Toronto Easter eggs on screen — a film critic goes down the rabbit hole to pick his favourites

I’d argue that cities can be considered Easter eggs, too. As Toronto more often than not stands in for other cities, especially New York and Chicago, Torontonians can usually spot the landmarks pretending to be something else.

And we T.O. locals love to see our city on film! Whenever I’m at a screening where a Toronto reference is seen or spoken about, the audience always laughs and sometimes even applauds.

Here are some of my favourite Toronto cinematic Easter eggs, a quirky personal selection that is by no means definitive.

Silver Streak (1976)

This hit comedy thriller, about an L.A.-to-Chicago train ride and a book editor wrongly accused of murder, starred Gene Wilder, Richard Pryor, Jill Clayburgh … and Toronto’s Union Station. The latter stood in for Chicago’s Union Station, where Edmonton-born director Arthur Hiller originally planned to film a big train-crash finale. U.S. passenger rail company Amtrak balked at that, but not Canadian Pacific Railway, which was probably flattered by the Hollywood attention. The runaway train smashing into Union Station’s main concourse was done using miniatures and other pre-digital movie tricks, and it still impresses. It’s also obviously Toronto’s Union Station; blink and you’ll miss the glimpse of the nearby Fairmont Royal York hotel.

Wayne’s World (1992)

Mike Myers delights in putting what he calls “messages to home” in his movies. He really went to town with his hugely popular first “Wayne’s World” film, which is set in Aurora, Illinois, but loaded with winks to T.O. The film’s fictional Stan Mikita’s Donut Shop honours not only one of Myers’ hockey heroes, but also a Tim Hortons he and his pals used to frequent while growing up in Scarborough. But the film’s funniest Toronto shout-out is the “No Stairway to Heaven” sign a music store clerk points to when Myers’ Wayne Campbell tries to play the Led Zeppelin classic (and rock cliché) on a guitar. Myers got the idea from an actual sign in Steve’s Music Store on Queen Street West (where it still hangs). “No ‘Stairway’ — denied!” Campbell exclaims, minting one of Myers’ many famous catchphrases.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004)

The sleek futuristic lines and modernist architecture of Toronto City Hall, designed by Viljo Revell, have inspired the makers of films and TV shows since it first opened in 1965. It even appeared in an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” But nothing could top city hall’s explosive moment in “Resident Evil: Apocalypse,” the second chapter of the zombie franchise, which is set in a fictional U.S. locale called Raccoon City (a sly nod to Toronto’s multitudinous trash pandas). Flame-haired protagonist Alice (Milla Jovovich) and her comrades are aboard a helicopter that drops a powerful bomb onto city hall, blowing it up as well as much of downtown Toronto. The special effects aren’t exactly Oscar worthy, but they get the job done for a memorable and unsettling scene.

Enemy (2013)

“Dune” director Denis Villeneuve made this doppelganger nightmare just as his Hollywood career was starting to take off with the hostage drama “Prisoners.” The Quebec filmmaker made “Toronto the Good” look truly sinister, a rare accomplishment. This psychodrama, about a history professor (Jake Gyllenhaal) who discovers and tracks an exact look-alike, includes glimpses of such offbeat landmarks as Mississauga’s curvy “Marilyn Monroe” condo towers, officially known as the Absolute World complex. An incredible poster for the film, showing the Toronto skyline (with CN Tower) rising out of Gyllenhaal’s head, was only used in Europe. Villeneuve told me the Canadian distributor vetoed it for North America, saying, “‘Oh, the audience doesn’t want to see Toronto as a landscape for movies,’ and I thought that was strange. I don’t agree with them. I think Toronto is a very cinematic and appealing city for fiction.”

Suicide Squad (2016)

The first “Suicide Squad” film starred Will Smith, Margot Robbie and Jared Leto as members of a team of nothing-to-lose troublemakers conscripted to save the world. Toronto once again stands in for the U.S., but there are recognizable local spots all through the movie, including scenes at the Eaton Centre and in the TTC’s film-friendly Lower Bay station. The film climaxes inside Union Station, where an evil Enchantress (Cara Delevingne) seems intent on conjuring up the kind of nuclear bomb scene we’d later see in “Oppenheimer.” The film was a bust at the box office, but its cinematic mayhem comes across as an anti-hero’s tour of Toronto.

The Shape of Water (2017)

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro loves Toronto and loves making films here; he’s currently in town shooting “Frankenstein” for Netflix. But his biggest hat tip to the city is “The Shape of Water,” his Best Picture Oscar winner, a sci-fi romance between a woman and an amphibious creature that’s set in Baltimore but was filmed mainly in Toronto and Hamilton. It’s a gold mine for Easter egg hunters. Sally Hawkins’ protagonist, Elisa, lives above a cinema whose interiors were shot at the Elgin and Winter Garden theatres and exteriors were shot at Massey Hall. My favourite scene is a poignant moment in which Elisa stands by the Toronto waterfront’s Keating Channel, with the elevated Gardiner Expressway in the background. That highway has never looked so romantic.

Turning Red (2022)

Toronto writer-director Domee Shi, an Oscar winner for her 2018 short “Bao,” made her feature debut for Pixar with this animated ode to the city of her youth. It’s the comical and fantastical story of a 13-year-old girl who finds herself transforming into a giant red panda at the onset of puberty. “Turning Red” is like an entire basket of Toronto film Easter eggs. Set in the Toronto of 20 years ago, it has scenes of old TTC streetcars and the SkyDome before it was renamed Rogers Centre. There are also Daisy Mart and Tim Hortons shops, Ontario licence plates and colourful Canadian dollars. It’s not just a shout-out to Torontonians, it’s also a nostalgia trip to a city of memory that increasingly seems to have vanished down a rabbit hole.