while crunching a deadline, she reconnects with an old college flame and his adorable daughter forces her to re-evaluate her whole life.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Kyla Pratt, Edward Ruttle, Sophia Bachart
Synopsis: Told she would have less than a few months to live without a liver transplant, Heather Krueger’s time was running out when a kind stranger, Chris Dempsey, heard of her plight and discovered he was a perfect match. The two met and before long a friendship developed into romance. The movie follows Heather and Chris’ journey over three Christmases as his selfless gesture leads to a Christmas miracle for everyone involved. Based on a true story.
Synopsis: Allison Bennet, along with her daughter Olivia and mother Martha, run a bakery in the small mountain town of White Pines, Tennessee. When Matthew, a charming real estate developer, tries to buy the town for a corporate ski resort, Allison and the townspeople must work together to prevent that from happening. And just when the Bennet ladies seem out of luck, an unexpected visitor – with a well-known sweet tooth for cookies and milk – comes to the bakery and may in fact be the key to solving everything
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg, Stonewall
Starring: Rachel Boston, Andrew W. Walker, Patricia Richardson
Synopsis: As Christmas approaches, Noelle is at a crossroads in her life when it seems that love, a connection with her father, and her dream career are out of reach. When she stays late at her job in a department store on a snowy Christmas Eve, she accidentally gets locked in after closing. She isn’t too concerned about the prospect of spending the night in the store… until a quirky woman appears out of nowhere in the shoe department and tells Noelle that she’s her guardian angel. Soon, Noelle finds herself revisiting Christmases past, present, and future as she must work with her new neighbour, a handsome, Christmas-loving firefighter, to plan the annual Christmas Charity Gala. Is Will visiting the holidays of yesterday and tomorrow help Noelle take new chances and discover the true spirit of Christmas? And in realizing that the only thing standing in her way of leading a fulfilling life is herself, will the love she has longed for all her life be the best surprise gift of all? Starring Candace Cameron Bure, Luke Macfarlane and Jean Smart.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Candace Cameron Bure, Luke Macfarlane, Jean Smart
Synopsis: Jenna Hudson and Kevin Jenner are polar opposites working for the same online publication in New York City. With both having nowhere they want to be for Christmas, they volunteer for a special writing assignment. After a snowstorm forces their plane to land in none other than Santa Claus, Indiana, the two are placed in a Christmas Wonderland and the focus of their story shifts to saving the historic town inn run by Carol and Christopher Winters. As the two overcome their differences, they also rediscover the magic of Christmas. But with the inn’s fate in jeopardy and the return of someone from Jenna’s past, Carol and Christopher lend a helping hand to bring Jenna and Kevin together
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Bethany Joy Lenz, Andrew Walker, Belinda Montgomery
Synopsis: No man is perfect enough for Sarah Groves, except perhaps the impressive snowmen she sculpts annually with her childhood pal, Nick. In mid-December, her snowman disappears, and in his place, materializes Cole, who seems too perfect for Sarah to be true.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Ashley Newbrough, Jesse Hutch, Adam Hurtig
Synopsis: WWII has ended and Hanna is still grieving over her husband’s disappearance. When the Christmas Comet appears for the first time in 70 years, Hanna is caught in a terrible storm and knocked unconscious. When she wakes up, she’s in 2016.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Candace Cameron Bure, Oliver Hudson, Brooke Nevin
Synopsis: Finn Baxter sets up booby traps to catch the ghost of his new home’s former occupant, then discovers that he must protect the house and his sister from three bumbling art thieves.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Christian Martyn, Eddie Steeples, Jodelle Ferland
Director: Peter Hewitt
Writers: Aaron Ginsburg, John Hughes, Wade McIntyre
Silent Night (2012)
Synopsis: The police force of a remote Midwestern town searches for a killer Santa Claus who is picking off citizens on Christmas Eve.
Synopsis: The tight-knit neighbours on Arthur Avenue have proudly lit Christmas luminaries for 40 years, but that long-standing tradition is cancelled this year when Matt Norman, a teenage boy in the neighbourhood, is hospitalized in desperate need of a heart transplant. As his parents Ann and Mike anxiously pray by his bedside, a donor is found, while in Detroit, a mother is in anguish at her own son’s bedside. When Matt’s neighbours decide to honour him in the best way they know-how, they just might help save his life.
Synopsis: Lucky Christmas is the story of Holly Ceroni, a single mom trying to get back on her feet, but who is crushed to learn her winning lottery ticket is in the glove compartment of her recently stolen car. Mike Ronowski, the construction worker behind Holly’s missing property, goes along with a master plan to befriend Holly and coerce her into giving him half of her winnings. Mike unexpectedly falls in love with Holly and learns there are more important things in life than quick money in time for the holidays
Filming locations in Manitoba: Stonewall
Starring: Alicia Witt, Brendan Hines, Andrea del Campo
Director: Gary Yates
Writer(s): Elizabeth Berkley, Jason Gray-Stanford, Mitchell Kummen
Synopsis: After the recent loss of her son Sean, Patty Addison devotes herself to finding homes for needy children. The loss of their son has strained Patty’s relationship with her husband Mark, but they reconnect emotionally when they take in Emily, a 9-year-old orphaned in a car accident similar to the one that killed Sean. At the same time Dr. Nathan Andrews is trying to find the parents of a boy who died in the ER, and Mark is trying to help one of his son’s friends.
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Madeleine Stowe, James Remar, Ian Ziering
Synopsis: A week before Christmas, Paula finds herself struggling with bills and life with her blue-collar husband Gary and her two daughters. When Nick, her high school boyfriend returns to town, a wealthy art gallery owner, Paula wonders if she made the wrong decision when she took the wrong date to the prom. What would her life have been like if she stayed with Nick?
Filming locations in Manitoba: Winnipeg
Starring: Nicole Eggert, Patricia Mayen-Salazar, Bret Anthony
FTM is a non-for-profit charity and member of the Province of Manitoba’s Sector Council program funded through the Economic Development, Investment, Trade and Natural Resources. FTM builds a highly skilled and adaptable film industry workforce to support the activities of Manitoba production companies. FTM collaborates and partners with members of the film industry to identify training needs to support workforce development.
