Sarah Polley

Acting

Sarah Polley

Born 1979-01-08 · 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. Description above from the Wikipedia article Sarah Polley, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Dawn of the Dead poster
7.1

A group of survivors take refuge in a shopping mall after the world is taken over by aggressive, flesh-eating zombies.

Dawn of the Dead

2004

Mr. Nobody poster
7.8

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.

Mr. Nobody

2009

eXistenZ poster
6.8

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.

eXistenZ

1999

Beowulf & Grendel poster
5.6

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.

Beowulf & Grendel

2005

Splice poster
5.9

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.

Splice

2010

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen poster
7.0

An account of Baron Munchausen's supposed travels and fantastical experiences with his band of misfits.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

1988

Exotica poster
6.6

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.

Exotica

1994

Go poster
7.0

A supermarket clerk decides to step in for an absent drug dealer, setting off an explosive, comedic chain of events.

Go

1999

The I Inside poster
5.9

When Simon awakens in the hospital after surviving a near-fatal accident, amnesia has erased the last two years from his memory. He learns that his brother was killed, he has married a woman he doesn't remember and he's haunted by strange visions of the woman he loved.

The I Inside

2004

Guinevere poster
5.7

A young girl from an affluent family rebels and becomes involved with a much older photographer.

Guinevere

1999

My Life Without Me poster
6.1

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.

My Life Without Me

2003

The Secret Life of Words poster
7.0

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

The Secret Life of Words

2005

The Sweet Hereafter poster
6.9

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.

The Sweet Hereafter

1997

Margaret Atwood: A Word After a Word After a Word Is Power poster
6.8

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?

Margaret Atwood: A Word After a Word After a Word Is Power

2019

Don't Come Knocking poster
6.2

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...

Don't Come Knocking

2005

Jerry and Tom poster
6.2

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.

Jerry and Tom

1998

The Big Town poster
5.5

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.

The Big Town

1987

The Weight of Water poster
5.5

A newspaper photographer researches an 1873 double homicide and finds her own life paralleling that of a witness who survived the tragic ordeal.

The Weight of Water

2001

Stories We Tell poster
7.1

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 on 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.

Stories We Tell

2012

The Claim poster
6.0

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.

The Claim

2000

Blue Monkey poster
4.9

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.

Blue Monkey

1987

Wrath of Gods poster
5.0

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.

Wrath of Gods

2007

One Magic Christmas poster
5.9

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.

One Magic Christmas

1985

Last Night poster
6.7

Various citizens of Toronto anxiously await the end of the world, which is occurring at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day.

Last Night

1998

Behind the camera

Women Talking poster
6.8

A group of women in an isolated religious colony struggle to reconcile their faith with a series of sexual assaults committed by the colony's men.

Women Talking

2022

Women Talking poster
6.8

A group of women in an isolated religious colony struggle to reconcile their faith with a series of sexual assaults committed by the colony's men.

Women Talking

2022

& Sons poster
NR

A world-renowned but reclusive novelist, believing he is about to die, summons his estranged sons to his home. But instead of seeking forgiveness for their shattered family, he tells them a wild and unbelievable secret that could rewrite their past.

& Sons

2026

Away from Her poster
7.0

Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.

Away from Her

2007

Away from Her poster
7.0

Fiona and Grant have been married for nearly 50 years. They have to face the fact that Fiona’s absent-mindedness is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease. She must go to a specialized nursing home, where she slowly forgets Grant and turns her affection to Aubrey, another patient in the home.

Away from Her

2007

Take This Waltz poster
6.4

Twenty-eight-year-old Margot is happily married to Lou, a good-natured cookbook author. But when Margot meets Daniel, a handsome artist who lives across the street, their mutual attraction is undeniable.

Take This Waltz

2011

Take This Waltz poster
6.4

Twenty-eight-year-old Margot is happily married to Lou, a good-natured cookbook author. But when Margot meets Daniel, a handsome artist who lives across the street, their mutual attraction is undeniable.

Take This Waltz

2011

Take This Waltz poster
6.4

Twenty-eight-year-old Margot is happily married to Lou, a good-natured cookbook author. But when Margot meets Daniel, a handsome artist who lives across the street, their mutual attraction is undeniable.

Take This Waltz

2011

Stories We Tell poster
7.1

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 on 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.

Stories We Tell

2012

Stories We Tell poster
7.1

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 on 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.

Stories We Tell

2012

I Shout Love poster
5.3

Bobby is about to abandon Tessa, but in a suicidal panic she persuades him to stay one last night and reenact the good old times in front of a video camera for posterity.

I Shout Love

2002

I Shout Love poster
5.3

Bobby is about to abandon Tessa, but in a suicidal panic she persuades him to stay one last night and reenact the good old times in front of a video camera for posterity.

I Shout Love

2002

No artwork available
NR

A young woman's summer in New York includes working for a Mademoiselle-like magazine, her return home to New England, and subsequent breakdown all amidst the horrors of the 1950s, from news of the Rosenbergs' execution to sleazy disc jockeys and predatory college boys.

The Bell Jar

No artwork available
NR

A young woman's summer in New York includes working for a Mademoiselle-like magazine, her return home to New England, and subsequent breakdown all amidst the horrors of the 1950s, from news of the Rosenbergs' execution to sleazy disc jockeys and predatory college boys.

The Bell Jar

No artwork available
5.0

A black comedy, Don't Think Twice is a disturbing and profound examination of the morals of a man forced to choose between lover and family.

Don't Think Twice

1999

No artwork available
5.0

A black comedy, Don't Think Twice is a disturbing and profound examination of the morals of a man forced to choose between lover and family.

Don't Think Twice

1999

No artwork available
5.0

A black comedy, Don't Think Twice is a disturbing and profound examination of the morals of a man forced to choose between lover and family.

Don't Think Twice

1999

The Best Day of My Life poster
5.0

Short drama by Sarah Polley. The film was made for the "On the Fly 4" film festival. The film was shot and edited in one day.

The Best Day of My Life

1999

The Best Day of My Life poster
5.0

Short drama by Sarah Polley. The film was made for the "On the Fly 4" film festival. The film was shot and edited in one day.

The Best Day of My Life

1999

No artwork available
NR

A community turns against a respected prep school teacher and his family after he is arrested for a sex crime.

The Best Kind of People

No artwork available
NR

A community turns against a respected prep school teacher and his family after he is arrested for a sex crime.

The Best Kind of People

No artwork available
NR

A community turns against a respected prep school teacher and his family after he is arrested for a sex crime.

The Best Kind of People