Titles curated by Richard Kuipers
18 titles - sorted alphabetically or by year
D
Dogs in Space feature film – 1986
Inner-city Melbourne, 1978. Aspiring rock singer Sam and his girlfriend Anna live in a crowded share house. The party atmosphere is shattered by tragedy.
F
Fatal Bond feature film – 1991
Fans of iconic 1960s cars will be able to see a Valiant S series take on a Citroen Goddess in the final scenes.
H
Harlequin feature film – 1980
Smoothly directed in widescreen, Harlequin is one of the more polished Australian films of its day and a notch above the ordinary genre film.
High Tide feature film – 1987
Judy Davis makes her deeply flawed character compelling and, without her in the role, audiences may have rejected the character.
M
Modern Love feature film – 2006
Like Wake in Fright, Modern Love plays upon the threatening nature of the Australian outback as an ordinary man undergoes an extraordinary personality change.
Moulin Rouge! feature film – 2001
Moulin Rouge! was a risky venture for director Baz Luhrmann but is a tour de force of imagination and appropriation.
N
Not Quite Hollywood documentary – 2008
Not Quite Hollywood is a good-humoured, highly entertaining look at the exploitation movies made in Australia in the 1970s and ’80s.
P
Patrick feature film – 1978
Patrick proved that Australia had the capacity to produce exportable exploitation movies and is better regarded now than it was in 1978.
Petersen feature film – 1974
Though promoted as a lusty yarn, the frequent and fairly explicit sex scenes between the film’s unhappy characters are hardly titillating.
The Proposition feature film – 2005
Many Australian films present the outback as a dangerous place but probably only Wake in Fright can offer an outback with predatory instincts to match The Proposition.
R
Romeo + Juliet feature film – 1996
Baz Luhrmann’s radical update of Romeo + Juliet boldly shattered conventional wisdom that said Shakespeare as he wrote it would never appeal to a mass audience.
S
Snapshot feature film – 1978
Snapshot holds some sort of distinction in thriller ranks for its use of a Mr Whippy ice-cream van as a deadly instrument.
Stone feature film – 1974
Stone is a true rebel movie that refuses to die. It also ranks as one of the most commercially successful Australian productions of the 1970s.
Strictly Ballroom feature film – 1992
Strictly Ballroom is one of the most popular Australian films ever made. The story may be nothing new but the execution is so colourful and eccentric it hardly matters.
Summer City feature film – 1977
Best known as Mel Gibson’s first movie, Summer City is a laid-back road movie that emerges as more than just a throwaway, thanks to strong performances.
T
Thirst feature film – 1979
Australia’s only postmodern vampire movie, Thirst is a highlight of the ‘Ozploitation’ films made in the late 1970s and early 80s.
The Time Guardian feature film – 1987
The Time Guardian is one of the great missed opportunities of Australian cinema and symbolic of its wavering fortunes in the 1980s.
Turkey Shoot feature film – 1982
Without doubt one of the most notorious Australian films ever made, Turkey Shoot has attracted both wildly positive and negative reactions over the years.
