Film & Television with Indigenous content
92 titles - sorted by title / by year
Film and television titles written and/or directed by a non-Indigenous person.
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The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
‘Tick’ Belrose, aka Mitzi Del Bra (Hugo Weaving), a Sydney drag artist, accepts an invitation from his ex-wife (Sarah Chadwick) to bring his stage show to the outback. ...
An AIM Patrol (1927)
During the winter of 1927, Australian Inland Mission (AIM) patrolling officer Reverend Andrew Barber and AIM medical adviser Dr George Simpson travelled over 12,800 kilometres through the central ...
The Alice (2004)
‘Action and adventure meet magic and romance in Alice Springs’, say the publicity notes for this telemovie, and it’s not a lie. A disparate group of people are ...
Art From the Heart (1998)
The documentary looks at the way that Aboriginal art has been commercialised since the 1970s. Artists and galleries have prospered since Aboriginal art was marketed on a large ...
At The Movies – Series 2 Episode 20, Ten Canoes (2006)
The man of steel is back in Superman Returns, the first film to be reviewed this week on the television magazine program presented by Margaret Pomeranz and David ...
Australasian Gazette – 10,000 Miles around Australia (c1926)
This Australasian Gazette newsreel from approximately 1926 shows the arrival of Mr and Mrs F Dean in Melbourne after their trip around Australia by touring car. The trip ...
Australia Daze (1988)
An observational documentary shot on the bicentennial anniversary of Australia’s European settlement. Twenty-nine directors working all over Australia have contributed segments as Australians celebrated 26 January 1988. Dissent ...
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’s Land of Tomorrow (1962)
Australian Inland Mission (AIM) superintendent Reverend Fred McKay conducts his patrol through the north of Australia. Along the way he witnesses a prospering region where industry and agriculture ...
Australian Rules (2002)
In an isolated South Australian fishing town, the only thing that connects two communities – the whites and the blacks – is football. Gary Black (Nathan Phillips) and ...
The Back of Beyond (1954)
Battling heat, dust, flood and sand, Royal Mail driver and everyman Tom Kruse completes the fortnightly run in his battered Leyland Badger, delivering mail, stores and supplies to ...
Backlash (1986)
Police officers Trevor Darling (David Argue) and Nikki Iceton (Gia Carides) have to escort a young Aboriginal woman to the NSW outback to stand trial. Kath (Lydia Miller) ...
Backroads (1977)
Two strangers – one white, one black – steal a car in western New South Wales and head for the coast. Jack (Bill Hunter) is abrasive, cunning and ...
Bad Boy Bubby (1993)
Bubby (Nicholas Hope) has spent all of his 35 years locked in one room. His mother (Claire Benito) feeds and washes him like a baby, but she also ...
The Barefoot Bushman: Dancing With Dingoes (1997)
The barefoot bushman, Rob Bredl, presents his view of Australian nature with an emphasis on the dingo. Rob examines the arrival of the dingo from Thailand and traces ...
Beyond the Furthest Fences (1947)
A silent documentary that shows scenes from a journey made by Australian Inland Mission patrolling minister, the Reverend KF ‘Skipper’ Partridge, through central Australia in 1947. He travels ...
The Big Boomerang (1962)
Qantas commissioned this film in 1962 to promote their international air service. The film features the new Boeing 707 that halved travel time overseas, and includes brief segments ...
Bigger than Texas (1992)
This documentary is a personal vision of the filmmaker, David Noakes, as he examines the cultural development of Western Australia. He interviews writers Tim Winton and Fay Zwicky, ...
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 – From Little Things Big Things Grow (1993)
A musical documentary that comments on the work of Kev Carmody, Indigenous songwriter and historian. An exploration into the life of Carmody, using music clips especially made for ...
Blood Brothers – Jardiwarnpa (1993)
Jardiwarnpa documents the ceremonial dances of the Walpiri over two weeks, with minimal intrusion by the film crew, who capture the unfolding ceremony. It is an observational style ...
Bran Nue Dae (1991)
This documentary by Tom Zubrycki traces the development and production of the successful stage musical Bran Nue Dae. The writer of the play, Jimmy Chi, talks about how ...
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 ...
Brothers and Sisters (1997)
A lecture by scientist Frank J Sulloway about sibling behaviour is intercut with interviews in which a range of brothers and sisters, young and old, including an only ...
Cactus (1986)
Colo (Isabelle Huppert) has come to Australia from France to stay with family friends, after the failure of her marriage. Tom (Norman Kaye) and his wife Beatrice (Monica ...
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978)
In central-western New South Wales in the 1890s, a young half-caste Aboriginal man raised by missionaries kills most of a family of white farmers, after an argument about ...
Conrad Martens (1978)
The documentary follows the life and work of watercolourist Conrad Martens. The painter was born in England and moved to New South Wales in 1835, remaining in Australia ...
Couldn’t Be Fairer (1984)
A documentary that intercuts historical footage with live interview material, Couldn’t Be Fairer borrows its title from a statement made by Joh Bjelke Peterson, and explores the injustice ...
Crocodile Dundee (1985)
A glamorous American reporter, Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski), goes to the Northern Territory to interview a man who survived a crocodile attack. Michael J ‘Crocodile’ Dundee (Paul Hogan) ...
Crocodile Dundee II (1988)
Mick Dundee (Paul Hogan) is living in New York with his new girlfriend, Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski). He misses the Northern Territory but keeps occupied by fishing in ...
Dead Heart (1996)
When a young aboriginal man is found hanging in a police cell, Senior Constable Ray Larkin (Bryan Brown) allows his own deputy (Lafe Charlton) to be speared as ...
Desert Walker: Gulf to Gulf (1985)
Fifty-two year-old adventurer Denis Bartell was the first person to walk across Australia from north to south – from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Gulf of St ...
Dingo (1991)
On a hot day in Poona Flat, Western Australia, in 1969, legendary American jazz trumpeter Billy Cross (Miles Davis) plays an impromptu concert on the tarmac after his ...
Dot and the Kangaroo (1977)
Dot, a small child, becomes lost in the Australian bush after she wanders away from her parents’ farm. She falls down a gully and wakes up to find ...
The Dream and the Dreaming (2003)
A documentary about the arrival of the Lutheran missionaries in 1877 in central Australia.
Dreamtime, Machinetime (1987)
An episodic documentary featuring distinguished Indigenous artists specialising in literary and visual art forms.
Eternity (1994)
Recreating Sydney in the 1930s, the documentary is the story of Sydneysider, Arthur Stace. Arthur had a hard life that deteriorated into alcoholism and despair. In 1930 he ...
Farey: Opening of Sydney Harbour Bridge: Home Movie (1932)
This home movie includes a diverse range of footage taken by Leslie Francis Farey and features a trip taken by his family who travelled from Melbourne, Victoria to ...
The Flying Vet (1984)
David Bradley’s veterinary practice covers from Port Hedland, Western Australia to Mt Isa Queensland and from Darwin to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. It is the biggest ...
Footy Legends (2006)
Ten years after leaving school in Yagoona, in Sydney’s western suburbs, Luc Vu (Anh Do) is unemployed and struggling to raise his little sister Anne (Lisa Saggers). Their ...
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.
Four Corners – Inside the Circle (2005)
In NSW, Aboriginal people are just 2% of the population and yet make up 20% of the prison population. Something is being done to change this terrible statistic. ...
The Fringe Dwellers (1986)
A young Aboriginal girl dreams of life beyond the blacks’ camp that sits on the fringe of white society.
Grange (2005)
A short drama about two lawyers who attempt to bribe their way to success by paying off the magistrate with Grange, an incredibly expensive and rare wine.
Harold (1994)
Harold Blair was the first Aborigine to sing on national radio. He studied singing in the USA and his tenor voice was heard throughout the world. This biographical ...
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 ...
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 ...
Ikara the Weapon Thrower (1963)
This film details the Australian military trials of the Ikara missile, a ship-launched anti submarine missile.
In the Wild with Harry Butler – Scars on the Landscape (1976)
Naturalist Harry Butler is in northern Queensland, where millennia of fire stick farming by Indigenous Australians has created the grasslands of that region.
The Inlanders (1949)
A documentary by John Kingsford Smith made for the Australian Inland Mission. The Inlanders follows patrolling minister Reverend KF ‘Skipper’ Partridge on his 8,690 kilometre journey into Australia’s ...
Jabiluka (1997)
The documentary investigates the attitudes of Aborigines, mine management and conservationists to the proposed Jabiluka uranium mine, and the impact of the established Ranger mine. It outlines the ...
Japanese Story (2003)
Sandy Edwards (Toni Collette), an ambitious young Perth geologist, flies north to Port Hedland to babysit the son of a Japanese industrialist, on a private visit. Hiromitsu Tachibana ...
Jedda (1955)
An Aboriginal woman dies in childbirth on a remote cattle station in the Northern Territory. The baby girl is raised by the station owner’s wife, Sarah McMann, after ...
Jimmy Little’s Gentle Journey (2006)
A documentary about singer–songwriter Jimmy Little, an Indigenous musician whose voice reaches out to all people across the generations.
Jindabyne (2006)
In the Snowy Mountains, a farmer (Chris Haywood) murders a young woman and dumps her body in a river. Four men on a fishing trip find the body, ...
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 ...
Li’l Elvis and the Truckstoppers – Caught in a Trap (1997)
Li’l Elvis (Stig Wemyss) is sick of performing Elvis music everyday in his parent’s roadhouse, but his parents Grace (Lynda Gibson) and Len (David Cotter) rely on him ...
Lord of the Bush (1990)
The documentary is about Lord Alistair McAlpine, bon vivant, patron of the arts and author. After falling in love with the Broome region in Western Australia in the ...
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 ...
Lucky Miles (2007)
An Indonesian fishing boat dumps six Cambodians and six Iraqis on the remote coast of northwest Australia, in 1990. Muluk (Sawung Jabo), the captain, tells them to climb ...
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 ...
The Man from Hong Kong (1975)
When a Hong Kong drug courier is arrested at Uluru (Ayers Rock), Inspector Fang of the Hong Kong Special Branch (Jimmy Wang Yu) comes to Sydney to handle ...
Mullet (2001)
Eddie ‘Mullet’ Maloney (Ben Mendelsohn) returns to the small coastal town where he grew up after three years in the city. Rebellious and turbulent as a youth, he ...
No Worries (1993)
Matilda Bell (Amy Terelinck) is an independent 11 year old growing up on a sheep station in western NSW, during a severe drought. Many local farmers have already ...
The Office Picnic (1972)
The tensions within an unhappy office boil over during the annual office picnic, held at a bushland park on the edge of the city. The young men drink ...
Painting Country (2000)
Balgo is a centre for Aboriginal painters in the remote north of Western Australia. The artists originally come from hundreds of kilometres around the area. They decide to ...
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 – 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 ...
Picnic at Hanging Rock (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. One of the ...
Radiance (1998)
Three sisters reunite for the funeral of their mother after having not seen each other for an extended period of time.
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 ...
Satellite Dreaming (1991)
A documentary about the history of Indigenous media, including television production, in Australia, and the start of Indigenous media in the centre of Australia.
September (2007)
Ed Anderson (Xavier Samuel) and Paddy Parker (Clarence John Ryan) are best friends, growing up on a farm in the West Australian wheat belt in 1968. Ed’s father ...
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 ...
The Shiralee (1987)
Macauley (Bryan Brown) is an itinerant rural worker who grew up the hard way, in an orphanage. Despite having a wife (Lorna Lesley) and child (Rebecca Smart) in ...
Short Changed (1985)
An aboriginal man, Stuart Wilkins (David Kennedy) is arrested for taking part in a land rights demonstration, after the death of his father. His white wife Alison (Susan ...
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 ...
The Squatter’s Daughter (1933)
Joan Enderby (Jocelyn Howarth) is about to lose her family’s sheep station, because she can’t afford to buy out the lease from the Sherringtons, who run the neighbouring ...
State of Shock (1991)
Aboriginal alcoholic Alwyn Peter traces the events in his life. Alwyn’s mother Rachel talks about the effect of forced relocation on the family and recalls Alwyn’s self-mutilation in ...
Storm Boy (1976)
A 10-year-old boy (Greg Rowe), living with his father in the wild Coorong wetlands of South Australia, rescues a baby pelican orphaned by hunters. With the help of ...
Strangers in Paradise (1989)
Set on the eve of Australia’s bicentennial celebrations, this observational documentary looks at Australian (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) culture through the eyes of a group of American and British ...
Ten Canoes (2006)
A narrator (David Gulpilil) instructs us to pay attention, because he is going to tell us a good story. The story takes place in two periods in the ...
Through the Centre (1940)
Made by Herschells Films for the Shell Company of Australia, Through the Centre follows a Shell expedition to map a tourist route from Perth, through northern Western Australia ...
Touch the Sun – Top Enders (1988)
Alice (Bennendine Woods) and her mother Sue (Madeleine Blackwell) live in Darwin in the Northern Territory. Alice, about eleven years old, is a tough and independent kid. She ...
Tuckson (1988)
This biographical documentary examines the life and work of artist Tony Tuckson (1921–1973). Tony Tuckson was regarded by some as Australia’s answer to Picasso. From 1952 to 1973 ...
Uncivilised (1936)
Beatrice Lynn (Margot Rhys), a successful novelist, journeys into the ‘unexplored’ reaches of north-west Australia in search of book material. She has heard rumours of a ‘wild white ...
We of the Never Never (1982)
In 1902, Jeannie Gunn (Angela Punch McGregor) and her new husband Aeneas (Arthur Dignam) arrive in the Northern Territory to take over management of Elsey Station, a huge ...
Whiteys Like Us (1999)
The documentary observes a group of white Australians coming together to take part in an Aboriginal reconciliation study group. Across Australia, fifteen thousand such groups formed ‘Reconciliation Learning ...
900 Neighbours (2006)
Northcott is a multi-storey public housing estate in Surry Hills, Sydney. It was built in the 1960s. It houses 900 residents and has attracted negative publicity because of ...
