Tantoo Cardinal Filmography

Luna: Spirit of the Whale

Actors: Adam Beach, Tantoo Cardinal, Aaron Miko, Erin Karpluk, Michelle Harrison

Synopsis: Adam Beach, Graham Greene, and Jason Priestly star in director Don McBrearty's fictionalized account of the events that took place in the harbor of a Vancouver Island village and shocked animal lovers around the world. When a government representative (Priestly) announces that he intends to Read More

Unnatural and Accidental

Actors: Callum Keith Rennie, Tantoo Cardinal, Carmen Moore, Marie Clements

Synopsis: The despair of Canada's native community in the 21st century dovetails with a story of mystery and murder in this moody drama from filmmaker Carl Bessai. Rebecca (Carmen Moore) is a woman in her early thirties of aboriginal heritage living in the rough and tumble East Side of Vancouver, where Read More

V-Day: Until the Violence Stops

Synopsis: First-time filmmaker Abby Epstein directs Until the Violence Stops, an hour-long documentary capturing the impact of V-Day in five different international communities. Following the success of Eve Ensler's award-winning play The Vagina Monologues, V-Day was created as a global movement to end Read More

A Thief of Time

Actors: Adam Beach, Wes Studi, Sheila Tousey, Peter Fonda, Graham Greene

Synopsis: This adaptation of Tony Hillerman's A Thief of Time keeps that book's original storyline. The protagonists Joe Leaphorn (Wes Studi) and Jim Chee (Adam Beach) are a pair of Navajo police officers whose beat is their reservation. They must investigate why some important historical artifacts have Read More

How the Fiddle Flows

Memory

In the Light of Reverance

The Hi-Line

Actors: Rachael Leigh Cook, Ryan Alosio, Tantoo Cardinal, Margot Kidder, Stuart Margolin

Synopsis: Award-winning soundman Ron Judkins makes his directorial debut in this drama about family ties and how they can unravel. Vera (Rachel Leigh Cook) is a young woman with little in the way of ambitions or goals who still lives with her parents, Clyde and Laura (Stuart Margolin and Margot Kidder), in Read More

Lost Child

Actors: Mercedes Ruehl, Jamey Sheridan, Irene Bedard, Dinah Manoff, Tantoo Cardinal

Synopsis: This Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation was based on a true story, as set down in the book Looking for Lost Bird by Yvette Melanson and Claire Safran. The heroine, a thirty-something woman named Rebecca, is an adoptee raised by a Jewish family. Though the fact that she was adopted was never in Read More

Navigating the Heart

Actors: Jaclyn Smith, Tim Matheson, David Andrews, Tantoo Cardinal, Lynda Boyd

Synopsis: This made-for-cable romantic drama was based on the book Fishing with John by Manhattan journalist Edith Iglauer. Jaclyn Smith stars as Iglauer, who is on assignment in British Columbia to write a flippantly satiric piece about the Canadian salmon industry. A "meet cute" scene unites Edith with Read More

Postmark Paradise

Actors: Natalia Nazarova, Tantoo Cardinal, Vincent Angelini, Randall Godwin

Synopsis: A Russian woman gets an unexpected crash course in small-town American life in this independent comedy drama. Jake (Vincent Angelini) lives and works in Paradise, a small town in southwestern Michigan. Jake is gruff and good-hearted when sober but can be mean-spirited and unpredictable when drunk. Read More

Smoke Signals

Actors: Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Irene Bedard, Gary Farmer, Tantoo Cardinal

Synopsis: This dramatic feature was written, directed, and co-produced by Native Americans. Native American writer Sherman Alexie scripted this adaptation of his 1993 short story collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. Director Chris Eyre's previous short Someone Kept Saying Powwow is Read More

Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery

Actors: Adam Arkins, Murphy Guyer, Sam Waterston, Matthew Broderick, Kevin Conway

Synopsis: This Ken Burns documentary, narrated by Hal Holbrook, chronologically traces the well-documented 1804-06 military expedition of Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and Lt. William Clark (1770-1838) to survey newly acquired lands and seek a Northwest Passage. Ordered by Thomas Jefferson (who labeled it Read More

The Education of Little Tree

Actors: James Cromwell, Tantoo Cardinal, Joseph Ashton, Graham Greene

Synopsis: Richard Friedenberg scripted and made his directorial debut with this adaptation of Forrest Carter's 1992 award-winning coming-of-age novel detailing the Depression-era boyhood of an orphaned Cherokee, eight-year-old Little Tree (Joseph Ashton). Raised and tutored by his grandparents (Tantoo Cardinal Read More

Silence

Actors: Tantoo Cardinal, August Schellenberg

Grand Avenue, Part 1

Actors: A. Martinez, Irene Bedard, Tantoo Cardinal, Sheila Tousey, Diane Debassige

Synopsis: In this provocative drama, three Native American families attempt the difficult task of living successfully in modern society while still remaining true to their cultural tradition and heritage. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Tecumseh: the Last Warrior

Synopsis: The life and struggles of Shawnee leader Tecumseh provide the basis of this biography. Much of the story centers on his efforts to unite all Native American tribes and upon William Henry Harrison who is trying to make the Northwest a state. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Silent Tongue

Actors: Alan Bates, Richard Harris, Dermot Mulroney, River Phoenix, Sheila Tousey, Tantoo Cardinal

Synopsis: Playwright Sam Shepard wrote and directed this bizarre combination of western film revisionism and Greek tragedy. Silent Tongue (Tantoo Cardinal) is a mute Kiowa who is raped by Eamon McCree (Alan Bates), the owner of the Kickapoo Traveling Medicine Show. Eamon attempts to make up for his crime by Read More

Legends of the Fall

Actors: Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn, Henry Thomas, Julia Ormond, Tantoo Cardinal

Synopsis: The sweeping, melodramatic saga of three brothers, their powerful father, and a beautiful woman, the popular period drama Legends of the Fall presents a romanticized view of rugged masculinity against lush Montana scenery. Based on a novel by Jim Harrison, the film covers decades in the lives of Read More

Where the Rivers Flow North

Actors: Rip Torn, Tantoo Cardinal, Bill Raymond, Michael J. Fox, John Griesemer

Synopsis: Jay Craven and Don Bredes adapted Howard Frank Mosher's novel about a 1920s Vermont logger who is being pressured to sell his land to a power company so the region can enjoy its first hydroelectric dam. ~ Nicole Gagne, All Movie Guide Read More

500 Nations, Vol. 3: Clash of Cultures - The People Who Met Columbus

Synopsis: Hosted by Kevin Costner and narrated by Gregory Harrison, the historical documentary 500 Nations, Vol. 3: Clash of Cultures - The People Who Met Columbus is part of an eight-part series that portrays America's original inhabitants. The film provides an in-depth look at Columbus' arrival in the New Read More

Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee

Sioux City

Actors: Lou Diamond Phillips, Ralph Waite, Melinda Dillon, Salli Richardson, Adam Roarke

Synopsis: A young Lakota Sioux, adopted by a wealthy Jewish couple in Beverly Hills, gets in touch with his cultural roots and solves a mystery in this thriller. Because of his upbringing, Jesse Rainfeather Goldman knows almost nothing of Native American traditions. He is doing his internship when he Read More

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: Heroes

Actors: Joe Lando, Chad Allen, Erika Flores, Shawn Toovey

Synopsis: Her "romantic" experience gleaned from pulp magazines, Colleen (Erika Flores) develops a crush on Sully (Joe Lando) after he saves her life. Colleen then deliberately gets lost in the woods, hoping to be rescued again -- and nearly dies of frostbite. Meanwhile, Hank (William Shockley) foments Read More

Spirit Rider

Actors: Herbie Barnes, Gordon Tootoosis, Michelle St. John, Graham Greene

Synopsis: A teenage Ojibway boy, who has been in foster homes for ten years, is placed back on his family's reservation with his grandfather. While the tribe tries to make his return happy, the boy's resentments and family tragedies get in the way. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Mustard Bath

Actors: Michael Riley, Martha Henry, Tantoo Cardinal, Elizabeth Shepherd

Synopsis: Matthew (Matthew Riley) has sad memories of his late childhood in Guyana, when his mother rejected him in a terrifically painful way. He has been living in Canada for quite some time, but now wants to revisit his birthplace. There, he meets a group of local people who help him discover what has Read More

By the Way of the Stars

Actors: Zachary Bennett, Tantoo Cardinal, Gema Zamprogna, Jan Rubes, Michael Mahonen

Synopsis: A 19th century Prussian boy still reeling from the untimely death of his mother finds his life thrown into chaos when his father is wrongfully imprisoned in a classical adventure tale written by Marlene Matthews and directed by Allan King. Lukas' (Zachary Bennett) mother has just died in Read More

By Way of the Stars

Actors: Zachary Bennett, Gema Zamprogna, Christian Kohlund, Anja Kruse, Hannes Jaenicke

Synopsis: Zachary Bennett, Gema Zamprogna, and Christian Kohlund star in this television miniseries following the adventures of a brave young boy and a teenage baroness as they depart from Prussia, cross the Atlantic, and seek out their fortune in the American West. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide Read More

Black Robe

Actors: Lothaire Bluteau, Aden Young, Sandrine Holt, August Schellenberg, Tantoo Cardinal

Synopsis: Adapted by Brian Moore from his own novel, The Black Robe is a sprawling recreation of a turbelent period in Canadian history. In 1634, Jesuit missionary Father Laforgue (Lothair Bluteau) arrives in the New World, hoping to convert the Huron Indian tribe to Catholicism-and, incidentally, to Read More

The Lightning Incident

Actors: Nancy McKeon, Polly Bergen, Elpidia Carrillo, Miriam Colon

Synopsis: In this campy thriller, a pregnant sculptor is tormented with terrible nightmares just before the birth of her son. She doesn't recognize the dreams as psychic premonitions until after the members of a vengeful voodoo cult steal her newborn son. The distraught mom soon learns that she is also Read More

Dances with Wolves

Actors: Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney Grant, Floyd "Red Crow" Westerman

Synopsis: A historical drama about the relationship between a Civil War soldier and a band of Sioux Indians, Kevin Costner's directorial debut was also a surprisingly popular hit, considering its length, period setting, and often somber tone. The film opens on a particularly dark note, as melancholy Union Read More

Divided Loyalties

Synopsis: The course of the American Revolution was changed dramatically when the Mohawk chief, Joseph Brant, decided to side with the British rather than the Americans during the American Revolution. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Loyalties

Actors: Kenneth Welsh, Susan Wooldridge, Tantoo Cardinal, Vera Martin, Diane Debassige

Synopsis: This drama is an engrossing exploration of the complexity of noble human traits, like loyalty and love, in conflict with a powerful argument for justice. Dr. David Sutton (Kenneth Welsh) and his wife Lily (Susan Wooldridge) have an argument that, unknown to them, is witnessed by their teenage son. Read More

Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge

Actors: Steve Forrest, James Arness, Amanda Blake, Buck Taylor

Synopsis: James Arness returns to the role of US marshal Matt Dillon after a twelve-year absence in the made-for-TV Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge. Amanda Blake is also back as Miss Kitty, "hostess" of Dodge City's Long Branch saloon. The plot involves Dillon's reunion with Kitty in a Dodge City festooned with Read More

Candy Mountain

Actors: Kevin J. O'Connor, Harris Yulin, Tom Waits, Bulle Ogier, Roberts Blossom

Synopsis: After promising a rock star he would find a particular guitar-maker to procure his valuable products, a musician takes a road trip in search of the legend. On his way, he meets various people who have--at one time or another-- been involved with the elusive guru. After he finally meets the man, he Read More

Death Hunt

Actors: Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Andrew Stevens, Carl Weathers, Ed Lauter

Synopsis: Set in the '30s, Mountie Millen (Lee Marvin) is assigned to track down accused murderer Johnson (Charles Bronson), who has escaped in the high passes of the Canadian Rockies. Johnson, a trapper, has extensive knowledge of wilderness living, but Millen has the resources of the Canadian police at Read More