Titles curated by Paul Byrnes
260 titles - sorted alphabetically or by year prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 next
1970s (continued)
The Cars That Ate Paris feature film – 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.
Kerr’s Cur historical – 1975
On 11 November 1975, on the steps of Parliament House, the dismissed Prime Minister Gough Whitlam delivers his now-famous verdict on the day’s events.
The Man from Hong Kong feature film – 1975
The film has great energy and a series of superb action sequences, including quite possibly the best car chase in Australian cinema before Mad Max.
Picnic at Hanging Rock feature film – 1975
On St Valentine’s Day 1900, three schoolgirls from an exclusive English-style boarding school go missing, along with a teacher, at Hanging Rock, in central Victoria.
Pure S feature film – 1975
Pure S was originally banned from release and remains one of the most unusual and frank films about drug use ever made in Australia.
The Removalists feature film – 1975
The story is a savage microcosm of Australia, rather than just a look at the then-topical issue of police hypocrisy and brutality.
Sunday Too Far Away feature film – 1975
The defining elements of a great 1970s Australian film are all here – empty, confronting landscapes, hard-drinking Aussie blokes, and a sense of 'the great Australian loneliness’.
Caddie feature film – 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.
The Devil’s Playground feature film – 1976
Both writer Thomas Keneally and director Fred Schepisi spent time in a Catholic seminary, the world explored in this drama.
Don’s Party feature film – 1976
The off-stage bedroom scenes in the original play became on-screen sex in this film, and the male characters got naked not just drunk.
Mad Dog Morgan feature film – 1976
Mad Dog Morgan updates the bushranging movie conventions, by seeing Morgan as a modern media phenomenon.
Oz – A Rock ‘n’ Roll Road Movie feature film – 1976
Director Chris Löfvén was heavily involved in the rock music scene. Oz was his attempt to rework The Wizard of Oz for a mid-1970s youth audience.
Storm Boy feature film – 1976
Seamlessly woven into this story about one boy’s love of a pelican, are such themes as race relations, ecology, and family breakdown.
The Trespassers feature film – 1976
Many films reflected the sexual revolution of the 1970s but few male directors explored what women wanted from it. This one does.
Backroads short feature – 1977
Backroads (1977) is the first feature (albeit, a short one) by Phillip Noyce, who would go on to make Newsfront (1978) and Rabbit-Proof Fence.
Dot and the Kangaroo feature film – 1977
A generation of Australian school children grew up on Dot and the Kangaroo and the six other Dot films that followed it. Really.
The FJ Holden feature film – 1977
When The FJ Holden premiered at the Chullora Drive-in in 1977, anyone driving an FJ or FX Holden got in free.
Hot to Trot short film – 1977
A cartoon adventure featuring Captain Goodvibes, the pig of steel, and his sidekick Astro.
Journey among Women feature film – 1977
Making this film in the 1970s became politically charged: should and could a male director make a meaningful film about women?
The Last Wave feature film – 1977
As the weather gets worse, tax lawyer David Burton has a premonition of disaster, in which he is to play a key role.
Love Letters from Teralba Road short feature – 1977
Based on letters found in a flat in Sydney, Love Letters from Teralba Road examines love among the working classes in the western suburbs.
The Picture Show Man feature film – 1977
The comic performances from John Meillon and John Ewart as the last of the itinerant vaudevillians are superb.
The Singer and the Dancer short feature – 1977
Ambitious and confidently made, The Singer and the Dancer was Gillian Armstrong’s first attempt at a longer form drama after making a couple of shorts.
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith feature film – 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.
The Getting of Wisdom feature film – 1978
The affair between two school girls was only hinted at in Henry Handel Richardson’s 1910 novel, but lesbian overtones are obvious in the film.
In Search of Anna feature film – 1978
This film has a restless energy and is part of a pre-professional maverick tradition that grew out of the experimental cinema of the 1970s.
Long Weekend feature film – 1978
On a long weekend camping trip to a lonely beach, Peter and Marcia confront the despair of their marriage, as nature takes revenge on them.
Newsfront feature film – 1978
Some believe that Newsfront, set in the late 1940s and incorporating extensive newsreel footage, is Australia’s best film.
The Night the Prowler feature film – 1978
This savage satire on the neuroses of the privileged of Sydney’s eastern suburbs was written by the great novelist Patrick White.
Breaker Morant feature film – 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.
Mad Max feature film – 1979
Mad Max was a piece of impolite, independent cinema that had a profound effect on audiences and filmmakers across the world.
Money Movers feature film – 1979
Money Movers was ahead of its time, and may have suffered because of that. It’s a 'crime procedural’, a genre that is now much more popular.
My Brilliant Career feature film – 1979
This feminist warrior and role model came to life on film in the same year as the road warrior in the masculine fantasy Mad Max.
The Odd Angry Shot feature film – 1979
Australia’s role in Vietnam was still a raw issue when this film emerged and some criticised it for not condemning that involvement.
Palm Beach feature film – 1979
The underrated Palm Beach, set on Sydney’s northern beaches, is very daring in its use of sound.
The Plumber television program – 1979
Jill’s discomfort increases as the uninvited plumber destroys the bathroom, but neither her husband nor her friend Meg will take her seriously.
1980s
The Club feature film – 1980
The Club, adapted from David Williamson’s play, is set at a time when professionalism was taking over the game.
Stir feature film – 1980
This revealing film about prison life has a violent tone and very bad language, but this helps give it credibility.
Gallipoli feature film – 1981
Gallipoli remains one of the most loved of all Australian films. It’s one of Weir’s most nakedly emotional films and one of his most poetic.
Goodbye Paradise feature film – 1981
This evocative picture of the Gold Coast as paradise lost includes a gaudy, sleazy fun park, tawdry politics and busloads of old ladies singing.
The Killing of Angel Street feature film – 1981
This political thriller is loosely based on the disappearance of Sydney heiress and anti-development campaigner Juanita Nielsen.
Lonely Hearts feature film – 1981
Comedian and satirist John Clarke wrote this film with Paul Cox: no wonder it is full of bright impish humour.
Mad Max 2 feature film – 1981
Mad Max 2 is a more self-consciously mythic film than its predecessor, in a much more primal landscape, with a lot more action.
Puberty Blues feature film – 1981
When the two teenage girls at the heart of this film buy a surfboard and teach themselves to surf, they become their own role models.
Winter of Our Dreams feature film – 1981
It was surprising that this uncompromising film about a junkie prostitute’s failure to find love, would work so well with audiences.
Wrong Side of the Road feature film – 1981
Most black bands before this were playing country and western – Us Mob, Coloured Stone and No Fixed Address were among the first to play rock or reggae.
Heatwave feature film – 1982
An architect and an activist from opposing sides unite against a crooked developer.
The Man from Snowy River feature film – 1982
The Man From Snowy River is an iconic Australian western. It’s a naive film of epic proportions, but the naiveté is calculated to appeal to a sense of American nostalgia, and Australian chauvinism.
Starstruck feature film – 1982
Gillian Armstrong’s Starstruck is an energetic rock musical comedy, with a kitsch aesthetic very much influenced by the style of early ’80s video clips.
We of the Never Never feature film – 1982
Race relations is the theme that is constantly lurking in this story about one woman’s life on an outback station.
