105 Essential Australian Films

Introduction: At the end of April 2026, the newspapers The Age (for which I worked as film reviewer 1995-2006) and Sydney Morning Herald published a list of “The Top 50 Australian Movies of All Time”; it was tabulated from the best-10 lists of 24 people – mainstream filmmakers, movie reviewers, a few critic-scholars, and assorted actors and celebrities. (Both the ‘consensus’ list and the individual lists have, after a few days, gone behind a paywall.) The result was a predictably depressing and conservative canon, high on Baz Luhrmann, Priscilla, The Dish … In response, I dug up this list requested from me for a print issue of the excellent Argentinean cinema magazine La vida útil (its associated website: https://lavidautil.net/) in 2020. I have added a few more recent titles for its appearance (first time in English!) here, raising the total from 100 to 105. As a gesture, it aims to shift the Aussie ‘canon’ toward a rightful emphasis on all the areas – experimental, independent, documentary, animation, shorts, etc. – blithely overlooked in every mainstream-media poll of this sort. (Frank admission: I am not yet an aficionado of Aussie cinema from the silent era.) And it appends a second list of what is even less appreciated than the best Australian films: the best (and most useful) Australian critical writing/analysis/histories of this national cinema (as well as cinema in general).