Backdrop fallback

The Ernie Game

The Ernie Game

Share

The Ernie Game

"The game is life......the rules are Ernie’s."

1968

1h 28m

5.4(8 votes)

Drama

Crime

Overview

This fictional feature follows a twenty-something man who is struggling to define his position in the world in early adulthood. He has left their parents' home but still has not made an home of his own. Our protagonist’s alienation is palpable; for him life is a game, not because he chooses to make it so, but because he is unable to make anything more of it. But for those who befriend him and eventually turn him loose again, his game is not enough.

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

ONF | NFB

CBC

The people behind it

Cast & crew

8 featured cast members

Starring

Alexis Kanner

Alexis Kanner

Ernie Turner

Jackie Burroughs

Jackie Burroughs

Gail

Anna Cameron

Social worker

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

Singer

Rolland D'Amour

Rolland D'Amour

Neighbour

Judith Gault

Donna

Derek May

Ernie's accomplice

Louis Negin

Louis Negin

Ernie's friend

Creative team

Directed by: Don Owen
Written by: Don Owen
Produced by: Gordon Burwash

Similar Movies

Love for Share

Three women from three different social, economic, and ethnic groups discuss their lives in polygamous household.

Raise the Red Lantern

Raise the Red Lantern

In 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.

Rainbows

Rainbows

A stirring story that captures the glory of determination when a physically challenged young girl brings an abused, homeless female jockey, and an abandoned horse together for a ride of a lifetime and much more.

The Polygamous Wazzou

An Islamic faithfull returns from his holy pilgrimage to Mecca with the venerated title “el hadji”. On his return he falls in love with his daughter’s friend Santou, who is already engaged to be married to Garba. El Hadji however already has two wives and his second wife, Gaika, cannot stand the idea of another younger wife entering her house. She plots to kill Santou.

The Last King of Scotland

The Last King of Scotland

Young Scottish doctor, Nicholas Garrigan decides it's time for an adventure after he finishes his formal education, so he decides to try his luck in Uganda, and arrives during the downfall of President Obote. General Idi Amin comes to power and asks Garrigan to become his personal doctor.

Rajakili

Rajakili

A God fearing multi-millionaire gets his life in shambles and becomes mentally & physically challenged after an entanglement with two other women apart from his first wife.

The King and I

The King and I

Widowed Welsh mother Anna Leonowens becomes a governess and English tutor to the wives and many children of the stubborn King Mongkut of Siam. Anna and the King have a clash of personalities as she works to teach the royal family about the English language, customs and etiquette, and rushes to prepare a party for a group of European diplomats who must change their opinions about the King.

Tim

Tim

Handsome but backward gardener Tim Melville has a new woman in his life. She is Mary, his widowed employer, a woman who had given up on love until she had found Tim. At first they are friends. But soon they become lovers, as Mary, drawn to Tim's innocence and magnetism, begins to teach him all about life - and love.

King of the Lost World

King of the Lost World

In this modern retelling of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fantasy action-adventure classic, a commercial airliner crashes deep in the heart of the Amazon. Now, the survivors must face a mysterious and hostile world inhabited by giant scorpions, dragons, and a simian beast that stands ten stories tall.

Ravage 2024

Ravage 2024

A psychopath narrates the tale of a tiger and hunter, foreshadowing danger. Two robbers, Alex and Vincent, nearly botch a heist but impulsively decide to rob a nearby house. Unbeknownst to them, the psychopath lurks inside, ready for confrontation.

Highway 301

Highway 301

The "Tri-State" gang goes on a successful bank robbing streak causing local authorities to turn up the heat on the daring career criminals.

Monsieur Verdoux

Monsieur Verdoux

The film is about an unemployed banker, Henri Verdoux, and his sociopathic methods of attaining income. While being both loyal and competent in his work, Verdoux has been laid-off. To make money for his wife and child, he marries wealthy widows and then murders them. His crime spree eventually works against him when two particular widows break his normal routine.

Sister Wives

Sister Wives

Two young women living in a strict, fundamentalist, polygamous society, Kaidence and Galilee, find themselves bound to one another, under the same roof, in the same marriage, as they develop scary, new, exciting feelings for each other. In a harsh, regressive, watchful community where being queer is considered a cardinal sin, they begin having thoughts of leaving the only life they have ever known behind.

The Goodbye Kiss

The Goodbye Kiss

Leftist radical-turned-terrorist Giorgio—hiding out in Latin America since the 1970s—turns himself in as soon as the Berlin Wall falls. Wishing to lead a comfortable, bourgeois life in his native Italy, he cuts a deal with a dirty cop, getting his sentence reduced in return for ratting former comrades out. Once released, Giorgio obsessively pursues his dream of becoming an upright citizen, but his old police aquaintance keeps dragging him down...

Pushpaka Vimana

Pushpaka Vimana

A mentally-challenged father lives in his idyllic world with his daughter, both of them crazy about planes. In his quest to get his daughter that toy plane that she yearns for, he ends up in jail wrongly accused of a crime he doesn't commit. What follows is a bittersweet tale of a father and daughter trying to be together...

The Living End

The Living End

Two HIV-positive young men — a semi-employed film critic and a hot hustler — tear off on a cross-country crime spree.

Gun Crazy

Gun Crazy

Bart Tare is an ex-Army man who has a lifelong fixation with guns, he meets a kindred spirit in sharpshooter Annie Starr and goes to work at a carnival. After upsetting the carnival owner who lusts after Starr, they both get fired. Soon, on Starr's behest, they embark on a crime spree for cash.

The Secret Lives of Sister Wives

The Secret Lives of Sister Wives

In a controlling polygamous sect, Calli Miller struggles with her predetermined path while remembering her aunt Leah's escape. She faces a critical choice between submission and dangerous freedom.

The Boys Next Door

The Boys Next Door

Kind-hearted social worker Jack Palmer feels guilty about not spending enough time with his wife due to the pressures of his job taking care of four developmentally disabled men: obsessive-compulsive Norman, bipolar Arnold, childlike Lucien, and schizophrenic Barry. When Jack announces his decision to leave his job, his four charges react quite unexpectedly to the news.

Bonnie and Clyde

Bonnie and Clyde

In the 1930s, bored European-American waitress Bonnie Parker falls in love with a European-American ex-con named Clyde Barrow and together they start a violent crime spree through the country, stealing cars and robbing banks.

Recommended Movies

Winged Creatures

Winged Creatures

A psychotic man opens fire in a diner, murdering numerous people before killing himself. The survivors struggle in different ways following this horrendous event: a doctor doubts his own instincts and elects to use an experimental medical procedure on his wife, while a gambler believes he's on a lucky streak. A waitress begins engaging in promiscuous sex, and a young girl whose father is among the dead gains unexpected fame.

The Unforgivable

The Unforgivable

A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.

Siberian Education

Siberian Education

The story of a gang of children growing up in a community of banished criminals, in a forgotten corner of the former Soviet Union. This community rejects the world outside. The only law it obeys… is its own. Against this backdrop two best friends, Kolyma and Gagarin, gradually become fierce enemies as they find themselves on opposite sides of the strict code of honour of the ‘honest criminal’ brotherhood.

Outlaw Prophet: Warren Jeffs

Outlaw Prophet: Warren Jeffs

Cult leader Warren Jeffs rises to power in the polygamist Mormon sect once headed by his late father, but some of his wives fight back to bring him to justice. Based on a true story.

Belly

Belly

Tommy Bundy and Sincere are best friends as well as infamous and ruthless criminals and shot-callers in the hood. Respected by many but feared by all. As the police are closing in on them and new players are looking for a come up, will their reign last?

Gaslight

Gaslight

A newlywed fears she's going mad when strange things start happening at the family mansion.

Suburbicon

Suburbicon

In the quiet family town of Suburbicon during the 1950s, the best and worst of humanity is hilariously reflected through the deeds of seemingly ordinary people. When a home invasion turns deadly, a picture-perfect family turns to blackmail, revenge and murder.

Hangman

Hangman

A homicide detective teams up with a criminal profiler to catch a serial killer whose crimes are inspired by the children's game, Hangman.

Surviving the Game

Surviving the Game

A homeless man is hired as a survival guide for a group of wealthy businessmen on a hunting trip in the mountains, unaware that they are killers who hunt humans for sport, and that he is their new prey.

Deep Water

Deep Water

A well-to-do husband who allows his wife to have affairs in order to avoid a divorce becomes a prime suspect in the disappearance of her lovers.

True Believer

True Believer

Eddie Dodd is a burnt out former civil rights lawyer who now specializes in defending drug dealers. Roger Baron, newly graduated from law school, has followed Eddie's great cases and now wants to learn at his feet. With Roger's idealistic prodding, Eddie reluctantly takes on a case of a young Korean man who, according to his mother, has been in jail for eight years for a murder he didn't commit.

The Experiment

The Experiment

20 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.

Faces in the Crowd

Faces in the Crowd

Anna is living with "face-blindness" after surviving a serial killer's attack. As she lives with her condition, one in which facial features change each time she loses sight of them, the killer closes in.

Butterfly on a Wheel

Butterfly on a Wheel

A sociopathic kidnapper methodically pushes a desperate pair of parents to their absolute breaking point.

Careful What You Wish For

Careful What You Wish For

A guy gets more than he bargained for after entering into an affair with the wife of an investment banker. Soon, a suspicious death and substantial life insurance policy embroil him in a scandal.

The Clovehitch Killer

The Clovehitch Killer

A picture-perfect family is torn apart after Tyler finds a cache of disturbing images in his father's possession. He begins to suspect that the man he trusts most in the world may be responsible for the murder of 13 women ten years prior.

Convict

Convict

Set in the dark and old Parramatta prison built by the original convicts our lead character Ray a war veteran finds himself serving 18 months for manslaughter after defending his fiance. He soon realizes that the prison boss has it in for him and does everything possible to break Ray even going after his fiance.

Above the Rim

Above the Rim

Story of a promising high school basketball star and his relationships with two brothers, one a drug dealer and the other a former basketball star fallen on hard times and now employed as a security guard.

The Village

The Village

When a willful young man tries to venture beyond his sequestered Pennsylvania hamlet, his actions set off a chain of chilling incidents that will alter the community forever.

Canary Black

Canary Black

Top level CIA agent Avery Graves is blackmailed by terrorists into betraying her own country to save her kidnapped husband. Cut off from her team, she turns to her underworld contacts to survive and help locate the coveted intelligence that the kidnappers want.