All feature films
225 titles - sorted alphabetically or by year prev 1 2 3 4 5 next
From the earliest feature, to the most recent releases.
0-9
2000 Weeks 1969
2000 Weeks (1969) was one of the first features of the modern era in Australian cinema. Autobiographical and intensely personal, it’s still highly watchable.
27A 1974
Robert McDarra won the 1974 AFI Award for his portrait of an alcoholic imprisoned in a Queensland psychiatric hospital. He died in 1975.
A
The Adventures of Barry McKenzie 1972
The Adventures of Barry McKenzie was a hugely popular satire with Australian and British audiences, partly because it conformed so well with each country’s view of the other.
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert 1994
The most unforgettable scenes in Priscilla feature excessive costumes on incongruous characters in vast, humbling spaces.
Alexandra’s Project 2003
If Steve is an average Australian male, his insensitive treatment of his wife is by implication a serious indictment of not only him, but Australian men in general.
Alvin Purple 1973
Alvin Purple was hugely popular, partly because it makes fun of powerful institutions like the courts, the press, marriage and psychiatry.
Amy 1998
Amy has an amazing voice, once she discovers it, making this an unusual combination of sentiment, social commentary and singing.
Angel Baby 1995
These lovers are mentally ill and, for the sake of their coming baby, go off their medication, adding a touch of heroism to the film.
Australian Rules 2002
This drama, with its racist theme, in turn sparked very heated debate about white filmmakers telling stories with indigenous content.
B
Babe 1995
Unaware that 'Christmas means carnage’ for farm pigs, Babe sings a happy Christmas carol. Farmer Hoggett decides against putting him on the menu for Christmas lunch.
Backlash 1986
Much of the dialogue in Bill Bennett’s film, about two police officers and a young indigenous woman, was improvised on location.
Bad Boy Bubby 1993
Bad Boy Bubby was conceived as an experiment on virtually every level. It had 32 different cinematographers, for example.
BeDevil 1993
Tracey Moffatt, who is best known as an artist, challenged Western storytelling traditions in Bedevil and polarised critics.
Beneath Clouds 2002
While the narrative devices that director Ivan Sen uses to communicate his themes are firmly located within Indigenous sensibility and cultural perspective, the subject matter is universal.
The Bet 2006
This tale of corruption and high finance is the first feature directed by Mark Lee, who starred in the iconic film Gallipoli.
The Big Steal 1990
The Big Steal is generally known as a romance and an exuberant comedy but is also about teenagers outwitting corrupt adults.
The Birth of White Australia 1928
This early feature depicts racial tension in NSW in 1861. Despite its offensive representation of Aboriginality, the film has cultural and historic value.
Bitter Springs 1950
A family of white farmers fight to take possession of land and water that is home to a well-established Aboriginal clan.
The Black Balloon 2007
The Black Balloon is partly a coming-of-age movie, but the presence in the family of an autistic brother like Charlie prevents it from becoming conventional or predictable.
Blackrock 1996
Blackrock’s depiction of teenagers letting off steam with sex and drink and rock 'n’ roll is very dynamic because of the fluid camerawork, lively soundtrack and energetic choreography.
Bliss 1985
To say Bliss was ahead of its time is an understatement: the bold metaphors and sharp satire weren’t appreciated by everyone in 1985.
Bonjour Balwyn 1971
Bonjour Balwyn (1971) leaves the viewer with a richly satirical observation on the realities of ‘cultural production’.
Boxing Day 2007
The unconventional production method helped give Boxing Day an unusually intense sense of foreboding, danger and unpredictability.
The Boys 1998
David Wenham’s performance as the absolutely terrifying Brett Sprague, launched his career as an actor of serious power and presence.
Breaker Morant 1979
Much of the film is about youth versus experience, honesty versus cynicism and political expediency – an interesting ethical domain given that it’s a film about war crimes.
The Breaking of the Drought 1920
An outback family faces ruin through drought and a son corrupted by life in the big city.
Breathing Under Water 1991
The director’s preoccupation with humankind’s tendency to self-destruct was one factor that lead to the creation of this complex film.
The Broken Melody 1938
A film with music rather than a musical, The Broken Melody is one of the few films of the 1930s that tries to depict the Depression’s effect on real people.
Broken Sun 2008
Imagination and resourcefulness helped this small filmmaking team, lead by Brad Haynes, overcome the constraints of having only $50,000.
Buddies 1983
Buddies is a comedy, dressed up as a frontier romance, and it is relatively unknown and underrated.
Bush Christmas 1947
In a rare villainous role, Chips Rafferty plays a horse thief, Long Bill. He is tracked by five kids spending Christmas in the Blue Mountains.
C
Cactus 1986
Cactus explores both the horror of not being able to see and the notion that blindness can sharpen the senses and lift the spirits.
Cactus 2007
Cactus, while full of thrills and suspense, gradually reveals a more humanistic agenda as it employs genre conventions to explore notions of masculinity, class and power.
Caddie 1976
Caddie is a powerfully emotional statement of the ways in which women outside marriage were socially and economically disadvantaged in the period between the wars.
Candy 2006
Candy is a beautifully controlled film with an intense sensuality preceding an equally intense descent into grief and regret.
The Cars That Ate Paris 1974
Mild-mannered Arthur is trapped in a quiet country town where feral youth drive souped-up cars and the hospital is full of brain-damaged accident victims.
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith 1978
This is one of the key Australian films of the 1970s, because it speaks about the unspeakable with a depth of rage that was absolutely unprecedented and has never been repeated.
Chopper 2000
The killer who feels no remorse is a movie cliché, but Chopper is about a killer whose remorse is as strong as his desire to wound.
The Club 1980
The Club, adapted from David Williamson’s play, is set at a time when professionalism was taking over the game.
Clubland 2007
Clubland explores that time when a young man discovers sex and has to sever the relationship he has with his mother.
Cosi 1996
Does it matter that Cosi, about psychiatric patients staging the opera Così Fan Tutte, never quite loses its theatrical origins?
Crackerjack 2002
An overgrown boy from a spoiled generation, becomes a man through fraternising with an older, wiser — and very daggy — generation.
Crocodile Dundee 1985
This is not just the most commercially successful Australian film ever made, but also one of the most successful non-Hollywood films.
Crocodile Dundee II 1988
This sequel, in which Mick Dundee battles drug dealers, asserts more stridently that he is more like an Aboriginal than a white man.
D
Dad and Dave Come to Town 1938
The question this fish-out-of-water comedy is really asking is whether Australians have the confidence to be modern in the context of the wider world of 1938.
Dad Rudd, MP 1940
Dad Rudd, MP truly signals the end of an era, the last gasp of the cycle of rural comedies featuring yokels and livestock that went back 30 years in Australian cinema.
Dead Calm 1989
Nicole Kidman was 20 when she was cast in Dead Calm. Within a year of the film opening, she was in Hollywood – partly as a result of her performance in this film.
Dead Heart 1996
Bryan Brown plays a second generation Northern Territory cop caught up in a power struggle over whether black or white law is supreme.
Death Defying Acts 2007
Filmmakers often tell imagined stories to explore a famous figure or incident and this love story involving Harry Houdini in 1926 is a good example.
The Devil’s Playground 1976
Both writer Thomas Keneally and director Fred Schepisi spent time in a Catholic seminary, the world explored in this drama.
