All titles in the ‘Historical’ genre
110 titles - sorted by title / by year
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Australasian Gazette – Pauline Frederick, World Famous Star of Stage and Screen (c1924)
This newsreel from 1924 shows Pauline Frederick, a world famous actress from the stage and screen, posing for the camera. She takes of her hat to reveal her ...
Australia in World War 1 (c1980)
A compilation of film footage from the collection of the National Film and Sound Archive and the Australian War Memorial. Subjects include the home front factories, parades, propaganda ...
Australia Post – 200 Years (1988)
This is a short programme produced to mark Australia Post’s commemoration of the 26 January 1988 Australian Bicentennial.
Australia Post – Joint Stamp Issue (1988)
This program records Australia Post’s release of a special joint Australian and United States bicentennial stamp and a commemorative bicentenary book of stamps.
Australia Post – Letter Writing Venice (1986)
This is an Australia Post television advertisement promoting international postage.
Backs to the Blast, an Australian Nuclear Story (1981)
The documentary summarises nuclear testing in the 1950s in Australia and its consequences. This compilation documentary uses archival footage from both scientific recordings and newsreels of the time. ...
Belsen For Example (1985)
A German film crew interviews survivors, now living in Australia, of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The recollections of the victims and members of the rescue teams are a ...
Billy and Percy (1974)
This dramatised documentary is based on the diaries of Percy Deane, who became the private secretary of Prime Minister WM Hughes during one of the most controversial and ...
Black Beauty (1978)
In his own words, Black Beauty tells his tragic story, the tale of a working horse’s life in Victorian England. It starts happily but, as his feisty stablemate ...
The Blainey View – Footprints (1982)
Australian historian Geoffrey Blainey takes us from the southernmost reaches of Tasmania to the edge of the continent in the Northern Territory to tell the extraordinary history of ...
Blood Brothers – Broken English (1993)
A documentary that alternates between interview and dramatised re-creation. It is the story of Rupert Maxwell Stuart (Max Stuart), an Arrernte man accused of murder and condemned to ...
Blood Brothers – Freedom Ride (1993)
A documentary that intercuts interview material with historical footage, Freedom Ride, written and directed by Rachel Perkins, delves into the political motivations of her father, Dr ‘Kumantjayi’ (Charlie) ...
Bodyline (1984)
In the summer of 1932–33, three men of Empire – the brilliant young Australian batsman Donald Bradman (Gary Sweet), the gentleman English captain Douglas Jardine (Hugo Weaving) and ...
The Bradman Era (1982)
Former test cricketer Bill O’Reilly recalls the test matches, mainly in the 1930s, with Don Bradman and other notable players. The documentary intercuts Bill O’Reilly’s interview with archival ...
Breaker Morant (1979)
In the Boer War in South Africa in 1901, three Australian ‘irregular’ soldiers are tried by a British military court for the murder of 12 prisoners and a ...
The Breaker (c1973)
A documentary of Henry ‘Breaker’ Morant’s life. It covers his disputed parentage, his variety of names, and his adventures as a bushman in Queensland and New South Wales. ...
Brides of Christ (1991)
A miniseries for television about the lives of a group of women, some of whom are part of a teaching order of nuns and some of whom are ...
Broken Sun (2008)
In 1944 Jack (Jai Koutrae), a New South Wales farmer still suffering physically and psychologically from his experiences in the First World War, has been living a solitary ...
Caddie (1976)
In Sydney in 1925, Caddie (Helen Morse) gets a job as a barmaid, after walking out on an unfaithful husband. She has no money and two children to ...
China, the Long March (1986)
China, the Long March follows stills photographer Leo Meier as he travels the route of the Long March for seven weeks to photograph the people and places of ...
City Traffic in Variable Moods (c1920)
This whimsical item is probably from an Australasian Gazette newsreel. It shows the road and pedestrian traffic around the Flinders and Swanston St intersection in Melbourne in 1920, ...
Come In Spinner (1989)
This is the story of women in wartime – those left behind while the men are away fighting. It’s the story of three very different women who work ...
Diggers (1931)
At a battalion reunion after the First World War, Chic Williams (Pat Hanna) and his ‘cobber’ Joe Mulga (George Moon) recall their exploits on the Western Front in ...
Dimpel, Konrad: Jennings Germans: home movie (c1960)
This silent, colour home movie footage from 1960 shows bricklayers lay the foundations of a house while others carry out masonry work on a rough stone wall. Alongside ...
The Dirtwater Dynasty (1988)
Richard Eastwick (Hugo Weaving) was born in a London slum and through his vision of a future on the land and with sheer hard work and courage, he ...
The Dismissal (1983)
On 11 November 1975, the Labor Prime Minister was dismissed by the Queen’s representative in Australia, the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr. The Dismissal brings to life the events ...
Don’s Party (1976)
On federal election night in 1969, Don and Kath Henderson (John Hargreaves and Jeanie Drynan) host a party, to celebrate what they expect will be a Labor victory ...
The Dream and the Dreaming (2003)
A documentary about the arrival of the Lutheran missionaries in 1877 in central Australia.
The Dunera Boys – Episode 2 (1985)
This drama is based on a true story about how a group of refugees who fled Nazi Germany for Britain were sent to Australia on the ship The ...
The Dunera Boys – Episode 3 (1985)
This four part miniseries is based on the true story of a group of Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany only to be treated as enemy aliens when ...
For Love or Money (1983)
Using a vast array of historical footage, the film proposes a history of women and work in Australia, from 1788 to 1983.
The Foundation 1963–1977 (2002)
A documentary that intercuts interviews with historical footage to tell the history of The Foundation of Aboriginal Affairs, an organisation significant in the push for the 1967 referendum ...
Frame Up. Who Bombed the Hilton, Who Didn’t? (1983)
Filmmaker Irina Dunn presents a case for the innocence of the three Ananda Marga members convicted of conspiracy to murder the leader of the National Front in 1978. ...
From Sand to Celluloid – Two Bob Mermaid (1996)
A short drama, set in the 1950s, about an Aboriginal girl Koorin (Carrie Prosser) who is fair skinned and gains access to the local swimming pool where Aboriginal ...
Grave of the President (1984)
The film follows a series of dives to one of the world’s biggest and most accessible shipwrecks, in Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu. It is a popular dive for scuba ...
Half Life: A Parable for the Nuclear Age (1985)
From 1946 to 1958 the US used the Marshall Islands south of Hawaii to test nuclear weapons above ground. Early atom bomb tests were conducted with some caution, ...
Harp in the South (1986)
A two-part miniseries following the life and times of the Darcys – an Irish-Australian family – in the aftermath of the Second World War. The impoverished Darcy family, ...
Heritage (1935)
James Morrison (Franklyn Bennett), a dashing and ambitious young settler in the new colony at Sydney Cove, woos Biddy O’Shea (Peggy Maquire), a fiery young Irish girl, when ...
Home of the Blizzard (Silent) (1913)
Home of the Blizzard documents part of the treacherous 600 mile 1911–1914 expedition to the Magnetic South Pole lead by Sir Douglas Mawson. Filmed between December 1911 and ...
How the West was Lost (1987)
On May 1 1946 hundreds of Aboriginal pastoral station workers walked off sheep stations in the Pilbara region of north-west Western Australia. This was the beginning of an ...
Hula Girls, Imagining Paradise (2005)
The 18th century discovery of Polynesia by both the British and French started a fantasy about island paradises and beautiful unrestrained women. This film traces the creation of ...
In the Wake of the Bounty (1933)
Charles and Elsa Chauvel follow the path of the Bounty mutineers from Tahiti to the Pitcairn Islands, using dramatised scenes to re-create the events leading up to the ...
Inauguration of the Commonwealth (1901)
This documentary shows the official parade and the swearing in of Australia’s first Governor General and Federal Cabinet for the Inauguration of the Commonwealth on the January 1, ...
Journey among Women (1977)
In the earliest years of Australian settlement, Elizabeth Harrington, a high-born and headstrong young woman (Jeune Pritchard) helps a group of convict women to escape constant rape by ...
The Last Man Hanged (1993)
The dramatised documentary traces the events leading up to the hanging of Ronald Ryan in 1967. Ryan escaped from Pentridge prison and a warder was shot dead in ...
The Leaving of Liverpool (1992)
The story of two young lives caught up in the British child migration schemes of the 1950s. Lily (Christine Tremarco) and Bert (Kevin Jones), are transported from an ...
The Legend of Damien Parer (1964)
The life story of the legendary Australian combat cameraman Damien Parer, as seen through the eyes of those who knew him and through the amazing footage that he ...
Lousy Little Sixpence (1982)
A documentary using historical footage and interviews with Indigenous people who belonged to the generation that were forced into unpaid servitude by the Australian government. The title refers ...
Mad Dog Morgan (1976)
Daniel Morgan (Dennis Hopper) becomes a bushranger after hard times in prison and the Victorian goldfields. Saved by Billy, an Aboriginal outcast (David Gulpilil), the two men terrorise ...
Maidens (1978)
Maidens is a biographical chronicle. It uses personal archives, made up of still and moving image, from both domestic and vocational sources, lyrical narration and emotive music to ...
More Winners – Boy Soldiers (1990)
In 1910, the Australian government passed a law requiring all boys aged between 14 and 17 years to register for compulsory military training. Between 1911 and 1915 more ...
More Winners – The Journey (1990)
On an isolated Tasmanian mountain plateau, 12-year-old Ada Zuckermann (Christen Cornell) lives with her wealthy miner father Justus (Owen Weingott). They are cared for by housekeeper Martha (Judith ...
My Brilliant Career (1979)
During the drought of 1898, headstrong and vivacious Sybylla Melvyn (Judy Davis) dreams of escaping the drudgery of farm life for a career as a writer. On an ...
My Mother India (2001)
Director Safina Uberoi traces her parents’ history. Her Australian mother married a Sikh and moved to India. There they bought up their three children and survived the anti-Sikh ...
My Mother’s Country Part 1 (2001)
My Mother’s Country is a documentary that gives a personal account of the Coniston Massacre of 1928.
My Mother’s Country Part 2 (2001)
My Mother’s Country is a personal account of the Coniston Massacre of 1928, in two parts.
Newsfront (1978)
In Australia in the late 1940s, before the coming of television, Len Maguire (Bill Hunter) and his young sidekick Chris (Chris Haywood) cover the big news stories for ...
Nicaragua: No Pasaran (1984)
This 1984 documentary examines the political story of Nicaragua. The Sandinistas overthrew the US backed dictatorship of Somoza. The Sandinistas then had to defend their country from the ...
No Survivors: The Mysterious Loss of the HMAS Sydney (1993)
On 19 November 1941, the HMAS Sydney, just returned from Europe, was sailing off the coast of Western Australia when she was sunk by the German raider HSK ...
The Odd Angry Shot (1979)
After his 21st birthday, Bill (John Jarratt) goes to fight in Vietnam, as part of the Australian forces. He’s in the Special Air Services, elite professional soldiers who ...
The Old Man and the Inland Sea (2005)
A documentary about Mr Norman Hayes Jagamarra who was a ‘noodler’ on the mining fields of Cobber Pedy.
On Our Selection (silent) (1920)
Murtagh Joseph Rudd (Percy Walshe), known as Dad, and his son Dave (Tal Ordell) finish a bark hut on their newly established ‘selection’ of virgin bush. The rest ...
One People Sing Freedom (1988)
A documentary about the Bicentenary in 1988 when, while the majority of Australia celebrated the anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet in 1788, Indigenous Australians were ...
Palace of Dreams (1985)
Tom Raynor (Michael O’Neill) is a country boy with a dream to be a writer. He comes to Sydney to find work and is caught up in the ...
Peach’s Explorers – East to West (1984)
Edward John Eyre and his loyal companion Wylie, an Indigenous Australian, completed an epic journey across the terrible sand dunes of the Nullarbor Plain from South Australia to ...
Peach’s Gold – Finders Keepers (1983)
The discovery of gold in California in 1849 started a huge rush to the goldfields of the United States, including thousands of Australians. Among them was Edward Hammond ...
Peach’s Gold – Land of Gold (1983)
From the middle to the end of the 19th century, gold strikes occurred in the most inhospitable regions of the continent, from Kiandra in the Snowy Mountains to ...
Peach’s Explorers – South to North (1984)
Inter-colony rivalry between South Australia and Victoria drove a race to the north of the continent. The race resulted in the terrible deaths of the leaders of the ...
Peach’s Explorers – The Secret of the Rivers: Captain Charles Sturt (1984)
Like so many Australian explorers of the early 19th century, Captain Charles Sturt believed there must be an inland waterway in the heart of Australia to explain why ...
Peach’s Gold – Eureka (1983)
From Clunes to Warrandyte, from Buninyong to Ballarat, men came from all over the country and from every corner of the globe to try their luck as diggers ...
The Picture Show Man (1977)
In the last days of silent movies, tight-fisted showman Maurice Pym (John Meillon), brings cinema to NSW country towns with his horse-drawn travelling picture show. His son Larry ...
Police State (1989)
On 26 May 1987 a Commission of Inquiry was established to investigate allegations of police corruption in Queensland. This telemovie tells the story of how the Commission’s president ...
Poor Man’s Orange (1987)
The story begins just a few years after the end of Harp in the South and continues the story of the Darcys, an Irish-Australian family, and their local ...
Riot or Revolution (2005)
A partly dramatised documentary about the Eureka Stockade in colonial Victoria. The civil revolt was triggered by the government’s imposition of a gold licence for gold miners. The ...
Robbery Under Arms (1985)
The Marston brothers, Dick (Steve Vidler) and Jim (Chris Cummins), are wild young men from the bush during the reign of Queen Victoria, who turn to a life ...
The Rocks: Sydney, Australia (1983)
This sponsored documentary traces the beginning of The Rocks in Sydney Cove to its present redevelopment as a tourist precinct. A young female tourist appears throughout the film ...
Secret Fleets (1995)
During the Second World War, submarines operated secretly out of Fremantle and Albany in the south of Western Australia. These were desperate times, when the Japanese advance had ...
Seven Little Australians (1973)
This is the story of the Woolcot family – Captain John Woolcot (Leonard Teale) from the NSW Regiment, his young second wife Esther (Elizabeth Alexander), and his seven ...
A Shifting Dreaming (1982)
A partly-dramatised documentary by Bob Plasto, which attempts to trace Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations through three significant events: the Coniston massacre in the Northern Territory in 1928 in ...
Shifting Sands – My Colour, Your Kind (1998)
A young albino Aboriginal girl (Melissa Middleton) escapes from a convent to return to her mother, her story unfolding in flashback during this journey.
Smithy (1946)
A young Australian pilot in the Royal Flying Corps is shot in the foot while flying over the Western Front in 1917. Charles Kingsford Smith (Ron Randell) finishes ...
Snakes and Ladders (1987)
Combining interviews, historical footage, quirky dramatisations and short animations, Snakes and Ladders gives an account of the achievements and setbacks of Australian women attempting to gain education equality ...
Snowy Hydro – Conquest of the Rivers (1957)
Produced in 1957 by the SMHEA photographic unit (Harry Malcolm et al.), the film promotes the Snowy Mountains Scheme as a source of employment for local Australian recruits.
Snowy Hydro – Conservation in the Snowy Mountains (1955)
Produced in 1955 by the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electricity Authority (SMHEA) photographic unit (Harry Malcolm et al.), the film traces the history of soil erosion in the Snowy ...
Snowy Hydro – Gardens of the Snowy Mountains (1967)
Produced around 1967 by the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Authority (SMHEA) photographic unit (Harry Malcolm et al.), the film promotes the establishment and maintenance of gardens, for the ...
Snowy Hydro – Operation Adaminaby (1958)
Produced in 1958 by the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electricity Authority (SMHEA) photographic unit (Harry Malcolm et al.), the film tells the story of moving the old town of ...
Snowy Hydro – Safety on the Snowy Scheme (1964)
Produced in 1964 by the SMHEA photographic unit (Harry Malcolm et al. with narration by James Dibble), it’s one of the many films made for the Snowy Mountains ...
Snowy Hydro – Snowy 69 (1969)
In 1969 the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electricity Authority (SMHEA) was entering the final stages of its twenty five year construction period. Produced by the Scheme’s own photographic unit ...
Snowy Hydro – Sound and Safe (1963)
Produced in 1963 by the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electricity Authority (SMHEA) photographic unit (Harry Malcolm et al.), the film lays out safety procedures for hard rock tunnelling.
Snowy Hydro – The Best of the Years (1974)
A documentary record of the construction and completion of the Snowy Mountains Scheme from 1949 to 1974. The film examines the multicultural work force and its achievement in ...
Snowy Hydro – The Construction of Geehi Dam (1967)
Produced in 1967 by the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Authority (SMHEA) photographic unit (Harry Malcolm et al. with narration by James Dibble), the film is a fairly technical ...
Snowy Hydro – The Jindabyne Story (c1965)
Produced in 1964–5 by the SMHEA photographic unit (Harry Malcolm et al.), the film tells the story of the moving of the town of Jindabyne to make way ...
Snowy Hydro – The Snowy Flows Inland (1954)
Produced in 1954 by the Australian National Film Board, the film presents the aims and objectives of the Snowy Mountains Scheme and looks at the preliminary phase operations.
Snowy Hydro – The Snowy Mountains Scheme (1952)
Completed somewhere around 1952, the film celebrates the achievements of the Snowy Mountains Scheme, now three years into its endeavour.
Snowy Hydro – The Snowy–Murray Development (1969)
Produced in 1969 by the SMHEA photographic unit (Harry Malcolm et al. with narration by James Dibble), the film marks the completion of the Snowy-Murray Development – the ...
Snowy Hydro – Where Giants Meet (1948)
Produced in 1948 by Cambridge Film Productions for Industrial Sales and Service (ISAS) and the SMHEA, the film is both a domestic recruitment promotion for the Snowy Mountains ...
Snowy Hydro – Where Men and Mountains Meet (1963)
Produced in 1963 by the SMHEA photographic unit (Harry Malcolm et al.), the film looks at the spectrum of male work involved in the Snowy Mountains Scheme.
The St Kilda Esplanade on Boxing Day (c1913)
This fragment from a silent documentary or newsreel item takes an observational look at the St Kilda esplanade and foreshore on Boxing Day 1913. People relax on the ...
The Stawell Gift: Staging the Golden Jubilee Carnival (1927)
This footage shows the Golden Jubilee of the Stawell Gift foot race, announced in the intertitles as, ‘the greatest professional footrunning meeting in the world’. Crowds of over ...
Sunday Too Far Away (1975)
On an outback station in 1956, hard-drinking shearers battle the clock, the sheep and each other for the position of ‘gun shearer’, the one with the highest tally. ...
Trespass (2002)
A documentary about Yvonne Margarula and the Mirarr people’s fight against the mining companies. Trespass is part of the Nganampa Anwernekenhe series produced by Central Australian Aboriginal Media ...
Vietnam (1988)
This epic story of Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War is told through the history of a middle class family, the Goddards, whose son Phillip (Nicholas Eadie) is ...
Waterfront – Episode 1 (1984)
It’s 1928 and the waterfront unions in Melbourne are gearing up for a struggle with the shipowners who are trying to take away hard-won wages and working conditions ...
Waterfront – Episode 2 (1984)
Max Woodbury (Jack Thompson) is the iconic Aussie bloke. He’d far rather spend an evening at the Tivoli with his girl (Noni Hazlehurst) than take on the responsibility ...
Welcome to the English Cricket Team (1934)
Captain of the Australian cricket team, Bill Woodfull, welcomes the English cricket team to Australia for the Ashes in 1934.
Whispering in Our Hearts (2001)
A documentary depicting the 1918 massacre of Aboriginal people at Mowla Bluff, Western Australia. The story of the massacre is told in interviews with surviving Nyikina, Mangala and ...
Winners – The Paper Boy (1985)
It is 1932 and Joe (Christopher Schlusser) is 11 years old. When his father John Riordan (Tony Llewellyn Jones) loses his factory job, Joe gets a job as ...
Winners – Top Kid (1985)
It’s 1947 and times are tough for ten-year-old Gary Doyle (Emil Minty), the third child of a large, poor Catholic family. Bright, and with a photographic memory, Gary ...
The Wreck of the Batavia (1973)
A dramatised documentary tracing the story of the Dutch ship Batavia. The ship was sailing from Holland to Batavia (Jakarta) when it was shipwrecked 50 miles off the ...
1915 (1982)
Billy (Scott Burgess) and Walter (Scott McGregor) are mates. They’re young men from the bush always on the lookout for action and adventure. Walter is from a solid ...
