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Best Australia Movies

Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of australia cinema — measured across 2,471 indexed frames from 32 films, against a 408,752-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.

Australia films over-index on horizon, sun and sand — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.

  1. 1

    Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

    George Ogilvie, George MillerDP Dean SemlerIMDb 6.2TMDB 6.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    Left for dead in the unforgiving deserts of post-nuclear Australia, after defeating Lord Humungus' barbarian horde of bikers in Mad Max 2 (1981), the former officer of the tough Main Force Patrol, Max Rockatansky, happens upon Bartertown: the remote market-town outpost in the middle of the dry Wasteland, and the realm of the autocratic Queen Aunty Entity. There, a lethal challenge awaits Max, who, in return for his freedom and provisions, must engage in a bloody match to the death with the grotesque symbiotic being, the Master/Blaster. However, an unforeseen complication after the brutal fight in the stronghold's combat arena, The Thunderdome, will banish, once more, Max into the vast wilderness, only to discover the peaceful haven of The Lost Tribe: a community of marooned children who survive on their own, waiting for the arrival of the legendary Captain Walker. Is "Mad" Max, indeed, their saviour? Can he overthrow Bartertown's ruthless tyrant?

  2. 2

    The Proposition (2005)

    John HillcoatDP Benoît DelhommeIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.0See in full on FrameThrower →

    In 1880s Australia, a lawman offers renegade Charlie Burns a difficult choice. In order to save his younger brother from the gallows, Charlie must hunt down and kill his older brother, who is wanted for rape and murder. Venturing into one of the Outback's most inhospitable regions, Charlie faces a terrible moral dilemma that can end only in violence.

  3. 3

    Australia (2008)

    Baz LuhrmannDP Mandy WalkerIMDb 6.6TMDB 6.6See in full on FrameThrower →

    In northern Australia at the beginning of World War II, an English aristocrat inherits a cattle station the size of Maryland. When English cattle barons plot to take her land, she reluctantly joins forces with a rough stock-man to drive 2,000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of the country's most unforgiving land, only to still face the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese forces that had attacked Pearl Harbor only months earlier.

  4. 4

    Tracks (2013)

    John CurranDP Mandy WalkerIMDb 7.1TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →

    In 1977, a young Australian woman named Robyn Davidson set out from Alice Springs to trek across 2,700 kilometres of harsh desert of Western Australia to reach the ocean. Accompanied only by her dog and four camels, Davidson had no other purpose than to reach the ocean and find herself on a journey of self-discovery.

  5. 5

    The Light Between Oceans (2016)

    Derek CianfranceDP Adam ArkapawIMDb 7.2TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    Tom, a war weary man takes a job as a lighthouse keeper on an island for the solitude. He meets a beautiful young woman, Isabelle and they eventually marry. One day they see a small dingy with an infant and man inside floating in the ocean. They rush to rescue them only to find the man is dead. They struggle over the decision to report it and whether to keep the baby. Heartbroken because she had already had miscarriages twice, Isabelle persuades Tom not to tell anyone about this and leave the girl to herself as if it were their child. He buries the man on the island, and the couple names the girl Lucy. He succumbs to her persuasion just to make her happy. It's only years later that they discover that the child still has a mother looking for her.

  6. 6

    The Nightingale (2018)

    Jennifer KentDP Radek ŁadczukIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    THE NIGHTINGALE is a meditation on the horrors of Australian colonization, set at the turn of the 19th century. The film follows Clare, a 21-year-old native Irish wife and mother held captive beyond her 7-year sentence, desperate to be free of her obsessed master, British lieutenant Hawkins. Clare's husband Aidan intervenes with devastating consequences for all. When British authorities fail to deliver justice, Clare pursues Hawkins, who leaves his post suddenly to secure a captaincy up north. Unfamiliar with the Tasmanian wilderness she enlists the help of an orphaned Aboriginal tracker Billy. Marked by their traumas, the two fight to overcome their distrust and prejudices against the backdrop of Australia's infamous 'Black War'.

  7. 7

    The Rover (2014)

    David MichôdDP Natasha BraierIMDb 6.4TMDB 6.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Ten years after a global economic collapse, a cold-blooded drifter traverses the scorched Australian outback on a mission to track down the men who stole his last remaining possession - his car. When he crosses paths with a badly wounded member of the gang, he takes the vulnerable, naïve young man along as his unwitting accomplice.

  8. 8

    Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

    Peter WeirDP Russell BoydIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →

    In the early 1900s, Miranda attends a girls boarding school in Australia. One Valentine's Day, the school's typically strict headmistress treats the girls to a picnic field trip to an unusual but scenic volcanic formation called Hanging Rock. Despite rules against it, Miranda and several other girls venture off. It's not until the end of the day that the faculty realizes the girls and one of the teachers have disappeared mysteriously.

  9. 9

    The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)

    Stephan ElliottDP Brian J. BrehenyIMDb 7.5TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →

    Two drag-queens (Anthony/Mitzi and Adam/Felicia) and a transgender woman contract to perform a drag show at a resort in Alice Springs, a resort town in the remote Australian desert. They head west from Sydney aboard their lavender bus, Priscilla. En route, it is discovered that the woman they've contracted with is Anthony's wife. Their bus breaks down, and is repaired by Bob, who travels on with them.

  10. 10

    Tomorrow, When the War Began (2010)

    Stuart BeattieDP Ben NottIMDb 6.1TMDB 6.1See in full on FrameThrower →

    Ellie Linton, a teen from an Australian coastal town, leads her friends on an excursion to a camp deep in the woods, dubbed "Hell." Upon their return, the youths find that their town has been overrun by an enemy army, and their friends and family have been imprisoned. When the hostile invaders become alerted to their presence, Ellie and her friends band together to escape -- and strike back against -- this mysterious enemy.

What australia films are made of

How much more often each element appears in a australia frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — horizon is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.

  • horizon6.8×
  • sun3.8×
  • sand3.2×
  • dirt2.9×
  • clouds2.6×
  • rock2.3×
  • fire2.1×
  • horse2.1×

How australia films are shot

Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate australia from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.

  • 25%widevs 20% baseline
  • 83%eye levelvs 69% baseline

What breaks the pattern

Mary & Max (2009) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.

Method

Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 2,471 frames from 32 films carrying the australia label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (408,752 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.

Machine-readable: /api/list/australia

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