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Favorite Australian Films

Movie list created by kathy

Sort by: Showing 14 items

Decade: Rating: List Type:

445

6.8

7.2

Muriel's Wedding (1994)

Director: P.J. Hogan
Starring: Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, Bill Hunter and Sophie Lee

Muriel finds life in Porpoise Spit, Australia dull and spends her days alone in her room listening to ABBA music and dreaming of her wedding day. Slight problem, Muriel has never had a date. Then she steals some money to go on a tropical vacation, meets a wacky friend, changes her name to Mariel, and turns her world upside down.

kathy's rating:

7.6

7.3

Red Dog (2011)

Director: Kriv Stenders
Starring: Josh Lucas, Rachael Taylor, Rohan Nichol, Luke Ford, Keisha Castle-Hughes and Noah Taylor

Based on the legendary true story of the kelpie named 'Red Dog' who united a disparate local community while roaming the Australian outback in search of his long lost master.

kathy's rating:

273

7.3

7.4

Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002)

Director: Phillip Noyce
Starring: Everlyn Sampi, Tianna Sansbury, Kenneth Branagh and Laura Monaghan

At a time when it was Australian government policy to train aboriginal children as domestic workers and integrate them into white society, young Molly Craig decides to lead her little sister and cousin in a daring escape from their interment camp. Molly and the girls, part of what would become known as Australia's "Stolen Generations", must then elude the authorities on a dangerous 1,500-mile journey along the rabbit-proof fence that bi-sects the continent and will lead them home.

kathy's rating:

8.1

7.2

Phar Lap (1983)

Director: Simon Wincer
Starring: Tom Burlinson, Ron Leibman, Richard Morgan, Robert Grubb, Martin Vaughan, Celia De Burgh, Vincent Ball, Judy Morris, Richard Terrill, Peter Whitford and Steven Bannister

The true story of a legendary Australian racehorse that becomes a champion with the help of a local stableboy, rising from obscurity to win nearly 40 races in just three years before mysteriously dying in 1932.

kathy's rating:

211

7.1

The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)

Director: Peter Weir
Starring: Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hunt, Bill Kerr and Michael Murphy

A young Australian reporter tries to navigate the political turmoil of Indonesia during the rule of President Sukarno with the help of a diminutive photographer.

kathy's rating:

7.5

7.4

The Tracker

Director: Rolf de Heer
Starring: David Gulpilil, Gary Sweet, Damon Gameau and Grant Page

Australia, 1922. When a Native Australian man is accused of murdering a white woman, three white men, referred only as: The Fanatic, The Follower and The Veteran, are given the mission of capturing him with the help of an experienced Native Australian, referred to only as The Tracker. So they start their quest in the outback, not knowing that their inner wrestles for and against racism will be more dangerous that the actual hunting for the accused.

kathy's rating:

7.1

The Sundowners (1960)

Director: Fred Zinnemann
Starring: Deborah Kerr, Robert Mitchum, Peter Ustinov and Glynis Johns

In the Australian Outback, the Carmody family: Paddy, Ida and their teenage son Sean are sheep drovers, always on the move. Ida and Sean want to settle down and buy a farm. Paddy wants to keep moving. A sheep-shearing contest, the birth of a child, drinking, gambling and a race horse will all have a part in the final decision.

kathy's rating:

7.7

Storm Boy (1976)

Director: Henri Safran
Starring: Greg Rowe, Peter Cummins, David Gulpilil, Judy Dick, Tony Allison, Michael Moody, Graham Dow and Eric Mack

A 10-year-old Australian boy known as Storm Boy is living with his father in a ramshackle house in the sand dunes near Adelaide. Having lost his mother, Storm Boy is growing up alone in that landscape but for the company of his uncommunicative parent, his mercurial Aboriginal friend Fingerbone Bill and a trio of pelicans, including the bird closest to him, Mr Percival.

kathy's rating:

646

7.6

7.4

Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

Director: Peter Weir
Based on the novel by Joan Lindsay
Starring: Anne Lambert, Jane Vallis, Karen Robson, Christine Schuler and Vivean Gray

A group of teenage schoolgirls from Appleyard College in Australia go on an outing on Valentine's Day in 1900. The place, Hanging Rock, is a volcanic site over a million years old.

While the other girls are picnicking, Miranda, Marion and Irma go on a little excursion to the top of the rock. Another girl with them, Edith, awakes from a nap to find herself left behind. She runs down the rock in a panic, passing their school mistress heading up in search of them. The three girls and the mistress are never heard from again.

This unsolved mystery, based on an historical incident, presses upon our consciousness with an unrelenting series of questions. Watches stopped during the picnic; were the girls caught up in a time warp? Were they grabbed by aborigines for trespassing upon sacred tribal grounds? Or did Miranda, the leader of the group, whisk them away from the place for a less restricted life elsewhere? She had remarked, "Everything begins and ends exactly at the right time and the right place."

kathy's rating:

6.8

7.1

The Dish (2000)

Director: Rob Sitch
Starring: Sam Neill, Billy Mitchell, Roz Hammond and Christopher-Robin Street

In the days before the July 19, 1969 space mission that marked humankind's first steps on the moon, NASA was working with a group of Australian technicians who had agreed to rig up a satellite interface. That the Aussies placed the satellite dish smack dab in the middle of an Australian sheep farm in the boondocks town of Parkes was just one of the reasons that NASA was concerned. Based on a true story, The Dish takes a smart, witty, comical look at the differing cultural attitudes between Australia and the U.S. while revisiting one of the greatest events in history.

kathy's rating:

338

7.2

7.4

Gallipoli (1981)

Director: Peter Weir
Starring: Mel Gibson, Mark Lee, Bill Kerr and Harold Hopkins

The story of a group of young Australian men who leave their various backgrounds behind and sign up to join the ANZACs in World War I. They are sent to Gallipoli, where they encounter the might of the Turkish army.

kathy's rating:

517

7.2

7.7

Shine (1996)

Director: Scott Hicks
starring: Geoffrey Rush, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Justin Braine, Sonia Todd and Lynn Redgrave

Pianist David Helfgott, driven by his father and teachers, has a breakdown. Years later he returns to the piano to popular, if not critical, acclaim.

kathy's rating:

6.1

6.5

Tim (1979)

Director: Michael Pate
Based on the novel by Colleen McCullough
Starring: Piper Laurie, Mel Gibson, Alwyn Kurts, Pat Evison, Deborah Kennedy and David Foster

Tim Melville is a young man with below average intelligence. He works as a builder’s labourer and is often taken advantage of by his fellow workers and other people. Middle aged American businesswoman Mary Horton asks Tim to work on her garden for a day. The day stretches into a few weekends and the two soon become good friends. However, some people are suspicious of their friendship which seems to be continually strengthening, accusing Mary of taking advantage of Tim’s innocence. Will changing circumstances in Tim’s family life alter his relationship with Mary?

kathy's rating:

1193

6.1

6.2

Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

Directors: George Miller and George Ogilvie
Starring: Mel Gibson, Tina Turner, Bruce Spence and Adam Cockburn

In a post apocalyptic world where all machines have begun to break down and barbarians hold what is left, a former Australian policeman is rescued by a tribe of children when he is banished from Bartertown and sent into the desert to die by the city's evil queen.

kathy's rating: