All television programs
250 titles - sorted by title / by year
For over 50 years television has been in our homes, providing our main source of information and entertainment, shaping the way the country sees itself.
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An Airman Remembers (1964)
Sir Gordon Taylor, one of the great aviation pioneers of Australia, presents this documentary. He delivers his story about the history of Australian aviation in the manner of ...
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 ...
Arthur and the Square Knights of the Round Table - Episode 35 (1972)
Arthur and the Square Knights of the Round Table is a comical, Australian-made animation series based on the English legend of King Arthur. Episode 35 contains three main ...
At The Movies – Series 1 Episode 55, Little Fish (2005)
Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton review the latest cinema releases including The Perfect Catch and Wallace and Grommit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. There’s also a review ...
At The Movies – Series 1 Episode 63, Wolf Creek (2005)
This week Margaret and David discuss the Australian film Wolf Creek with accompanying interviews with the director Greg McLean and actor Cassandra Magrath. There’s also a review of ...
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 ...
The Aunty Jack Show – Series One (1972)
Sketch comedy interlaced with musical sequences, featuring Aunty Jack (Grahame Bond) the self-styled queen of Wollongong and a cast of glorious misfits including Thin Arthur (Rory O’Donoghue), Aunty ...
The Aunty Jack Show – Series Two (1974)
In this second series of the sketch comedy show most of the old favourites return from the first series. These include Neil and Errol (Grahame Bond and Rory ...
Australian Story – A Man for All Seasons (1999)
Wayne Bennett was born on the wrong side of the tracks. His father was a violent and hard drinking fettler, who left his wife and kids when the ...
Australian Story – Absolute Beginner (2006)
Just over eight years ago, Marg Ward lost her husband when he died suddenly of a heart attack. Marg was 56. After two terrible years, she began again ...
Australian Story – Of Droughts and Flooding Rains (2002)
This is the story of a man so obsessed by an idea that it has consumed his life and almost destroyed his family. Peter Andrews’s idea is that ...
Australian Story – Since Adam Was a Boy (1997)
Adam Sutton is a quintessential cowboy. He’s fearless, fun-loving and homosexual. He’s a horse wrangler and rodeo rider but the biggest risk he ever took was to reveal ...
Australian Story – With This Ring (2005)
When Australian Story first recorded the life of this gutsy young couple, Gayle and Mac Shann were newly married and struggling to come to terms with the horrific ...
Australian Visit (1967)
This ABC News production covers the five-day visit of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Vietnam, Air Vice-Marshall Nguyen Cao Ky, and his wife, to Australia in ...
Australian Walkabout (1958)
In this program the Chauvels, on a filmmaking safari of Australia, are travelling through the Northern Territory. They camp outside the small town of Katherine with their filmmaking ...
Australians at War – The Thin Khaki Line (2002)
During the Second World War, the outlook for Australia in 1942 was grim. When the Japanese struck at Pearl Harbour, only a ragtag group of conscripts was still ...
Backchat, Episode 215 (1988)
On this week’s Backchat, viewers write in with praise for ABC current affairs programs The World At Six and The World Tonight, programs that copped tough criticism the ...
Backchat, Episode 216 (1988)
On Backchat, viewers of ABC television and ABC radio listeners could write or phone in their response to the weekly output of the public broadcaster, which in this ...
Backchat, Episode 217 (1988)
In this program of audience response to ABC programs on television and radio, there’s appreciation for the ABC fillers, which can be seen behind the logo, as well ...
Bambaloo – Bird in a Boat (2002)
Bambaloo is a mixed live-action, puppetry and animation narrative based show for preschoolers. Characters in the world of Bambaloo include the imaginative and playful host Sam (Angela Kelly) ...
Beyond 2000 – Episode 152 (1989)
A magazine-style program featuring the latest in technology and medical breakthroughs from around the world, with Iain Finlay as the overall presenter. In this program, reporter Amanda Keller ...
Beyond 2000 – Episode 287 (1992)
This magazine-style program examines the research and innovation happening around the world that will change our lives beyond the year 2000.
Beyond Reasonable Doubt – Alexander McLeod Lindsey (1977)
In 1964 Alexander McLeod Lindsey was sentenced to 18 years in jail for the brutal bashing of his wife Pamela, who recovered but was severely brain damaged as ...
Beyond Reasonable Doubt – The Case of Ronald Ryan (1977)
Ronald Ryan, a convicted armed robber, was the last man to be hanged in Australia. The year was 1967. It was alleged he’d shot a warder as he ...
Beyond Tomorrow – Episode 39 (2006)
From building your own super car to the bus that drives itself and the most advanced robot in the world, this fast and furious program brings to the ...
Beyond Tomorrow – Episode 51 (2006)
A fast-paced magazine-style program that explains tomorrow, today. This episode shows a device that can be inserted into your brain to prevent depression and a gadget to explain ...
A Big Country – Perkins Navy (1979)
Bruce Perkins owns a fleet of flat-bottomed barges that help the people of northern Australia to inhabit some of the least accessible areas of the top end.
A Big Country – The Challenge of Lake Eyre (1978)
Lake Eyre is generally a massive environment of death or rather lifelessness, and every year for several months, John and Roma Dulhunty come to the lake to conduct ...
A Big Country – The Prices (1979)
A pioneering family has taken over a cattle station at Cape York and is trying to make a go of it.
A Big Country – The White Rose (1979)
Frank Bourke is ‘The White Rose’ – the dance band known and loved throughout country New South Wales.
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 ...
Blinky Bill’s Fire Brigade (1992)
This is episode two of the first series of Blinky Bill. When lightning starts a fire in Greenpatch, Blinky (Robyn Moore) decides to set up a fire brigade ...
Blue Water High – Winners and Losers (2005)
Six lucky Australian teenage surfers have fought hard to win a place in an intensive, 12-month residential surfing and schooling program at Solar Blue Surf Academy on Sydney’s ...
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 ...
Bondi Rescue – Series 1, Episode 4 (2006)
A young man is found lifeless in the water on a surprisingly calm day. With no breath and no pulse, a frantic resuscitation begins.
Bondi Rescue – Series 2, Episode 7 (2007)
A tragedy unfolds at Bondi Beach when the lifeguards see someone in difficulty in treacherous water who then disappears from view behind the waves. There are 20,000 people ...
The Book Show – David Malouf (1988)
A magazine-style program with presenter and interviewer Dinny O’Hearn talking to David Malouf, who has just won the Haskell award for his body of work. He also interviews ...
The Book Show – Germaine Greer (1992)
Andrea Stretton, co-host of The Bookshow with Dinny O’Hearn, interviews one of the world’s most famous feminists for this special edition of the show. She is talking to ...
The Book Show – Jim McClelland (1991)
Dinny O’Hearn and Andrea Stretton begin this weekly magazine program on Australia Day at Bondi Beach, where they discuss the different meanings of this special day for different ...
The Book Show – Peter Carey (1992)
In this week’s edition of The Book Show, Dinny O’Hearn and Andrea Stretton introduce the show from the Reading Room of the State Library of Victoria. The program ...
Bookmark – Tim Winton (1995)
Andrea Stretton introduces the wonderful children’s books of Jeannie Baker whose then newest work is The Story of Rosie Dock (1995), a magical journey into central Australia. There’s ...
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 ...
Catalyst – Genius of Junk (2003)
This is a story of triumph and tragedy. Dr Malcolm Simons, an internationally recognised immunologist, has turned ‘junk DNA’ into gold. He has patented his discovery that non-coding ...
Catalyst – Nature, Nurture (2003)
Each year since 1979, the same group of people have been returning to Dunedin in New Zealand to be investigated for science. This research into whether nature or ...
Catalyst – Planet of the Rings (2005)
A ride to the outer reaches of the solar system with Dr Richard Smith. This program is about one of the greatest exploration feats of all time – ...
Catalyst – Teen Brain (2005)
In 1973, Australia lowered the age of majority to 18, the age at which you are legally responsible for your actions. New science, however, is proving that our ...
Catalyst – The Antarctic Peninsula (2006)
Fossils of southern beech trees have been found in Antarctica, which proves that this desolate area was once a huge forest and that Antarctica was once joined to ...
Catalyst – Wollemi Pine (2005)
The discovery of a tree from the Jurassic period in the National Park in the Blue Mountains of NSW in 1994, was like finding a family of dinosaurs ...
Chequerboard Revisited – Episode 5: You Can’t Have A Child That’s Ugly (2000)
In 1969, the ABC documentary program Chequerboard, made a program about child performers. Thirty-one years later, two of them agreed to be filmed for Chequerboard Revisited.
Chequerboard Revisited – Episode 6: That One Piece of Paper (2000)
The original Chequerboard program was made in black-and-white in 1972. Two boys were chosen from Liverpool Boys’ High School. Pat wants to leave school immediately at age 16 ...
Chequerboard – It’s A Big Day In Any Girl’s Life (1973)
Two very different weddings are contrasted. One of them cements the ties between a landed family and a family of high standing in the district. The other is ...
Chequerboard – It’s Amazing What You Can Do With a Pound of Mince (1969)
Three Australian families who are living on the basic wage are interviewed about what they earn, how that money is allocated and how they view their lives.
Chequerboard – Too Much For Molony (1969)
Love conquers all in this moving story about a Catholic priest who leaves his order to live outside ‘the cloisters’ with one of his young parishioners.
The Colony (2005)
A six part ‘living history’ series, in which four families and several single people – chosen to match the social fabric of the 1800s as convicts, political exiles, ...
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 ...
Compass – Broken Open (2005)
Craig Hamilton was a very successful sports commentator who suffered a nervous breakdown at the peak of his career. He was about to take up a job at ...
Compass – Buddha Realms, Part 1 (2001)
Buddhism is one of the world’s oldest religions; it’s older than both Christianity and Islam and, like those faiths, its influence has spread throughout the world. This program ...
Compass – Changi Days, POW Poets (2003)
When 22,000 Australian soldiers were taken prisoner by the Japanese on the Malay Peninsula early in 1942, they disappeared into the vast prison camp called Changi on Singapore ...
Compass – Embracing the Enemy (2005)
Turkish immigrants to Australia in the 1970s immediately felt connected through the Anzac Day marches but found they were forbidden to march with the Australians. Thus began a ...
Compass – Fly on the Wall Messiah (2004)
Every year, 700 amateur singers come together to perform Handel’s Messiah at the Sydney Town Hall. It’s a Christmas tradition. They have nine rehearsals only and getting ready ...
Compass – Gallipoli Pilgrimage (2006)
Australians are making their way in increasing numbers to Anzac Cove in Turkey each year to commemorate the ANZAC landing there on April 25th, 1915. This is the ...
Compass – Islam on Parade (2005)
There are 250,000 Muslims living in Australia from vastly different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. In the wake of the terrorist bombings around the world, a young and dynamic ...
Compass – Paws For Thought (2000)
Traditional Christianity taught that humans are superior to animals. Science is rapidly changing that perception. So is non human life important and if so why?
Compass – Pregnant Pause (2006)
Four women talk about their experiences with unwanted pregnancies in the fifties, an era before abortion was readily available. One of the women already had two children, was ...
Compass – Quakers: Seeking the Light Within (2003)
This is a simple but very informative program about Quakers in Australia today. The Quakers are a protestant group that has existed for over 350 years, also called ...
Compass – Saving Claymore (2002)
Fire-bombings, stealing and vandalism were the norm in the Sydney suburb of Claymore, where residents lived in fear and isolation. Then the Catholic Church moved in and introduced ...
Compass – The Cardinal’s Cousin (2005)
Monica is a lesbian and a former nun. She rose to prominence in 2004 when she published a letter she’d sent to her cousin, Cardinal George Pell, the ...
Compass – Tomorrow’s Islam (2003)
From New York to London and Paris, this program examines how Western Muslims are taking the lead in finding new ways to deal with some of the most ...
The Cowra Breakout (1984)
In the Second World War, Stan Davidson (Alan David Lee) and his best mate Mick Murphy (Dennis Miller) are on patrol in the jungles of New Guinea when ...
Crash Zone – The Dream Team (1998)
Five very different Melbourne kids, Mike (Nikolai Nikolaeff), Pi (Cassandra Magrath), Bec (Frances Wang), Marcello (Paul Pantano) and Ram (Damien Bodie) independently discover a coded message while playing ...
Dancing Orpheus (1962)
A black-and-white nature program from the earliest years of ABC television featuring the unique lyrebird.
Dig A Million, Make A Million (1968)
Australia’s richest iron ore deposit has been found by Lang Hancock and his partner, Peter Wright. The mining company Hamersley Iron is developing a huge mining infrastructure in ...
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 ...
Doggie Day Afternoon (2000)
A light-hearted look at pampered dogs in the suburbs, produced for The LifeStyle Channel. The program features short segments about a hotel that welcomes dogs as guests, a ...
Don’t Blame the Koalas - Episode 1, Fate Steps In (2002)
When Mrs Medlow (Eileen McEwan) dies, Kate King (Basia A’Hern) and her brothers Mark (Shaun Loseby) and Chris (Henry Nixon) discover that some unknown English relatives have inherited ...
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 ...
Dynasties – The Murdochs (2001)
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is the last of the world’s great media empires controlled by a family dynasty. The Murdochs is a portrait of a very close-knit family. ...
Dynasties – The Rose Family (2003)
Bob Rose was a football legend and head of a sporting dynasty. He was one of seven sons rescued from poverty by Australian Rules Football and their story ...
Eco House Challenge – Episode 1, Stop Your Gassing (2007)
Two Australian families have accepted the eco challenge to turn their lives around by changing their daily usage of water, transport, energy and waste removal. One family is ...
Eco House Challenge – Episode 3, Emission Impossible (2007)
The families from the first two programs who had to survive for 24 hours with no water, electricity, cars or waste disposal, have now had one of those ...
Faireez – A Chilling Plot (2005)
Quincy Questholler, Faireezia’s flying security guard, panics again! This time the weather has gone mad in sunny Faireezia, and it is snowing. Of course it is Jumpalina, the ...
The Fairytale Police Department – Black Day for Snow White (2002)
Intrepid real-world Detective Chris Anderson and her bumbling partner Detective Johnny Legend have been transferred to Fairytale land, and it seems like a dream job. There is certainly ...
Fashionista – Alex Perry (2003)
There’s quite a psychology to designing a wedding gown and Alex Perry has been doing it since 1984 with huge success. His passion is for every bride to ...
Fashionista – Donna-May Bolinger (2004)
Donna-May Bolinger has attempted to move beyond designing shoes, to incorporate a feminist history in her work – in this case, the biography of an early 20th century ...
Fashionista – John Macarthur (2003)
John Macarthur is from the Macarthur dynasty, the pioneers of Australia’s wool industry. He says he’s descended from the poor relations. This John Macarthur grew up in Bombala ...
Fashionista – Mambo (2003)
Robert Moore loves his job and he’s been at it since 1989. He designs for Mambo and creates what he likes. Mambo may or may not pick up ...
Fashionista – Naomi Goodsir (2003)
Naomi Goodsir is a milliner, but not just any milliner. Her creations are like sculptures. Luckily there’s always a race day somewhere, otherwise she’d be out of a ...
Fashionista – Nicolas Jurnjack (2004)
Nicholas Jurnjack is a hair stylist who insists that fashion photography is all about lighting. He hails from Marseilles and was offered a choice of a plumbing or ...
Fashionista – Vivienne Westwood (2005)
This film records an exhibition of Vivienne Westwood’s fashion designs from over 30 years, which was held at the National Gallery in Canberra in 2005. The exhibition was ...
The Fast Lane - Episode 7: The Sound of One Hand Counting (1986)
A private detective agency run by a couple of incompetents (Terry Bader and Richard Healy) is called in to shadow the wife of a wealthy factory owner. At ...
Flipper and Lopaka – The Secrets of Quetzo (1999)
Flipper the dolphin’s best friend is Lopaka, a young Polynesian boy, and they have many adventures in Quetzo, an ancient sunken city. One day, Lopaka finds an ancient ...
The Food Lovers’ Guide to Australia – Series 5 Episode 1 (2004)
Another episode of the ever popular and very different cooking show that explores Australia for its inspiration. In this program, it’s mum’s cooking with a difference in Broome; ...
The Food Lovers’ Guide to Australia – Series 5 Episode 2 (2004)
Whether it’s diving for trepang or sea cucumber in the northernmost tip of Australia, or putting together a feast from local produce at the southernmost point in the ...
The Food Lovers’ Guide to Australia – Series 5 Episode 3 (2004)
While Maeve O’Mara has crossed the desert to eat at a terrific Greek taverna in Coober Pedy, Joanna Savill is in the Torres Straits to take part in ...
The Food Lovers’ Guide to Australia – Series 5 Episode 5 (2004)
Maeve O’Mara travels to north-east Tasmania to discover the secrets behind creating a terrific cheddar. We then meet the chef of Sydney’s great restaurant, Claude’s, while Joanna Savill ...
The Food Lovers’ Guide to Australia – Series 5 Episode 6 (2004)
From the adventure of bush tucker in Kakadu to a huge Greek family feast at Easter, then Italian pastries followed by the seductively creamy custard apple and how ...
Foreign Exchange - Episode 2, Shark Attack (2004)
Fourteen-year-old Brett Miller (Zachary Garred) has discovered an amazing portal In the old Perth beach house where he lives, which takes him to Ireland. When Irish girl Hannah ...
Four Corners – Aiding or Abetting (1983)
It’s 1983 and President Ferdinand Marcos is president of the Philippines. Australia is donating $80 million of bilateral aid to the Philippines Government. The question is, how is ...
Four Corners – American Dreamers (2003)
As the world waits for the inevitable invasion of Iraq, Jonathan Holmes takes us to Washington, where the Neo-cons have at last come into their own. The tragedy ...
Four Corners – Blue Death (1988)
Wittenoom was home to more than 20,000 people who worked in the mining and processing of blue asbestos from 1944 until the mine closed in 1966. But blue ...
Four Corners – Car Wars (2006)
Australia has one of the highest rates of car theft in the western world, so investigative reporter Chris Masters, explores how this has happened by talking to all ...
Four Corners – Far From Care (2006)
This episode of Four Corners looks at the quality of health care on offer for Australians living in remote and rural areas – the world class health care ...
Four Corners – Fixing Cricket (2000)
When Hanse Cronje admitted that he’d taken money to throw matches, the world of cricket was thrown into crisis. Then it was disclosed that players and officials had ...
Four Corners – French Connections (1985)
An extraordinary docudrama created by reporter Chris Masters and producer Bruce Belsham about the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour and the death of a Portuguese ...
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. ...
Four Corners – The First Program (1961)
The very first broadcast of Four Corners went to air on Saturday 19 August 1961. There is no record of the program as it went to air but ...
Four Corners – The Kilwa Incident (2005)
The disturbing story of a massacre, its cover-up and a UN investigation and report that implicates an Australian mining company working in the far reaches of the Democratic ...
Four Corners – We’ll All Be Rooned (1982)
Reporter Jim Downes takes us into the wheat belt in the marginal country of Coonamble, near Dubbo in NSW. The outback is now entering its fourth year of ...
The Genie From Down Under – It’s my Opal … (and I’ll cry if I want to) (1995)
Posh English schoolgirl The Hon Penelope Townes (Alexandra Milman), possessor of the magical opal, is magically whisked away by her Australian genies, Bruce (Rhys Muldoon) and his young ...
The Gillies Report – Series 1, Episode 4 (1984)
This week’s Gillies Report includes the news read by John Clarke with inserts from various politicians of the day played by Max Gillies, and a National Press Club ...
The Gunston Tapes (1975)
From the unbelieving Sally Struthers to Sir John Gorton and Warren Beatty, Norman Gunston (Garry McDonald) became Australia’s star interviewer whose rich and famous subjects had no idea ...
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, ...
Holly’s Heroes – Crunch Time (2005)
This is episode seven of a 26-part series about basketball mad Holly who, on moving from New Zealand to Australia, decides to start her own team after getting ...
Horace and Tina – Settling In (2000)
This is episode 2 of the 26 part series. Lauren’s (Jasmine Ellis) life is a total mess. A Canadian, she misses her friends and hates living in Australia. ...
The Human Journey – Episode 1 (1999)
This is the first in a three-part series that describes the evolution of humankind from the heart of Africa, and its subsequent migration around the world. It presents ...
The Human Journey – Episode 3 (1999)
In this, the third and final episode of the series, we learn that Homo sapiens left the Middle East for the new world of South-East Asia 90,000 years ...
I Can Jump Puddles (1981)
This is the inspirational boyhood story of the author Alan Marshall, a victim of polio. Born in rural Victoria in the early 1900s, young Alan Marshall contracted the ...
If Only – Series 1 Episode 10 (2003)
Three individuals tell their ‘if only’ stories of missed opportunities. There’s a troubled girl who went to jail instead of being around her child as she was growing ...
If Only – Series 1 Episode 3 (2003)
A series of ‘if only’ stories from a range of lives: a young single mother who found and then lost her birth mother, a woman who recalls the ...
If Only – Series 1 Episode 5 (2003)
Three moving vignettes make up this program of lost opportunities. There’s one about a man who thought his problems of cloudy vision were an irreversible factor of old ...
In the Mind of the Architect – Episode One: Keeping the Faith (2000)
Keeping the Faith is the first in a series of three programs showcasing contemporary Australian architecture. In this program, some of Australia’s best-known and finest architects talk about ...
In the Wild with Harry Butler – Lake Argyle (1976)
Harry Butler is a native of Western Australia. He has returned there to explain how this massive man-made body of water, now called Lake Argyle, has changed the ...
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.
Interview with Archbishop Mannix (1962)
Dr Daniel Mannix was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne from 1913 until his death in 1963. He was a man of considerable influence in Australian public life, ...
Jack Thompson Down Under – Episode 3 (1987)
This magazine-style show presents aspects of Australian life culled from footage shot over the years by the ABC for their groundbreaking television documentary series A Big Country (1992), ...
Landline - Ethanol Special 2006 (2006)
Landline has put together a special bulletin about ethanol which presents both a history and a current snapshot of Australia’s position in relation to its use here. The ...
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 ...
Legacy of the Silver Shadow – The Feral Element (2002)
Four kids’ lives are changed forever when they discover the secret lair of The Silver Shadow (Tayler Kane). The Silver Shadow is a long-forgotten superhero from the 1950s ...
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 ...
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 ...
Lift Off – A Load of Old Rubbish (1992)
The theme of this episode is rubbish. It is in two separate 24-minute parts and has the usual Lift Off mix of live action, animation, puppetry music, documentary ...
Lift Off – That’s Not Fair – Part A (1992)
This is Part A of the episode, That’s Not Fair, following the Lift Off format that mixes live action, animation, puppetry, music, documentary and fantasy. The main storyline ...
Lift Off – That’s Not Fair – Part B (1992)
This is part B of the episode That’s Not Fair, and has the usual Lift Off mix of live action, animation, puppetry, music, documentary and fantasy. The main ...
Masterpiece Special – Judy Davis (1996)
A wide-ranging interview with Australian actress Judy Davis, who has starred in over 20 movies since she came into our lives with My Brilliant Career (1979), her debut ...
Masterpiece Special – Melvyn Bragg (1996)
Andrea Stretton interviews the British writer and television presenter, Melvyn Bragg. His arts magazine program the South Bank Show (2008) is the longest running arts television show in ...
Masterpiece Special – Robert Hughes (1997)
The Australian expatriate art critic and author Robert Hughes ranges widely in a conversation with arts journalist Andrea Stretton about a career that’s taken him from Australia to ...
Masterpiece Special – Robyn Davidson (1996)
Andrea Stretton interviews the expatriate Australian writer Robyn Davidson, who has just written a book about her experience of living with one of the last great nomadic tribes ...
Masterpiece Special – Salman Rushdie (1996)
Andrea Stretton interviews Salman Rushdie, whose then latest book The Moor’s Last Sigh (1995) was written under the threat of a fatwa, or death sentence. The fatwa was ...
Masterpiece Special – Wole Soyinka (1997)
The Nobel Laureate for literature in 1986, Wole Soyinka is in Australia for the 1997 Melbourne Writers’ Festival. He’s talking to Andrea Stretton about his early life in ...
Message Stick – Arafura Pearl (2003)
Cathleen Mills (nee McGuiness) is a respected Indigenous elder of Darwin, mother of eight, and mother to the singing group The Mills Sisters.
Message Stick – Babinda Boulders (2005)
Young men fall victim to a waterhole that, according to Aboriginal legend, is a sacred place where the spirit of an Aboriginal woman dwells.
Message Stick – Bill’s Wake (2001)
Bill Neidjie decided to have a wake while he was alive, rather than waiting until his death, to hear what everyone would say about him.
Message Stick – Black Olive (2005)
Mark Olive (aka the Black Olive) uses native ingredients to prepare cuisine with a local flavour.
Message Stick – Child Artists of Carrolup (2003)
During the 1950s children from Carrolup mission in Western Australia, south of Perth, became artists under the instruction of Mr White, but after leaving the mission many of ...
Message Stick – Koori Court (2005)
The Koori Court in Victoria was set up to reduce high imprisonment rates by combining Aboriginal beliefs with the white legal system.
Message Stick – Kurtal: Snake Spirit (2002)
Spider, an 80-year-old Indigenous elder and Wangkatjungka man, returns to the Great Sandy Desert of Western Australia to perform a cleansing ceremony at a sacred jila, a water ...
Message Stick – Long Grassers (2005)
An exposé on the homeless Aboriginal people of Darwin, known as ‘long grassers’.
Message Stick – Scotty Martin, Rodeo Boy, Don’t Say Sorry (2005)
A story about songman Scotty Martin, who inherited the role of composer of songs. This episode also features rodeo boy Bowman Button, a four-year-old cowboy, and a short ...
Message Stick – Wathaurong Glass (2003)
The Wathaurong community of Geelong began a glass business in order to provide employment for their people.
Message Stick – Wayne’s World (2005)
An episode that introduces us to award-winning filmmaker and actor Wayne Blair.
Monday Conference – PNG (1971)
Robert Moore is the moderator and Donald Hogg and Richard Beckett are the interviewers of the impressive New Guinea politician John Guise, later to be knighted Sir John ...
Monday Conference – Rhodesia or Zimbabwe (1973)
Robert Moore interviews Senator Glen Sheil from Queensland, who has just returned from a week-long fact-finding tour of Rhodesia. His belief that Rhodesia is a fine and progressive ...
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 – His Master’s Ghost (1990)
A group of kids are on a music camp in a spooky old mansion. Some of them are more interested in the stories about a resident ghost than ...
More Winners – Mr Edmund (1990)
Cherry Williams (Rebecca Smart) and her little brother Sam (Steven Scott-Young) live almost under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, where their mum Margaret (Rhondda Findleton) runs a boarding house ...
More Winners – The Big Wish (1990)
The faeries in the Enchanted Realm are in trouble. The Charter of the Grand Master states that they must give seven wishes to humans every 100 years or ...
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 ...
Mortified – Taylor’s DNA (2006)
This is the first episode of the series. Self conscious eleven-year-old Taylor Fry (Marny Kennedy) finds her crazy parents Don (Andrew Blackman) and Glenda (Rachel Blakely) so embarrassing ...
Mother and Son – The Clock (1991)
Maggie (Ruth Cracknell) has stolen a clock from a neighbour’s house where she’s been snooping. The house is for sale and is open for inspection. The real estate ...
Mother and Son – The Funeral (1984)
Maggie (Ruth Cracknell) and Arthur (Garry McDonald) set out with Uncle Tom (Peter Gwynne) to the funeral of another of Maggie’s brothers, Andrew. Maggie holds up the whole ...
Mother and Son – The Money (1984)
Maggie Beare (Ruth Cracknell) has been hiding her pension cheques so that the government won’t know how much money she has. Her harassed son Arthur (Garry McDonald), would ...
Mother and Son – The Ride (1993)
Maggie’s favourite son Robert (Henri Szeps) arrives with a proposal to take her for a drive. This is so out of character that Arthur (Garry McDonald) is astonished ...
The Movie Show – Episode 12 (2004)
A review of the new Irish-British co-production directed by Bruce Beresford, called Evelyn followed by an interview with Bruce Beresford and a tribute to John Dingwall, the writer, ...
The Movie Show – Episode 13 (2004)
Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton review the latest cinema releases interspersed with clips from the shows. This week, they review The Cooler with William H Macey and Alec ...
The Movie Show – Episode 4 (2004)
A half-hour magazine program for television with Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, the doyens of Australian television movie reviewers. This week they talk about Girl With A Pearl ...
Mum’s the Word – Episode 16 (2003)
A group of high achieving mothers, led by presenter Rebecca le Tourneau, discuss how they feel pressured by their children to buy, buy, buy. Included in this otherwise ...
Mum’s the Word – Episode 9 (2003)
A group of women, including actress Zoe Carides and broadcaster Amanda Keller, discuss body image before and after pregnancy with presenter Rebecca le Tourneau.
Nature of Australia – A Separate Creation (1989)
This program traces the rise of the marsupial from the primeval forests of ancient Gondwanaland to their presence in Australia today, culminating in the kangaroo.
Nature of Australia – Land of Flood and Fire (1988)
This is the story of the seasonal cycle of northern Australia, where every year fierce monsoonal rains break the drought. The animals and plants must cope with the ...
Nature of Australia – The Sunburnt Country (1989)
This episode from Nature of Australia describes Australia’s arid centre, sometimes called the ‘dead heart’ or the ‘back of beyond’ or even the ‘never never’. The desert teems ...
The New Adventures of Ocean Girl – Hearing The Call (1999)
Back on Oceana, after a three-year visit to Earth, Princess Neri (Marnie Reece-Wilmore), the ‘promised one’, has released her mysterious new friend Jobah from her uncle King Nemon’s ...
New Inventors – Series 1 Episode 8 (2004)
The three featured inventions on this week’s program are: a pool cleaner with a difference, invented by two brothers; a masterly way of turning landfill into compost; and ...
New Inventors – Series 2 Episode 8 (2005)
This week’s New Inventors includes: a demonstration of a lock clip that replaces the standard safety clips used in rope climbing; a ‘Power-Mate’ that lets you know how ...
Noah and Saskia – Tomorrow Never Knows (2004)
Feisty Saskia (Hannah Greenwood) seeks revenge when a faceless geek somewhere in cyber world steals her music. This opening episode of a 13-part series shows the start of ...
Ocean Girl – Series 2, Episode 3 (1995)
Able to swim like a fish and telepathically communicate with a humpback whale called Charley, ocean girl Neri (Marzena Godecki) is searching for the secret of her past. ...
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 Australia – Darling River (1976)
The travel journalist Bill Peach continues his wander around the continent of Australia with a stop along the banks of the Darling River at Bourke in New South ...
Peach’s Australia – Flinders Ranges (1976)
Bill Peach takes us on a folksy amble through the Flinders Ranges of South Australia. As he reveals the extraordinary beauty of this arid range he tells us ...
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 Explorers – The Prison Walls (1984)
The story of the Blue Mountains’ barrier to the expansion of the fledgling colony of NSW and its eventual crossing by Gregory Blaxland, William Wentworth and William Lawson ...
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 Pearl Fishers (1963)
A televised performance of The Pearl Fishers, an opera by Bizet with an improbable storyline but incomparable music. Zurga, chief of the pearl fishermen, and his great friend ...
The Plumber (1979)
Jilly (Judy Morris) and Brian (Robert Coleby) are young academics, living in a high-rise university flat in Adelaide. They have recently returned from the highlands of Papua New ...
Poetry In Australia – Judith Wright (1963)
The poet Judith Wright (1915–2000) is introduced by well-known ABC broadcaster John Thompson in an interview that covers aspects of her early life on the land, her art ...
Police Rescue – By the Book (1990)
Georgia Rattray (Sonia Todd) and Micky McClintock (Gary Sweet) are attracted to each other and drifting towards a sexual relationship. Then, while McClintock is acting boss of the ...
Police Rescue – Mates (1990)
Steve McClintock, better known as Micky (Gary Sweet) lives for his work on the police rescue squad. One day he rescues a ‘jumper’ called Bob (Philip Quast), a ...
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 ...
Profiles of Power, HC Coombs (1961)
HC Coombs is interviewed about his life and work by the current affairs journalist Robert Moore. Questions cover the forty years in which he was advisor to six ...
Pugwall – Hollow Drums (1989)
Thirteen-year-old Pugwall (Jason Torrens) is trying to get a band together. The first task is to find Orfo (Jay McCormack) a drum set. Eventually, and by luck, Pugwall ...
Raggs - Episode 32 (2005)
B Max finds a lost white rabbit and brings it home. Raggs, Trilby, Pido, B Max and Razzles are delighted to have a new pet but despite all ...
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 ...
Round the Twist – Series One – Skeleton on the Dunny (1989)
Eccentric sculptor Tony Twist (Richard Moir), and his three children – thirteen-year-old twins Linda (Tamsin West) and Pete (Sam Vandenberg), and eight-year-old Bronson (Rodney McLennan) – move from ...
Round the Twist – Series One – Spaghetti Pig Out (1989)
Chaos reigns after a bolt of lightning hits the Twist family’s video remote control – it now works on people! Unfortunately Gribble Junior (Lachlan Jeffrey) gets hold of ...
Round the Twist – Series Two – Nails (1992)
Linda (Joelene Crnogorac) is attracted to Andrew (Eamonn Kelly), a mysterious new boy at school who never removes his gloves. Andrew lives on an island with his grumpy ...
Round the Twist – Series Two – Next Time Round (1992)
Pete has been hypnotised by Linda and every time someone says the word ‘now’ he behaves like a chicken for ten seconds. Unfortunately, Linda can’t undo the hypnosis ...
Scales of Justice (1983)
When Scales of Justice was first broadcast, it created a sensation. The series presented a shattering examination of police corruption from street level through to the highest levels ...
Seven Deadly Sins - Envy (1992)
This one-hour drama is the sad and sordid story of two people eaten up with envy for what they can’t possess. The program is book-ended with iconic shots ...
Seven Deadly Sins - Pride (1992)
Roger and Jill Pascoe are a glittering couple. Both are brilliant performers and he is also a great theatre director. Their next production will be Strindberg’s The Stronger, ...
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 ...
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 Cuts – Wheels on Fire (2001)
This is episode two and the students are thinking about their three minute films. Straight ‘A’ student Anna (Lucia Smyrk) is concerned that she will have to make ...
The Silver Brumby – Friends of the High Country (1996)
In this, the first episode of 39 in The Silver Brumby series, Thowra (John Higginson) meets the beautiful Boon Boon (Rebecca Gibney) who is greatly taken by him. ...
Skippy Adventures in Bushtown – Trouble in Bushtown (1997)
Skippy the kangaroo is a capable, trustworthy, ‘copter flying park ranger who is the unofficial leader and resident good guy in idyllic Bushtown. In this, the first episode ...
Sky Trackers – Is There Life On Earth? (1994)
In this eighth episode of the series, Shane (Che Broadbent), a visiting student at the Wright Foundation, is doing a project on SETI using the radio telescope. Nikki ...
Snobs – Episode 8 (2003)
When snobbish Rachael Oakley (Nathy Gaffney) reports the travellers to the council for having ‘rubbish’ everywhere, their recycling business is placed in jeopardy. Marian (Ross Pirrelli) has plans ...
Staines Down Drains – Once More Unto the Drains (2005)
Slipping down a plughole portal and shrinking as they go, germ-phobic Stanley Staines and his adventurous sister Mary Jane have discovered a yucky, germy and weirdly wonderful world ...
Stateline – The Transcontinental Dream (2004)
Reporter Mark Bowling travels with the Ghan on its inaugural train journey from Adelaide to Darwin, arriving in its new destination at the Northern Territory on 3 February ...
Tabaluga – The Last One of His Kind (1997)
Born at a time when he is needed most, the tiny, naïve but brave Tabaluga is the last dragon on earth. A delightful hero, Tabaluga uses courage and ...
This Day Tonight – The Last Program (1978)
This last TDT program captures a unique interview with the former Governor-General Sir John Kerr, appointed by Prime Minister EG Whitlam in 1972. Kerr had dismissed the Whitlam ...
Thunderstone – Episode Three (1999)
Fifteen-year-old Noah (Jeffrey Walker) is from the futuristic underground community of North Col. Attempting to time travel to the past, he is trapped in a desert, where he ...
Torque – Series 1, Episode 8 (1974)
A roundtable discussion arising out of the unacceptable road toll in Australia is introduced by program presenter Peter Wherrett and convened by Four Corners (2008) journalist Jim Downes. ...
Torque – Series 4, Episode 10 (1980)
Motoring journalist and ex-racing car driver Peter Wherrett describes what not to do when driving on the road. This includes being in a hurry, which increases stress levels, ...
Touch the Sun – Captain Johnno (1988)
Captain Johnno (Damien Walters) is a ten-year-old with a hearing impairment, and always in trouble. Living in a small fishing town in South Australia in the 1950s, his ...
Touch the Sun – Devil’s Hill (c1988)
It is 1950. Badge (Alexander ‘Mathew’ Jacobs) lives on a remote farm in Tasmania’s rugged southwest, with his parents Dave (Peter Hehir) and Jessie (Mary Haire). It is ...
Touch the Sun – Peter & Pompey (1988)
In a cave, near a small coastal town in Queensland, Peter (Clayton Williamson) finds the manuscript of Pompey (Aaron Ferguson), a young Roman boy from the past. Peter ...
Touch the Sun – Princess Kate (c1988)
Fourteen-year-old Kate (Justine Clarke) is on top of the world. Popular, talented, much loved and spoilt by her wealthy Sydney family, she receives a seven-metre yacht, christened Princess ...
Touch the Sun – The Gift (c1988)
Sophia (Vicki Serbos) and Nikos (Nicholas Hatjiandreou), two Greek-Australian kids living with their family in inner Melbourne, win a plot of land in Western Australia as a prize ...
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 ...
Tracey McBean - Episode 6, Series One, Multiplication (2001)
Child inventor Tracey McBean (voiced by Roslyn Oades) loves a challenge, and when her friend Shamus (voiced by Anthony Hayes) needs to be in two different places at ...
The Trouble With Medicine: Conceiving the Future (1993)
Since the discovery of the human genome, tests to discover the genetic basis of illness have given humankind a lot more power to decide how a pregnancy will ...
Two Tribes (1998)
Bankers and difficult kids. Both have bad reputations. This is the story of some inner-city kids at a special school who link up with a group of bankers ...
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 ...
Weekend Magazine – Carnarvon Gorge and the Fighting Highlanders (1982)
The Carnarvon Gorge in northern Queensland has been gazetted as a national park since 1932 but this is the first time a route has been opened up so ...
What’s Your Poison? – Ecstasy (1997)
The aim of What’s Your Poison was to explain the science of recreational drugs and examine them in an atmosphere free of moral and political overtones. The program ...
Wicked Science – Episode 1, The Gift (2003)
On their first day back at Sandy Bay High School, Toby (André de Vanny) and Elizabeth (Bridget Neval) are zapped by a strange ray and become instant scientific ...
Winners – Just Friends (1985)
Thirteen-year-old Susan (Sherie Graham) has just moved to a new part of town. She’s practising her skills at the local roller skating rink when Buzz (Mitch Ambrose), the ...
Winners – On Loan (1985)
Lindy Baker (Marillac Johnston) believes she is a Vietnamese orphan, adopted by Marj (Belinda Giblin) and Geoff Baker (John Walton) when she was three years old. Only occasionally ...
Winners – Quest Beyond Time (1985)
One day, while hang gliding, Mike (Daniel Cordeaux) is transported 500 years into the future. There, he is asked to help a primitive pagan community to cure thteir ...
Winners – Room to Move (1985)
This is the story about the unlikely friendship between two girls – one a sporting champion, the other a dancer and an outsider. Carol (Nicole Kidman) is a ...
Winners – The Other Facts of Life (1985)
Twelve-year-old Ben Guthrie (Ken Talbot) has a good life. His family are well off and his father Ron Guthrie (Dennis Miller), is a successful and ambitious butcher with ...
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 ...
With Gentle Majesty (1962)
A black-and-white documentary about the workhorse, made at a moment in history when the horse is about to disappear from Australia’s city streets forever. In 1962, the ice ...
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 ...
The 7.30 Report - Orchestra Tunes Into Mentor Program (2005)
This edition of The 7.30 Report begins with an update from the ABC’s Indonesia correspondent, Tim Palmer, reporting from Aceh where he’s been on many occasions since the ...
The 7.30 Report – Boys Education (2005)
A current affairs program beginning and ending with death. The program covers the death of Pope John Paul II as well as the return of the bodies of ...
The 7.30 Report – Pneumococcal Vaccine (2003)
This is a good example of an effective 7.30 Report episode. The program begins with a news story from Iraq where seven weeks after the invasion, there are ...
The 7.30 Report – Tobacco Litigation (2003)
This edition of the ABC‘s prime-time current affairs program begins with an update on the war in Iraq where the two sons of former dictator Sadam Hussein have ...
