The Quebec film industry has gained significant momentum in the past three decades, in part thanks to the international recognition of the films of Deny Arcand and a handful of others. Despite obstacles, Quebec cinema is now increasingly recognised as a successful example of North American, French-language resistance to the hegemony of Hollywood (Jean 2005: 11). Since the 1990s films produced in the province have arguably been less visibly preoccupied with defining Quebecois identity, as opposed to films made during both the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s and the sovereignty debates in the 1970s and 1980s. Instead, contemporary directors from Quebec have been more inclined to devise crowd-pleasing opuses of various genres that thrive locally and, with ever more frequency, on the international scene. These productions, which comprise both commercial blockbusters and smaller budget, so-called auteur films, have revealed new directing talents such as Denis Villeneuve, Jean-Marc Vallee, Philippe Falardeau, and Kim Nguyen, whose feature film Rebelle/War Witch (2012), a French- and Lingala-language Canadian film shot in the Democratic Republic of Congo, received multiple Jutra prizes (Quebec's own French-language film awards) and Genie awards (Canada's national film prizes) in the year of its release. As in most national film industries besides (perhaps) France, female directors are still largely underrepresented in Quebec fiction cinema, though women have slowly been making their mark on the industry. These contributions include the films of pioneer feminist filmmaker Anne Claire Poirier, who started directing in the 1960s, of the Swiss-born Lea Pool, who began her career in the late 1970s, and a newer and hopefully growing wave that includes Catherine Martin, Lyne Charlebois, Manon Briand and Louise Archambault.

Twenty-first century films also attest to the tremendous diversity of the filmmaking industry in Quebec, which releases, in addition to its especially popular comedies (La grande séduction/Seducing Doctor Lewis, Jean-François Pouliot, 2003; and Bon Cop Bad Cop, Erik Canuel, 2006) and numerous literary adaptations in costume (Séraphin: Un homme et son péché, Charles Biname, 2002), bona fide genre films, from the horror flick (5150 rue des Ormes, Eric Tessier, 2009) to the crime drama (Polytechnique, Denis Villeneuve, 2009) and the suspense thriller (Détour, Sylvain Guy, 2009) (Beaulieu 2002: 56–7).