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I have spent the last two years researching the cultures and practices of cinema-going. Here’s what people tell me.
Credit Ian Routledge. Copyright Lot Film Pty Ltd
For its many strengths, the film may divide audiences with its chaotic, surreal final act.
IMDB
From Dance Academy to Wentworth, Australian TV experienced a boom of queer representation over the 2000s and 2010s.
Sarah Enticknap/Bonsai Films
New Australian film The Rooster is a small character study of two fragile men, and a powerful examination of isolation and moving on.
Prime Video
While there is nothing particularly surprising in Five Blind Dates, it is nevertheless a really refreshing film.
Umbrella Entertainment
Alvin Purple is a bawdy sex comedy about an unprepossessing young man who was irresistible to women – probably not what politicians had in mind when they supported a local film industry.
Gillian Armstrong’s Starstruck (1982)
IMDB
There is a long history of musicals in Australia, popular with audiences since the 1930s.
Jane Zhang/Madman Entertainment
Shayda is a powerful debut feature for Iranian-Australian filmmaker Noora Niasari.
© Sarah Enticknap/Netflix
The new sincerity of horror has been sapping the genre of its fun. Netflix’s newest Australian offering is just the latest victim.
Maslow Entertainment
The documentary Kickin’ Down the Door offers something far more nuanced than the well-thumbed tale of these national music icons.
Stan
For aficionados of Christmas cinema, the good and the bad, Christmas Ransom is light hearted and silly enough to be bearable.
Survival of Kindness.
Adelaide Film Festival
This year’s program balanced big films like My Policeman, TÁR and Banshees of Inisherin with smaller, edgier films. Here’s the best of the best.
Moratorium for Black rights Sydney from the film NINGLA ANA.
Ningla-A’Na has now been restored and is being re-released in Australian cinemas.
Madman Entertainment
The plot is rudimentary, but the tone is totally compelling, the characters are likable, and the surf photography first rate.
AP Photo/Laurent Rebours
Shirley Barrett burst onto the international scene when her debut film, Love Serenade won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes Film Festival.
Bunya Productions, Oombarra Productions
A reworking of the 1892 Henry Lawson short story, this film is a subversive survival story.
Sharmill Films
This gem of a documentary explores the life — and furniture — of a Melbourne icon.
Mushroom Pictures and Pariah Productions
Chopper, with Eric Bana in the title role, detonated on our screens 20 years ago. The film is aggressively self-aware in its provocations but its depiction of domestic violence has not aged well.
Transmission Films
The problem isn’t the film’s adherence to a tried and true formula, or its absolutely rudimentary narrative, but the flat and careless execution of it all.
Roadshow Films
From The Drover’s Wife to a new Wes Anderson to the long-awaited Dune, it will be good to be back in cinemas again.