Initially a distribution company, Cinépix's first production was the 1969 erotic drama Valérie, which earned $1 million at the box office.
[3] Over the next number of years the firm produced a number of sex comedy films, including Here and Now (L'Initiation), Love in a Four Letter World and Heads or Tails (Pile ou face), which were labelled as "maple syrup porn" and saw Dunning compared to a Canadian Roger Corman.
[4] The company also distributed art-house films including the grunge rock documentary Hype, Vincent Gallo's Buffalo '66, and SICK: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist.
[6] By 1997, Cinépix had a New York-based U.S. distribution arm and owned 56 percent of Ciné-Groupe, an animated film production company.
[1][2] In June 2011, shortly before his death in September of that year, the Toronto Film Critics Association announced that Dunning would receive its Clyde Gilmour Award for lifetime achievement, with Cronenberg stating that "John Dunning is the unacknowledged godfather of an entire generation of Canadian filmmakers.